Dan Balz:
Not uncommon for people in the Senate and people in public life. But, nonetheless, he had long wanted to be president.
But I think, in 2020, he was determined to do it. For one reason, it was the brass ring that he had never quite captured. A second reason was, I think he did it because of Beau, that Beau had basically said — it’s the title of his memoir: Promise me, dad, that you will stay in public life and perhaps run for president.
And as he has said many times, it was Donald Trump and Charlottesville that finally persuaded him to do that. But he was ready to be president. I mean, he had long served in the Senate, eight years as vice president. He felt he was fully prepared. He felt he was the person to beat Donald Trump in 2020.
And I think he came in with a sense of what he wanted to do, some of which he was able to do, a lot of which he wasn’t quite able to do for a variety of reasons, some through his own missteps and failings, and some simply because no president ever gets to do everything they hope to do.
