Biden： from stutterer to speaker

Topic: 2008 US Presidential Election

Biden at the age of 10.

At the age of 30, he endured the pain of losing his wife and was sworn in as a senator before his son’s bed.

　　In 1972, Biden celebrated his 30th birthday with his first wife and two sons. Not long after, his wife died in a car accident.

In 1977, Biden and his second wife just met.

Biden took a group photo with his family last Christmas. Biden and his wife now have three children and five grandchildren.

　　To understand Biden, his strength, his tenderness, his integrity and his achievements today, we must first understand the family he grew up in and his special life experience.

　　On November 20, 1942, Biden was born in a middle-class family in Pennsylvania, USA. He was the eldest son of the family, and he also had three younger brothers and one younger sister. At the age of 10, the Biden family moved to Delaware. Biden did not come from a political family. His family was Irish immigrants, and his father was just an ordinary car salesman.

　　Biden’s father is a devout Catholic and has a traditional concept of paying attention to family. This special family and religious background has also influenced Biden’s life, making Biden a person who values family life. Biden recalled that his outlook on life, family and even world were deeply influenced by Catholic ideas. Biden believes that his childhood was deeply influenced by former American President John F. Kennedy, who was also the first Catholic president in American history.

　　Biden stuttered when he was a child. In order to get rid of this bad habit, Biden insisted on reciting long poems in front of the mirror since childhood, which not only made him get rid of the stuttering problem, but also laid the foundation for him to become an excellent political speaker in the future. In high school, Biden was very keen on participating in sports activities. He once said that he was an amateur athlete at that time. Biden said: "Sports is my innate talent, but speech is the result of hard work the day after tomorrow." Biden, who was a child, especially liked playing the flute.

　　Part-time law professor

　　Biden graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965, majoring in history and political science. In 1968, he graduated from the Law School of Syracuse University with a law degree. Biden was qualified as a lawyer in Delaware in 1969. He once worked as a lawyer. At the age of 29, he was elected as a federal senator and embarked on a political path. Since 1991, Biden has been a part-time law professor at the Law School of Widen University in the United States, mainly teaching constitutional courses to graduate students of law school.

　　Biden is a heavyweight in foreign policy. He has served in the Senate for 10 years longer than the experienced Republican presidential candidate John McCain and nearly 30 years longer than Obama. Biden just returned from Georgia on the 18th of this month. He participated in the mediation of the Georgia-Russia conflict at the invitation of President Saakashvili. The conflict between Georgia and Russia makes Americans more inclined to choose a leader who is stronger than international affairs.

　　Car accidents have taken awayHe loves his wife and daughter.

　　Text/Washington, DC Special Reporter Zheng Jialiang Our reporter Li Mingbo

　　Beneath Biden’s strong and optimistic appearance, there is also a painful life experience. More than 20 years ago, just as he was enjoying the spring breeze in politics, a car accident took away his beloved wife and young daughter, and his two sons were seriously injured. Our reporter revealed Biden’s tortuous life track to us through interviews with insiders.

　　In the spring of 1964, Biden found his love while vacationing in the Bahamas. A New York girl, Neglia Hunt, came into his sight. Biden later recalled that he sneaked into the hotel swimming pool just to see her more. "The love between us belongs to love at first sight. I will always remember the first time I saw her. At that time, the sunset that was about to set shone her beautifully."

　　In 1966, although Neglia’s parents objected to Biden’s marriage because of his Catholic background, Biden married Neglia Hunt when he was a sophomore. They have given birth to three children, two sons and a daughter. A few weeks after Biden was successfully elected to the Senate in 1972, his life changed greatly. His wife, Neglia, was in a car accident on the way to bring the Christmas tree home. She and her 1-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in the car accident, and their two sons were also seriously injured in the car accident. Biden was in Washington to deal with government affairs, so he escaped.

　　Biden, who had just embarked on a smooth career, was almost crushed after this heavy blow. Biden, who was hit hard, once intended to quit politics, but he decided to take office in the Senate after being persuaded by his colleagues and friends. At that time, Biden was sworn in as a senator by his son’s hospital bed. Today, Biden still stopped work on December 18, the day of the car accident, to mourn.

　　What is even more touching is that in after the car accident for decades, Biden traveled back and forth between Washington and Delaware by train almost every day to meet his family and take care of his two sons who were injured in car accidents. Now, under Biden’s careful care, his two sons have fully recovered. It was this touching life experience that made him have a strong affinity, and Obama took a fancy to him.

　　Biden later recalled that when he learned the bad news of the car accident, despair, grief and numbness came at the same time, and he even thought he had come to the end of the world. He said: "At that time, I really understood how people feel desperate, and I can understand why some people choose to commit suicide as an irrational behavior. I feel that God is playing a terrible trick on me, and I am really angry. "

　　Biden married his second wife, Jill Jacobs, in 1977 and had a daughter, Ashley. Biden’s eldest son, Bao Biden, was elected as the attorney general of Delaware in 2006. Currently, Bao Biden is the captain of Delaware National Guard. According to the plan, he will go to the front line of Iraq to serve in October this year. Biden’s second son, Hunter, is currently a lawyer and once worked in the US Department of Commerce.

　　Biden himself almost died of illness in February 1988. He was admitted to hospital with a cerebral aneurysm and returned to the Senate seven months later.

　　Youngest in history: elected senator at the age of 29

　　Biden once worked as a lawyer, and later went into politics. Biden was elected as a senator at the age of 29, making him the youngest senator in American history. Biden has more than 30 years of political experience since he was first elected as a member of the National Assembly in 1972, and today he is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

　　Participated in the general election twice in 1998 and 2008.

　　Biden participated in the Democratic presidential primary in 1988 and promised to "rekindle the idealistic flame of our society". He reluctantly withdrew from the primary election three months later after the media revealed that he had plagiarized a speech by a leader of the British Labor Party.

　　On January 30, 2007, Biden filed with the Federal Election Commission and formally participated in the 2008 US presidential election. But because the competition between Obama and Hillary Clinton soon became the focus, Biden’s presidential campaign ended in failure. On January 4, 2008, Biden failed in the first primary (Iowa) and immediately announced his withdrawal.

　　Achievements in internal affairs: effectively fighting crime

　　Biden is also very active in anti-drug and crime, and put forward the law to control violent crimes. In 1994, the law became law, and it was called Biden Act. According to this law, more than 100,000 policemen took to the streets to patrol, which greatly reduced the occurrence of street criminal cases in the United States. Among them, the content of protecting women from violence is the first legal provision in American history to comprehensively protect women. In order to reduce campus crime, he also advocated legislation to prohibit students from drinking alcohol in school social activities. He is an active advocate of the Democratic Party’s policies in environmental protection, social welfare, agriculture and the protection of small businesses.

Editor: Zhang Renhe