How Biden became a steady hand amid chaos

As a child, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. wrestled with words, grappling with a stutter. Years later, as a young politician, he could not stop saying them, quickly developing a reputation for long-winded remarks.

It was words that undercut his first two campaigns for the White House, with charges of plagiarism ending his 1988 bid and verbal missteps that hampered his 2008 outing from nearly the first moments. And it was his self-described penchant for being a "gaffe machine," as he once put it, that would cement his vice presidential nickname of "Uncle Joe," the endearing relative who prompts the occasional wince.

Through a nearly half-century political career marked by personal tragedy and forged in national upheaval, Biden's struggle with his own words has remained a central fact of his professional life and of the ambition he harbored for nearly as long: the White House.

Yet over the course of the 2020 campaign and especially in the two months since his victory, Biden, the nation's 46th president, has transformed himself into a steady hand who chooses words with extraordinary restraint.

The self-described "scrappy kid from Scranton," Pa., who called former President Donald Trump a "clown" and told him to "shut up" during their first debate, refused to take the political bait laid by Trump for weeks after the election with his attempts to overturn the results. Rather than get sucked into the Trumpian chaos, Biden focused on announcing his Cabinet and helping his party win two runoff races in Georgia. And with a second impeachment trial for Trump looming in the Senate, Biden, 78, has maintained his steadfast faith in the political center, positioning himself as a champion of all Americans and a deal-maker between the left and the right.

There is "more of a sense of a calm resolve now," said Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., who has known Biden for decades and served as a co-chair of his campaign. "Even the words that he uses that are fiery are very intentional now. He is where he is supposed to be at this moment."

The coming year will test Biden's self-discipline as he takes office amid urgency from his own party to make a decisive break with the Trump era by pushing through an aggressive policy agenda in the face of a Republican Party that is looking to come together around a new opponent. Biden and his aides are staking much on his ability to find the right words to restore America's reputation, win bipartisan support in Congress and unite an anxious nation.

"Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart," he said. "Yet hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion."

Biden's ability to steer and stay the course calmly through turbulence is a testament, say friends and family, to both his unabashed optimism and his deep belief in the importance of American political norms and traditions. The man who came to Washington at age 30 as one of the youngest senators in history now enters the White House as the oldest president in history, with more experience in government and legislating to guide his path than any leader in decades.

"He's been around so long that now that he is going to be the leader of this country, he knows he must conduct himself with presidential composure," said Chuck Hagel, a longtime friend of Biden's who served as defense secretary in the administration of former President Barack Obama and before that as a Republican senator from Nebraska. "He knows the only way we'll be able to start to climb out of this hole is for the leader of the country to be seen as fair and open and not dwelling on the negative."

That Biden finds himself in this role at all is an unlikely turn of events for a man whose political career seemed to have stalled or ended so many times, including when tragedy struck just after he won his first election to the Senate in 1972. But after 36 years in the chamber and eight years as vice president, he became a familiar figure in the country's political consciousness. When Americans sought a way back to stability after four years of tumult, Biden felt like a comfort to many voters. As Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. and one of Biden's most important supporters in the primary race, is fond of saying and repeated in an interview Tuesday, "We know Joe, and Joe knows us."

To Biden's friends and family, his success at winning the White House is proof that there is something fundamentally reassuring about his character — his loyalty, his empathy and his experience — that Americans want after four years of an unpredictable and chaotic administration. Even when he misspeaks, they argue, it underscores his authenticity, the journey of a man who moved through the darkness of the losses of his young wife, baby daughter and adult son to remain optimistic about politics, the country and his own destiny.

By the time Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a surprise ceremony at the end of his second term, praising his vice president as a "lion of American history," the event seemed to mark a tearful end to Biden's political ambitions.

In the end, it was that faith in his own character and experience that persuaded Biden to make a third run at the White House. Five months before announcing his bid with a 3 ½-minute video casting the election as a national emergency, Biden described himself as the "most qualified person" for the job. When confronted in 2018 by a moderator with a list of his possible political liabilities, he dismissed them all as minor issues compared with the huge problems faced by the country.