Former Vice-President Joseph Biden has finally announced his candidacy for the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Though the 20th candidate to join the race for the Democratic ticket, he is among the most prominent — he comes with both administrative and legislative experience and has support among establishment Democrats. He has joined the race as a front-runner, with one poll seeing a six-point lead for him over his nearest rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Mr. Biden also brings into focus the legacy of President Barack Obama. Vice-President in the Obama White House for eight years, he has been a strong proponent of the Affordable Care Act and an advocate of free college. But compared to his main rivals in the Democratic primaries, such as Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — one is a self-declared Democratic Socialist and the other is a Social Democrat — Mr. Biden is more of a centrist than a leftist insurgent. His views on health care, besides his support for Obamacare, are not very well-known. He has neither endorsed nor disavowed “Medicare for All”, which has emerged as a major campaign slogan among the Democrats. He has not offered any radical economic proposal either, such as, say, Ms. Warren’s $1.25 trillion education proposal to tackle college costs and student debt traps, or Mr. Sanders’s repeated vow to take Wall Street to task.
The ease with which Mr. Biden raised $6.3 million in 24 hours since he announced his entry into the race suggests that he has the support of big money as well. But all this does not ensure that his path to a candidacy would be easy. Mr. Biden’s most important challenge would be his own record as a legislator. He had led the efforts to pass the 1994 crime Bill, which many liberals and progressives attack for contributing to mass imprisonment, especially of African-American people. He co-sponsored the controversial Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which led to mass arrests, and voted in favour of the Iraq invasion in 2003. His harsh questioning in 1991 of Anita Hill, who had accused Clarence Thomas, now a Supreme Court justice, of sexual harassment, has come into focus recently. Besides, several women have spoken against Mr. Biden in recent months, alleging that his physical conduct made them feel uncomfortable. He has tried to distance himself from this past. Earlier this year, he said he wasn’t “always right’ on criminal justice; he regretted his support for the anti-Drug Abuse Act; he has spoken to Ms. Hill in private and vowed to be “more mindful” with women. But the question is whether Mr. Biden, with the burden of this record and his centrist politics, will appeal to the base of the Democratic Party at a time when a wide variety of leaders, from Mr. Sanders to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are pushing it to the left of centre.