President Joe Biden’s delivered the keynote on his political career at the Democratic National Convention Monday night.
« America, America, I gave my best to you », Biden said.
CHICAGO — President Joe Biden may not have given the acceptance speech he wanted to make at the Democratic National Convention Monday night, but his address could have served as a bookend of sorts on his own decades-long political career.
Forced out of the 2024 race by mounting intraparty pressure after a calamitous June debate, Biden is now months away from leaving office and entering the political wilderness. He’ll leave behind him a record of public service as senator, vice president and finally the long-coveted job as president. But he’ll also be partly remembered for the events that cut short his reelection plans and slapped him with the one-term label that tainted legacies of a select few past White House denizens.
For at least this week in Chicago, however, Biden was hailed as nothing short of a hero.
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Speaker after speaker thanked him repeatedly during their remarks. Conversations with attendees underscored a reverence for a man who, in their telling, sacrificed personal ambition to better position the party to defeat a threat to democracy itself in the form of former President Donald Trump. And first lady Jill Biden extolled him as a man filled with compassion, for his children and grieving strangers alike, and a love for country that led him to end his presidential bid.
Moments later, after an introduction from his daughter, teary-eyed Biden himself walked on stage to a boisterous crowd holding placards professing their love for the president and chanting their thanks.
« I love you », he said at the start of his speech. « Thank you, thank you, thank you. »
« I think history will say that Joe Biden saved America twice. The first time was removing the malignancy that was the Trump presidency and healing the nation after Jan. 6. And then I think he is attempting to save America again by putting his ego aside, stepping back and doing what’s best for the country by allowing Vice President Harris to take on Donald Trump », said veteran Democratic strategist Peter Giangreco.
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Legacy was clearly on the 46th president’s mind as he addressed the party faithful Monday night, even as he delivered a speech that just a few weeks ago would’ve been intended to bolster his own reelection aspirations rather than those of his No.
