CHICAGO – In a political swan song delivered less than a month after he abandoned his campaign for a second term, President Joe Biden on Monday praised his own presidency and called on fellow Democrats to help elect Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him in November.
“Join me in pledging your whole heart to this effort — that’s where my heart will be,” Biden said on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.
In remarks that ended after midnight on the East Coast, he also highlighted a long list of accomplishments — from major infrastructure and climate change laws to lowering prescription drug costs for seniors and fighting the Covid pandemic.
Biden was greeted with a standing ovation, chants of “Thank you, Joe” that drowned out his attempts to begin his speech, and thousands of signs reading “We ❤️ Joe” waving as he was introduced. It was a bittersweet moment for the party, which on Monday sought to elevate Biden after courting him just weeks ago — and turn the page from its past to its future.
As he began to speak, the crowd at the United Center could be seen blinking back or wiping away tears.
This was not the convention speech Biden expected to deliver. He had planned to endorse a second presidential bid later this week. But his disastrous June debate against the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, fueled calls from Democrats for him to drop out of the race. For more than three weeks, Biden dug in and vowed to fight. Then, under continued pressure from his own party, he announced in separate written statements on July 21 that he would abandon the candidacy and endorse Harris.
After he left the campaign and made sure his endorsement went to Harris, Democrats began to respect him — a process that was completed Monday when thousands of delegates embraced their lions in the heat of their winter cheers. Many Democrats say giving up their own power to improve their chances of defeating Trump was the ultimate act of political altruism.
“I think it’s hard to put into words selflessness,” Rep. Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., said Monday night. Casten said Biden gave his life to public office, reached the top and stepped aside. “We don’t get many examples of that in American history.”
According to Biden, his presidency has been a resounding success that did nothing but “save democracy” from Trump. And he said, “we have to save democracy again in 2024”.
Quoting the song “American Anthem,” written by Gene Scheer and recorded by Norah Jones, he concluded, “America, I gave it my best for you.”
There was no doubt about his audience in the arena, and the broader Democratic electorate agreed with him.
Lorraine Miller, a Texas representative who was a clerk in the US House of Representatives, said she endured intense security checks and long lines to get into the United Center to attend the tribute to Biden.
“That’s the only reason I’m here,” he said. “The importance of the evening is to thank Joe Biden for the baton. He deserves thanks from the party.”
Many of Monday night’s speakers tried, like Biden, to balance respect for his political career by pushing Harris into a stretch of the campaign just weeks after he topped the Democratic ticket.
“He has been a champion of democracy at home and abroad,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, said in a speech that drew rousing applause. “He brought dignity, decency and competence back to the White House. And he showed what it means to be a true patriot.”
But most of Clinton’s remarks were about Harris and the history of women in politics and government. If Harris wins, he will break the glass ceiling that Clinton was only able to break as the first major party presidential nominee.
“On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States,” Clinton said. “When an obstacle falls for one of us, it falls, it falls and clears the way for all of us.”
Two members of the Biden family, first lady Jill Biden and first daughter Ashley Biden, presented her with warm, private memories of a husband and father who has lived most of his life in the public eye.
“There are moments when I fall in love with him all over again,” Jill Biden said.
Earlier in the day, the president spent some of his downtime at the hotel preparing for an accounting speech — and also meeting with longtime supporters. At his downtown hotel, Biden surprised some of the several dozen supporters who flew in on a chartered plane from Delaware on Monday to attend his speech.
Biden “worked the room like he was still the candidate,” joked the Rev. Christopher Bullock, pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in New Castle.
In his first senatorial session in 1976, Biden was asked to serve as floor whip and television surrogate for party nominee Jimmy Carter. “I have three to four hours of tube time to fill,” Biden told the Wilmington News Journal on the eve of the convention.
Forty-eight years later, with six terms as a senator, two terms as vice president, and nearly a full term as president under his belt, Biden again found himself ready to make someone else commander-in-chief. As painful as the turn of events has been for him, he seemed to have no trouble promoting Harris.
“Choosing Kamala was the first decision I made when I became our candidate,” he said of his 2020 call to put her on the ballot as his running mate. “It’s the best decision I made.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
