What Joe Biden Learned From His 1988 Presidential Campaign
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2019
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joe Biden's first attempt at running for president — during the 1988 election — ended so quickly that it was still 1987 when he dropped out. But that failure came at the same moment that Joe Biden won a major victory for Democrats: preventing President Reagan's Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork, from being confirmed.
This episode: campaign correspondent Asma Khalid, campaign correspondent Scott Detrow, and White House correspondent Tamara Keith.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. |
| 0:05.8 | I'm Asma Khalid, I'm covering the presidential campaign. |
| 0:08.3 | I'm Scott Detro, I'm also covering that campaign. |
| 0:10.9 | And I'm Tamer Keat, I cover the White House and that campaign. |
| 0:14.3 | And all this week we're taking a closer look at the top four candidates in the Democratic |
| 0:18.7 | presidential primary race. |
| 0:20.3 | We're looking at who they are and why they believe what they believe, essentially what |
| 0:24.4 | those turning points in their lives were that formed their political world views. |
| 0:28.3 | Today we're going to look at former Vice President Joe Biden. |
| 0:32.1 | And Tam, you've been looking into Joe Biden and he has a very long public life. |
| 0:36.9 | What did you decide to focus on? |
| 0:38.6 | So I decided to focus on his first presidential campaign. |
| 0:42.4 | He ran for president in 1988 but his campaign was so short lived that he dropped out in 1987. |
| 0:49.4 | And the moment that he drops out is this incredible turning point for him and also for Democrats. |
| 0:57.8 | He was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee while he was running for president. |
| 1:04.4 | And so he ends up having to drop out of the race. |
| 1:08.0 | But then he turns around and delivers this really huge victory for Democrats helping to |
| 1:15.7 | block President Ronald Reagan's pick for the Supreme Court. |
| 1:20.0 | A man named Robert Bork. |
| 1:21.6 | All right, so let's shake things up a little bit here on the podcast and take a few minutes |
| 1:25.9 | to listen to that profile you put together of Joe Biden. |
| 1:29.4 | It was the beginning of the end of Joe Biden's first presidential campaign. |
... |
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