Name: The case for Joe Biden
Uploaded: 2020-07-29T18:05:04.000Z
Duration: 6 min 7 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

In 1987, Senator Joe Biden was  running for President.

Then, one of his rivals leaked a video of him repeating a speech

in a thousand generations to be able to get to university

Biden dropped out and went back to DC, where

he was chair of the Senate Judiciary committee.

Here's how he describes what happened next.

"'Absolutely not,' Sen. Strom Thurmond said.

Strom Thurmond wasn't just a Republican - he was a segregationist.

Biden's long career in the Senate was built

This time, he's running on the belief that's defined his political career: That consensus

People are saying, 'Biden just doesn't get it, You can't work with Republicans

Well, folks, I know how to make government work.

It's a promise rooted in Biden's vision of how things once were.

I've worked across the aisle in the past.

He's a person who represents a nostalgic version of politics.

Biden represents what we want to believe is the past.

Joe Biden believes he can take us back to a time before partisan gridlock.

The question is, should we give him the chance?

What's the best case for President Joe Biden?

I've met Joe Biden and I admit it's kind of enchanting.

People feel like he cares and he has empathy.

That is one of Biden's sort of strengths.

His primary opponents have criticized Biden for being too moderate.

He might be too moderate for me and for the party.

I think if you're looking through his policies, what you're gonna see is that

despite the rhetoric of him being a moderate candidate,

in a sort of bigger picture way he's definitely still a progressive.

Biden wants to triple the Child Tax Credit from $2,000 a year to $6,000.

He's been championing free college since 2015.

Plus, he wants to make it easier for workers to know how much their co-workers are making,

If Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders weren't there, I think the headlines would be

"Joe Biden is running on the most progressive policy platform in American history."

At the same time, Biden has built a persona as a moderate deal-maker.

Back in 2009, during the financial crisis, Biden helped convince three moderate

Republican Senators to cross the aisle and vote for a stimulus bill

by increasing investment in highways and programs like food stamps

He's going to take a deal, is going to take a bargain because he believes that that's

what's going to make people's lives better.

And the case for him as a candidate rests on where that reputation can help him the most.

All of the Democratic candidates beat Trump nationwide, all of them.

So in the United States, you have to win not only a lot of votes, but you have to win in

So he beat Hillary Clinton with fewer votes, but he won in key places.

Some of these key places Democrats have won before.

The state of Pennsylvania went for Obama...

and he carried a specific district right outside of Pittsburgh by 20 points.

American politics usually comes down to, you know, 10 points is a landslide.

there was a special election that came up.

The Republican incumbent had aligned himself closely with President Trump.

And he faced a challenge from a young Democrat.

I'm Conor Lamb, and I approve this message.

They were running a campaign of localized politics, moderate politics, appealing to

They worked hard for it and they expect us to keep our promises to them.

His campaign only paused for one national Democrat.

And a few months later, a similar strategy helped Democrats

Of the 41 seats that Democrats flipped from Republican incumbents in 2018, just a handful

went to members of the House Progressive caucus.

A lot of them came from military backgrounds, policing backgrounds.

And were running on, hey, I'm gonna make sure healthcare stays strong.

Two years later, that sounds a lot like the kind of campaign Joe Biden is running.

I believe we have to protect and build on Obamacare.

That's why I proposed adding a public option to Obamacare

as the best way to lower cost and cover everyone.