Kelly: Is Joe Biden running for president – again?

Maybe America really needs a stable parent in the White House. Somebody who seems emotionally grounded and doesn’t tweet before breakfast. Somebody who can discuss solid policy proposals in a folksy manner, offering no-nonsense advice but also with a large dose of love. 

Is this Joe Biden?

The sage of the Democratic Party and former vice president under Barack Obama has been on the Democratic presidential short-list since the days of Ronald Reagan.  Biden’s hair is a distinguished white now.  He turns 75 in November. If elected president in 2020, he would be 78 when he took office in January 2021 – the oldest president in U.S. history.

To put the age factor in perspective, consider this:  Ronald Reagan was 77 when he left office – with even his most devoted fans wondering if he had lost a mental step or two.  Donald Trump, who set the age record by entering the White House at 70 and who has since caused some Republicans loyalists to wonder about his mental makeup, would be 78 at the end of a second term – if he wins re-election in 2020.

So a Biden presidential bid would clearly be unusual age-wise.  But age is also a relative issue.  And, on the positive side, Biden is hardly a bumbling uncle.  He keeps himself in great shape.  (He wears Rayban “Aviators” and has managed to avoid developing one of those unsightly old man guts.) And let’s not forget all those years in the U.S. Senate before his vice presidency.  After a few years of Trump, maybe America will start to value experience again.   

On Thursday, Biden came to New Jersey.  He campaigned for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Murphy, then dropped by Rutgers University to talk about sexual violence against women on campuses – clearly a subject that is close to Biden's heart. 

He reminded the 2,000 students and faculty members who crowded into a gym on College Avenue that he authored the Violence Against Women Act.  He also noted – humorously – that most of the people in the Rutgers gym were probably not yet born when the law was enacted almost a quarter-century ago.

The sense of longevity is, in part, what makes Biden endearing and interesting.  He brings a sense of comforting experience to a reconfigured political world that has watched the current president, a former reality TV star and real estate developer who never held public office, regularly engage in child-like Twitter spats while also openly hinting of a nuclear war.  

But if Biden becomes the leading voice for Democrats, what does that say about the rest of the party and its ability to build a go-to team of presidential hopefuls? 

After Biden, the Democratic presidential field looks like the roster for the New York Knicks – a collection of interesting players with potential such as U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren, an exciting rookie like Sen. Kamala Harris of California and a few veterans still searching for their national stature such as Bernie Sanders, Terry McAuliffe and Andrew Cuomo.  

A year after Hillary Clinton’s humiliating and shocking defeat by Trump, there is still no center of political gravity – or gravitas – for Democrats, no clear voice to unify their tossed salad of agendas.  

Whether Biden wants that role still remains to be seen. On one hand, he has done his best to dispel any possibility that he is running. On the other, he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a 2020 candidacy.

Last May, during a conference in Las Vegas, Biden offered a cautionary and calculating tease-like answer in response to a question about running in 2020:  “Could I? Yes.  Would I?  Probably not.” 

Compare that statement with Biden’s “regret it every day” remark last January about not running for the Democratic nomination in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.  Biden toyed with the idea of a presidential run, then dropped out after his son, Beau, died of brain cancer and it became clear that Clinton would be too difficult to defeat in the Democratic primaries.

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But times change. And now it’s worth considering a statement just last month by Biden’s daughter, Ashley, that her father is actively considering a run in 2020.  

 Finally – and perhaps most telling – is Biden’s recent schedule.                           

Besides his visit to New Jersey on Thursday, he was scheduled to swing through Virginia on Saturday to campaign on behalf of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam.  He has also endorsed a variety of Democrats in local races in such key states as Virginia, Washington, Florida, South Carolina and Pennsylvania.  

These visits and endorsements were coordinated by Biden’s staff, which consists of his loyal cadre of political operatives who have been with him since his days as a U.S. senator from Delaware and his eight years as vice president.

This is hardly the kind of schedule – or staff – for a retiring politician who wants to kick back and watch his grandchildren play soccer.

“I am absolutely convinced we can change the culture,” Biden told the Rutgers gathering.

It’s an intriguing phrase and Biden repeated variations of it several times during his hourlong appearance at Rutgers, adding at one point:  “We have to change the standard of decency by which we measure ourselves.”

Biden, of course, was referring to campus sex assaults – and, as he also noted, the shocking revelations this week of assaults by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on young actresses and other women.

At one point, Biden lowered his voice to a dinner table whisper, speaking to women about the painful stories he had heard, while also recalling how his father once told him it was a “cardinal sin” for any man to strike a woman.  The audience was silent, hanging on every word. 

At other moments, Biden turned to the men in the audience, addressing them as “guys” and urging them to step up and intervene if they saw a woman being assaulted at a fraternity party.  Again, the audience was silent, seeming to hang on each word. 

Biden's tone was fatherly, framed by homespun common sense – the sort of connective, intimate rhetorical tissue that Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama used in masterful ways at times during their presidencies.   But Biden’s message also seemed to reach for an audience far beyond the walls of the Rutgers gym.

Toward the end of his talk, he referenced Trump’s remarks about groping women that had been recorded off-camera during an “Access Hollywood” TV appearance and made public during last year’s presidential campaign.   Trump has since dismissed the remarks as “locker room talk” – most recently as last week, when the president was questioned about Harvey Weinstein. 

“I know our president talks about locker room talk. They didn’t talk that way in my locker room,” said Biden, a football star in high school who also played two seasons for the University of Delaware football squad.

The Rutgers gym erupted in cheers – the loudest of Biden’s appearance.  

As the crowd quieted, Biden did not let up. “The people who start that kind of conversation are usually the ugliest sons of a bitches in the room,” Biden said, then dropping his voice into a deep and mocking baritone of a guy who might try to brag about his latest sexual conquest:  “Let me tell you what I did last night.”

The crowd erupted again. Biden smiled, then added this none-too-subtle jab at Trump when the gym quieted:  “Give me a break.”

This may be the kind of voice the Democrats need – a no-nonsense rhetorical punch to the gut that doesn't mince words or worry about gender-perfect political correctness.  Clearly, Biden still has the muscle for it.  But at this stage of his life, does he want this sort of fight – again?

As Biden walked on stage, the Rutgers band played a brassy version of “Living on a Prayer,” the rock anthem by Jon Bon Jovi. It seemed like an odd song to play before a talk about campus sexual violence.   But it’s the perfect tune for a presidential campaign.

Email:  kellym@northjersey.com