Looking back at Biden

I have been reading Richard Ben Cramer's 1993 book "What It Takes: The Way to the White House" a dazzling, in-depth look at the 1988 presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, Richard Gephardt, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart -- and Joe Biden. Although much of its treatment of politics and technology is outdated, its sense of what it takes to win an election. I was drawn to it by Matt Bai's book about Hart, but the strongest echoes in it for today are of Biden -- a man who 30 years ago was warned about habits that he still has.

For example, advisers warned him "this was the big leagues. They’d try to kill him, and Joe would have to watch every move. “Stuff you been saying ... won’t wash ... stuff about your history ... it’s all going to come out. ... stuff you said, ten years ago ... everything comes out.” Indeed, the book notes his gaffes then, and they have never stopped.

Or this: When a woman in Iowa, sitting at a table at a meeting, had her back turned to Biden as he was speaking to a group, Biden "came up from behind ... and gently, but decidedly, put his hands on her. In Council Bluffs, Iowa! He got both hands onto her shoulders, while he talked to the crowd over her head, like it was her and him, through thick and thin. The woman looked like she'd swallowed her tongue. ... Maybe she was offended. But one goddam thing was no longer in doubt: she heard him, she felt him."

And this, what Jill Biden was thinking at the time: "What if Joe did break out and made a run for the finish, and came in ... just short. Then they'd run again ... and again. That was her nightmare: that he'd come close, and then it would never stop."

That may be the core tragedy of Joe Biden. That he just can't stop.