Biden clings to top spot among Democrats
Washington: He's supposedly too old, too moderate, too prone to campaign stumbles.
But despite the criticism long circulating about Joe Biden, he has proven the most resilient candidate in the Democratic presidential nomination race -- at least for now.
The 77-year-old former US vice president is capping off a big week that has seen him take on a more aggressive tone on the campaign trail.
Eleven months from the 2020 election, the elder statesman is still the national frontrunner in the race to take on President Donald Trump.
He was feeling so invigorated and pugnacious during his eight-day "No Malarkey" bus tour through early-voting Iowa that he challenged an obstinate voter to a push-up contest Thursday.
"The Biden thing is the strangest thing I've ever seen in politics because the guy is up there in the air and everybody is just assuming he's going to come down," Barack's Obama's campaign guru David Axelrod told recently.
"But he's still driving, you know? He's still moving forward." As Obama's deputy for eight years, Biden today has a commanding lead among African Americans, a critical constituency in the Democratic nomination battle.
His blue-collar roots and appeal is also seen as a selling point to working-class white voters, many of whom may be frustrated with Trump and are looking for a viable alternative.
Biden has slipped to fourth place in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that vote first in the nomination race.
But on the national stage he maintains a commanding lead with 28 per cent support according to the RealClearPolitics polling average -- far ahead of his progressive challengers Bernie Sanders on 16 per cent and Elizabeth Warren on 14, and fellow moderate Pete Buttigieg on 11 per cent.
Biden's new ad branding Trump a global laughing stock was well-received, and footage of Biden confronting that Iowa voter went viral, giving millions a glimpse of the candidate showing fire in the belly.
When the elderly voter, a retired farmer, accused Biden of helping his son Hunter Biden get a spot on the board of a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president, the candidate snapped.
"You're a damn liar, man," Biden shot back.
Also this week Biden landed a key endorsement: former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.
Biden "helped President Obama make some of the toughest and loneliest decisions of a president," former secretary of state Kerry told voters at a Biden event Friday in Cedar Rapids.
"That's what this is about. Seasoning. Experience." Polls show Democrats want an electable candidate who can go toe to toe against the current president.
"Democrats have a burning desire to defeat Trump," Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at University of Virginia.
In 100 bail orders: 'Videos' used for arrest in 44; 32 of these failed ...
22 Feb 2021 7:11 PM GMTDelhi Police say 1,753 held but courts heard over 4,347 bail pleas
21 Feb 2021 8:26 PM GMT755 FIRs and 342 chargesheets against 1,553 people later – not a...
21 Feb 2021 7:48 PM GMTOf courts' bugbears, most common 'doubtful' police, public witness...
23 Feb 2021 7:29 PM GMTA Delhi Police-sized roadblock in victims' path to justice — clubbing...
25 Feb 2021 7:39 PM GMT
Reducing India to civic nation bound by Constitution disregards its...
20 May 2022 7:14 AM GMTPakistan condemns conviction of Yasin Malik
20 May 2022 7:11 AM GMTKarnataka mining: SC permits firms to export excavated iron ores
20 May 2022 7:06 AM GMTNDA govt's 8 yrs dedicated to country's balanced development, social...
20 May 2022 6:58 AM GMTOver 17 lakh tonnes of sugarcane still lying in farms across Maha...
20 May 2022 6:55 AM GMT