Analysis: Generational challenges lie ahead for Biden and Buttigieg
By Dan Balz Dan Balz Chief correspondent covering national politics, the presidency and Congress Email Bio Follow April 6 at 11:33 AM Sometimes the confluence of unrelated events provides a moment of clarity in politics. So it is with the recent travails of former vice president Joe Biden and the recent emergence of Pete Buttigieg in the 2020 presidential race. They highlight the challenges that generational politics will play as Democrats select a nominee to run against President Trump.
Biden served eight years at the right arm of President Barack Obama, chaired two of the most important committees in the Senate , has been in the middle of many of the important domestic policy fights and in the forefront of the most significant foreign policy issues over the past few decades. He has been on the winning and losing side of these debates and, given how events played out, on the right side and the wrong side of history. He has admirers and critics for the positions he has taken.
Biden has been on the defensive since Lucy Flores, a former Nevada assemblywoman, described what she said was an uncomfortable encounter with Biden when she was running for lieutenant governor of her state. Several other women have recounted their own such experiences. None called those moments examples of sexual harassment. Meanwhile, other women who have known or worked with Biden came to his defense, saying those physical expressions revealed an empathetic and genuinely kind person.
In 2012, Biden visits with patrons over lunch at Cruisers Diner in Seaman, Ohio. Biden’s physical contact with people became an issue this past week. The broader issue for Biden is whether there will be other times during the campaign when his long experience reveals him to be a politician of an earlier era, formed at a time when America was a different country.
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