The Democrats rust-belt background is key to his case to become the nominee. Local residents welcome the prospect
The Scranton store where a young Joe Biden used to buy his candy is still in operation today, a stones throw from the wood-slatted house where the presidential candidate grew up.
Its called Hanks Hoagies now, in honor of the idiosyncratic Pennsylvania term for a sandwich on a long bread roll, and almost 70 years since Biden left Scranton, his presence lives on in the form of a lifesize cardboard cut out lurking behind the stores front door.
We love him, Tom Owens, the owner of Hanks, said by way of explanation. Hes a great guy. I think hed be a great president.
Bidens dream of becoming president had looked to be over at the end of February. The 77-year-old had lost, by some distance, the first three states of the Democratic primary, was running out of money, and had sagged badly in the polls.
Yet Biden won South Carolina, the fourth state to vote, on 6 March with a surprisingly strong showing. Even so, few predicted what came next.
Biden won 10 out of the next 14 states, on Super Tuesday picking up more delegates than anyone else. On the less super, but still delegate-heavy, Tuesday that followed, Biden won four out of six states and established a delegate lead that looks unassailable.
Speaking after his first big win, Biden seemed as surprised as anyone, and not just because an anti-dairy protester had rushed him on the stage.
They dont call it Super Tuesday for nothing! Biden told his supporters in Los Angeles.
To those whove [been] knocked down, counted out, left behind, this is your campaign, he said. Just a few days ago the press and the pundits had declared the campaign dead.
Biden wasnt exaggerating. The influential, and frequently accurate, US polling site
Media coverage has shifted from talk of a contested convention, where neither Biden nor Sanders have enough delegates to win the nomination, to whom Biden will pick as his running mate and what a Biden-Trump election will look like. Meanwhile, the ashes of Sanders campaign are being sifted through to work out what went wrong.
Super Tuesday not only handed back Biden the frontrunner status he held for much of 2019 it handed him a big pot of money, too. His campaign said it had raked in $22m in the five days following that vote, a colossal amount considering it took Biden three months to raise $23.2m at the end of 2019.
Bidens surge has little to do with Pennsylvania, which only votes on 28 April, and much more to do with his strong support among African Americans in the south. Nevertheless, Bidens perceived earthy nature, which his Scranton childhood symbolizes, is a big selling point for voters hoping he could win back midwest states from Donald Trump in November.
Hes an honest guy, the kind of guy you respect, which we seem to be lacking a little bit in our leadership now, Owens said. Hes down to earth. I think hed be a great president.
Biden is never shy of leaning into his Scranton background, having visited the city frequently while campaigning for Barack Obama, and Owens said Bidens place of birth was visible in his persona.
Theres a lot of blue collar people here. We talk a lot here. We know he has a tendency sometimes to maybe go on a little too much that would be from living around here, Owens said.
It is, in part, Bidens talking that has been a major weakness. He turned in a series of lackluster debate performances through the end of 2019 and into 2020, sometimes stumbling over his words and at times looking like a relic of a bygone era.
In the past three weeks alone, Biden has mistakenly claimed: Tomorrow is Super Thursday, on the day before Super Tuesday; stated 125 million people had been shot dead in the US since 2007 the actual figure is less than 500,000 and launched into an expletive-laced row with an auto-worker about AR-14 guns, when a years-long debate has actually taken place over the appropriateness of AR-15 weapons.
Donald Trump picked up on Bidens gaffes when the president himself appeared in Scranton in the days after Super Tuesday. Appearing at the Scranton Cultural Center on the street where Biden grew up Trump didnt hold back just because he was in Bidens hometown.
Instead, Trump who has faced much scrutiny over his own mental acuity attacked Joe Bidens cognitive abilities, listing Bidens repeated gaffes and suggesting there is something going on with the former vice-president.
Biden didnt respond to Trump, who wasnt appearing in Pennsylvania by accident. Scranton, a town of 77,000 nestled in the rolling hills of north-eastern Pennsylvanias Wyoming Valley, is firmly a part of Americas rust belt a band of towns and cities stretching nearly a thousand miles from Wisconsin in the west all the way through Pennsylvania in the east.
The communities in the rust belt suffered more than most from de-industrialization, as coalmines, steel plants and car factories closed, and some areas still suffer from chronic unemployment. Scranton was once home to the coal industry, and the city and region boomed in the 1930s and 40s, but the decline was just as swift. As the US turned to oil and gas for its energy, mines closed and jobs were lost.
Biden and his family moved to Delaware in 1953 after his father struggled to find work in Pennsylvania. The future vice-president became a US senator for the state in 1973.
Trump swept into communities like Scranton in 2016, wooing disenchanted working-class voters who had previously voted for Democrats with his hazy promise to Make America Great Again. He
In 2020, that means Bidens background is a key part of his case to be the Democratic nominee. If he is chosen, it could prove crucial in recapturing those states and the White House. Bidens case for being the nominee is based, in part, around his ability to win in the midwest, and he will point to his convincing win in Michigan on Tuesday as supporting evidence.
That success in the rust belt was a long time in the making, and came after a concerted effort to make people aware of his upbringing: in the space of two weeks at the end of 2019 Biden was still pumping out shamelessly Scranton-specific advertisements, including Scranton Values and A Kid from Scranton.
In those ads, as in person, Biden looks good for his 77 years. Straight-backed and easily 6ft tall, he looks little different from the decade-old cardboard version of him at Hanks, which apparently is a popular gift.
I have the same cardboard cut-out. I got it for my mom, said Ailish Renton, who was buying a sandwich.
She likes him. She also likes the way he looks, Renton, 22, said of her mother. She says hes very handsome. And that she would kiss him.
Unfortunately for Biden, few young people share Rentons mothers enthusiasm. Sanders won 61% of voters under 30 on Super Tuesday, compared with Bidens 17%, and also handily beat Biden in the 30-44-year category. Last week, on less-super Tuesday, Sanders won more than 70% of voters under 30 in both Michigan and Missouri.
Ironically, given Bidens experience is cited by his supporters as a positive that could help him navigate government, it is his longevity that frequently turns off young voters. During his years in the Senate Biden voted for the Iraq war and opposed bussing African American children to predominantly white, better performing, schools, and he supports moderate policies that are anathema to the 18-29 crowd.
On Wednesday Sanders said he was staying in the race, and his fervent youth support may be the only thing troubling Biden. Younger people, who already make up a relatively small slice of the electorate, are turning out in lower numbers than in 2016, when Sanders ran Hillary Clinton close, however, and it would take something unprecedented for Sanders to change that in the next few weeks.
If Biden can overcome his young people problem, and perhaps even if he cant, then he will probably be the Democratic candidate for president. Win the election, and given his frequent visits to Scranton, it is likely the town will experience a visit by a president at some point.
Given his affinity with his hometown, however, its likely that even if Biden loses, he will always be welcome in Scranton.
Particularly by one young womans mother.
Original Article : HERE ;
from MetNews https://metnews.pw/we-love-him-bidens-hometown-of-scranton-highlights-his-earthy-appeal/
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