ANALYSIS — President Joe Biden on Thursday began what country music duo Brooks & Dunn might have called his “Long Goodbye” tour, serenaded with “Thank you, Joe” chants and flanked by his handpicked successor.
The president hit the stage at a community college in Prince George’s County, Md., about 20 miles from the White House, to enthusiastic applause from invited guests who appeared mostly thankful that he dropped out of the presidential race late last month.
“I could speak all afternoon about the person I am standing on this sage with,” Vice President Kamala Harris said to prolonged applause as Biden pumped his fist and smiled while the audience chanted, “Joe! Joe! Joe!” Harris dubbed him “our extraordinary president, Joe Biden. … There’s a lot of love in this room for our president.”
That was followed by a loud “Thank you, Joe!” chant. After Harris gave remarks about their administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug prices and criticized “big pharma” for “inflating the price of live-saving medications,” she introduced her boss with a hug — but not before a couple more chants thanking the 46th president for his decades of service.
“I love you guys, too,” Biden said as he took to the blue lectern bearing the seal of the office he will vacate on Jan. 20. Always a politician, Biden was sure to shift into campaign mode at what was an official White House event, saying of Harris: “She’s going to make a hell of a president.”
Harris, the now-Democratic nominee whom Biden quickly endorsed after dropping out on July 21, heaped praise on the outgoing president at an event that ostensibly was billed as a celebration of legislation he signed that allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices, but also was a celebration of the 46th chief executive’s five-decade career in Washington.
Brooks & Dunn, in their hit song “Long Goodbye,” crooned of a broken relationship that “this is the long goodbye. Somebody tell me why two lovers in love can’t make it. Just what kind of love keeps breaking a heart? No matter how hard I try, I always make you cry.”
The lyrics of the 2001 hit song apply to how many Democratic lawmakers, donors, strategists and voters viewed Biden — especially after his disastrous June 27 debate against GOP nominee Donald Trump, when the 81-year-old president struggled to finish sentences or be coherent.
But, to be sure, the political breakup had been brewing for over a year.
No matter what Biden accomplished, it just did not seem to excite some key Democratic voting blocs. And the more he defended his own accomplishments, the less enthusiastic polls suggested they were to cast a ballot to hand him a second term.
By the morning after the debate debacle, the Brooks & Dunn lyrics seem prescient.
“It’s over, let’s face it. All that’s happening here is a long goodbye,” their song continued. “Sometimes I ask my heart, did we really give our love a chance?”
Biden and Democrats gave each other a chance, a relationship based on his ability to keep Trump out of the White House — first in 2020, and they hoped again in November. But when the debate plunged those chances into serious doubt, the stage was set for Thursday’s event in Prince George’s and his planned address Monday night at a Democratic National Convention that will cheer Harris as the party’s nominee.
“But I know without a doubt, we turned it inside out,” the ballad continued. “And if we walked away, would it make more sense?”
In the end, it made political sense for Biden and Democrats to break up. And he acknowledged as much on Thursday.
“I served in the Senate for 270 years,” said Biden, who was a senator from Delaware for 36 years, to laughter from the audience. “The longest time, I was too damn young. Now, I’m too damn old.”
He seemed to acknowledge his weakened political position, saying about Maryland Democratic Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks, “I told her I’ll campaign for her or against, whichever helps the most.”
But he did show flashes of a younger, more combative Biden, at one point referring to Harris’ general election opponent as “Donald Dump.”
Biden wrapped his remarks by saying he had been trying to help enact a law to bring down drug costs since he was a young senator. He then turned to the cheering audience as a woman in an Air Force t-shirt smiled and gave him a salute.
The post ‘Thank you, Joe’: Biden begins long goodbye after five decades in spotlight appeared first on Roll Call.
