There’s a Place for Love in Politics, Ask Joe Biden

We know how it goes.

You work fifty years, get a gold watch or maybe a plaque, you give a great speech recalling all your trials and triumphs, you thank everyone for everything, hug your replacement, everyone claps wildly, there is cake, and then you leave.

Joe Biden did that last night. Watching, I wondered if the adoration and gratitude came from what he’s done with his fifty years in public service or from a deep well of relief that he was leaving. If it hadn’t been before (and I was a diehard Biden supporter), it was clear last night. He might be brilliant and courageous and resilient but, alas, he is too old to win – in this place and at this time.

He had himself a reckoning. Served up by his longtime friend and colleague, Nancy Pelosi, who, I’m betting, came striding into his office in her three-inch heels, her necklace of giant purple or pink or chartreuse beads, depending on her outfit, hung around her neck, her hair perfectly coiffed, and her lipstick as red as the blood she was about to draw.

“You can’t win, Joe. You’re too old.” She’d say, kicking off one of her heels and wiggling her toes. “Trust me, Joe. It’s the God’s honest truth. He sent me here to deliver it. You got to go.”

And Joe, because he’s a dear heart and loves women, would sit staring at Nancy’s foot that still wore the three-inch heel. He’d seen a lot of that foot because they’d spent long hours in all-night pizza sessions wrangling bills through Congress. He loved that foot. And her. But she was even older than him. Always the big sister swatting a broom at her siblings, at anyone who wasn’t moving fast enough.

So, with Nancy’s not so subtle urging, Joe took his reckoning and put it in his pocket where he kept it for several days. The reckoning got rank in his pocket, stunk up his whole office, and when he put his hand in his pocket to feel the hard edges of the reckoning, his fingers were rubbed raw.

Then he quit. He took his old man self to the Democratic National Convention, yelled out a very long speech, reminded everyone that he was smart as they make ’em and told us all that we’d broken his heart by wanting him to leave. That part made me cry. But he was the one who decided, not me, not us.

He broke his heart for us. He did. No wonder everyone was clapping so hard. He had to really love us to do that. It’s something precious to remember.

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Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash