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Why is Joe Biden Running?

What exactly does his candidacy have to offer?

Lauren Elizabeth
4 min readJun 21, 2019
Photo via Joe Biden on Instagram

Well we’re almost a couple months in to former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign for the democratic nomination, and it’s been an interesting couple months indeed. Since before he even made the announcement, those of us on the left of the spectrum within the party have been saying that Joe Biden would be his own worst enemy, hurting his chances just by opening his mouth. Of course, he has proven this to be true in the most painstaking fashion, whether it be his ardent defense of the 1994 crime bill, bragging about compromising with segregationists, or when he made sure to tell donors that under his presidency, nothing would fundamentally change. As harsh as it may sound, his self sabotage would be comical if it wasn’t so cringeworthy and disturbing.

But putting all jokes or nostalgia for the Obama days aside, the democratic base needs to start asking some critical questions, the most important and obvious of which would be: why is Joe Biden even running?

Something that corporatist, centrist candidates like Joe Biden or even Hickenlooper and Delaney refuse to acknowledge is that in order to win, you have to give voters something to vote for, not against. 2016 showed us in no uncertain terms that just painting Trump as a boogyman does not cut it. Of course it should go…

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Lauren Elizabeth
Lauren Elizabeth

Written by Lauren Elizabeth

Lauren is a writer & leftist with analysis on topics related to politics & policy. She can be reached at LaurenMartinchek@gmail.com or Twitter @xlauren_mx

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