Biden gets do-over 20 years later

EMMETSBURG, IOWA — Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., in a dark suit whose jacket he will soon shed, steps out of a dark SUV about an hour and a half late for a house party at Jack and Kay Kibbie's place. Jack Kibbie is a corn and soybean farmer, but more to the point, president of the Iowa state Senate -- and for any Democrat aspiring to the White House, a valuable endorsement.

He would have been here sooner, Biden explains to Kibbie, but there was a little, ah, problem as his plane came in from Des Moines. "You're not gonna believe this," Biden says, plainly enjoying the moment. "We got about to the treetops, and the pilot says, 'Oops. Can't land here. Too windy.' "

So Biden's plane made a detour, and he arrived to make his pitch for the Democratic presidential nomination a bit later than he'd planned.

About 20 years later than he'd planned, if you want to get metaphorical about it.

Biden's first presidential campaign ended disastrously in 1987, crumbling amid reports that he lifted some of his best lines from other politicians, plagiarized a paper in law school, picked a fight with a voter in New Hampshire.

Then 44, he'd already been a U.S. senator for 14 years and, as chairman of the judiciary committee, was leading what would be a historically important fight against President Reagan's Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. In the crucible that is a presidential run, Biden melted down.

"I didn't deserve to be president," he says while flying between Des Moines and Dubuque on a six-day swing through Iowa over the Memorial Day holiday. "I wasn't mature enough."

Depth of experience

At each stop, he reminds Iowans that he's been around long enough to have served with seven presidents through three wars.

As a 30-year member, and now chairman, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is campaigning as a statesman, and thinks he is the only candidate who has offered a viable solution to the nation's most pressing problem: Iraq.

"Right now I am absolutely convinced that the American public and Democratic Party are looking for someone with the breadth and depth of knowledge in foreign affairs and national security policy, as well as the ability to empathize with the circumstances of average, middle-class people," he tells an approving crowd in the Kibbies' backyard. "If I am wrong about that, then I am not your candidate. And I will die happy without 'Hail to the Chief' ever having been played for me."