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Joe Biden in his own words

A cut above the average campaign bio, Biden's book tackles personal tragedy, politics, and those plagiarism charges.

from the August 28, 2007 edition

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Some were already recounted in Richard Ben Cramer's 1992 book, "What It Takes: The Way to the White House," a detailed account of the lives of six 1988 presidential candidates, including Biden. At the urging of Cramer, Biden set out to write his own story. He began work on the book when Sen. John Kerry was still running for president – and his own hopes for a presidential run were at an ebb.

"We sat and talked for hundreds and hundreds of hours, trying to figure out the stories that were essential in his life and career," says Mark Zwonitzer, a writer and documentary filmmaker, who worked with Cramer on "What It Takes," and with Biden on "Promises to Keep." Biden's wife, Jill, family, and closest aides sat in on the discussions.

Biden says he learned life by watching his father, Joseph Biden Sr., get up every morning and go to a job he never liked. His father grew up around money and still had a polo stick in the closet, but lost that life. To his sons, he'd said: Get up. "The art of living is simply getting up after you've been knocked down."

Biden's own life includes unexpected victories, such as the upset in 1972 that made him one of the youngest to ever to serve in the US Senate, and shattering losses, such as the death of his first wife and daughter in a traffic accident later that year. His first presidential run in 1987 collapsed just as it was gaining traction.

Biden offers his own account of his '87 campaign and the plagiarism allegations that ended it – an incident particularly puzzling in the case of Biden, a man rarely ever at a loss for his words of his own.

It was simply a matter of omitting three essential words typically included in his stump speech, Biden says. "All I had to do was gather the reporters and say, 'Hey, folks, I want to make it clear, on the record, that was a bit I end my stump speeches with, and I should have credited [British Labour Party leader Neil] Kinnock. I didn't say, "as Kinnock said." I should have. I always do. It's his language.' "

"I wish I had," Biden writes.

Readers getting to know Biden better, or for the first time, through this book may share that wish.

• Gail Russell Chaddock is a Monitor staff writer.

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