The Man from Delaware

The legacy of Joe Biden is very unlike Barak H. Obama (who he served as vice-president under) and John F. Kennedy. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania but spent most of his life in New Castle County, Delaware. Archmere AcademyHis academic record at Archmere Academy was marginal at best, pulling mostly "C" grades. He played football and baseball. Despite his marginal performance in the classroom, he was still president of his class his junior and senior years at the Academy. This Academy is a Roman Catholic school founded by the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (Norbertines). It is a co-ed institution that employs modern methods of education. Even though it is a Roman Catholic school, it "operates independently within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware."

University of Delaware Seal

When Mr. Biden graduated from Archmere Academy, he was accepted into the University of Delaware where he majored both in history and political science, with a minor in English. He finished 506th in his class of 688 students. Syracuse UniversityAfter college, he went to law school at Syracuse University where he earned a law degree in 1968. Once again, he was in the academic basement finishing 76th in his class of 85 students. Once he finished Law School, he was hired as a law clerk at a Wilmington, Delaware law firm. He passed the Delaware Bar Exam and was admitted to practice before the Delaware Supreme Court in 1969.

Once Mr. Biden was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the State of Delaware, he started his legal career as a public defender, but later formed a law firm with another attorney practicing corporate law and doing criminal law on the side. To make ends meet, Mr. Biden was elected to a County Council seat in New Castle County. That would be his first "dive" into the world of politics, but not the last one...

In 1972, Mr. Biden ran for the United States Senate for the first time. He ran against J. Caleb Boggs, a two-term senator who was only reluctantly running for a third term. Mr. Boggs' half-hearted campaign was an opening that an young, energetic Joe Biden took advantage of by employing a simple "grass roots" campaign. He would win that election by less than one-percent margin.

Joe Biden would remain in the United States Senate for 15 years before he decided to run for president. When he announced 1987, he was a relative unknown and did not help his campaign when he plagiarized a speech by Canadian politician Neil Kinnock. There were other instances of plagiarism as well. These gaffes would haunt him the rest of the political career. He would still remain in the U.S. Senate until 2009 when he became Vice President... However, his role in the Senate did not decrease that much as he still cast deciding votes a time or two during the proceedings.

Joe Biden would end up serving a little over six terms in the U.S. Senate. Until Barak Obama picked him as his running mate, most analysts considered Mr. Biden's political career to be stalled. Being from Delaware, he did not have a strong base from which he could run for president. Only after he ran for president did he get a chairmanship in the Senate. His committee browbeat black conservative justice Clarence Thomas and conservative legal scholar Robert Bork but seemed to have no problem when conservative justice Anton Scalia was nominated. His failures in the 1988 Democratic Party primaries are clear evidence of this. When he ran in 2008, he continued to fail in his efforts to convince voters that he could be a good president. He pulled less than 1% of the vote in the Iowa Caucuses and pulled out shortly thereafter. Most Iowans were not impressed that he was the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and were hard-pressed to think of anything he had done during that time.

When Barak Obama picked him as a running mate, many analysts were surprised. However, they shouldn't have been. Barak Obama and fellow frontrunner Hillary Clinton did not get along. Furthermore, it was apparent Mr. Obama could not trust her and did not want her second-in-line to be president. He was well-aware of the "Clinton Body Court" and did not want to be the next casualty. The next logical choice was Senator John Edwards, Senator John Kerry's running mate in 2004. However, Mr. Obama's campaign managers remembered how poorly he performed in the only vice-presidential debate in 2004. Vice President Dick Cheney literally ripped him to shreds and doomed John Kerry in the process. Mr. Obama was not interested in a repeat performance. Instead, Mr. Obama wanted someone who could preside in the Senate and let him be the "star" of the show.

While Mr. Biden showed some interest in running for president in 2016, he knew that nobody was going to steal that show from Hillary Clinton. He was more than willing to bide his time. He knew that her health was not all that good and that she was good for a few of her own gaffes. When Hillary Clinton was blown out by Donald Trump, Mr. Biden knew that his chance would come in 2020. He used the next four years to "grease the skids" with all the main Democratic Party operatives so he could "skate" through the primaries and dispose of Senator Bernie Sanders. Winning the election, quite another matter... that would come at considerable personal cost. Click here to go to our first Bible Code on Joe Biden.