President Biden Is Turning 80. Experts Say Age Is More Than a Number. The Facts.
President Barack Obama speaks in a news conference with Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski before the start of the Summit of the Civilized and Religious Nations in Warsaw, Poland in this May 31, 2015 file photo. (Reuters/Kacper Pempel)
For most of his life, Joe Biden has been more of a politician than a “maverick,” but the word just might apply to him.
Biden, who turns 80 today, has spent most of the past decade serving as vice president and one of America’s most influential senators. On his own, however, he tends to keep his opinions to himself and never gets too far out of bounds.
By most accounts, it is a successful career for the man so far. He is the only U.S. president, ever, to have won two consecutive terms (1988 and 1992). He has become one of the most moderate politicians in the world—a liberal Democrat who is friendly to the interests of the labor movement and not shy about defending Israel, the Kurds, and gays.
Yet to many liberals, Biden is the standard-bearer for an older generation of Democrats: the party of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, who have been lionized for their historic firsts, like being the first president and vice president to both serve as the leader of the party. Biden is the most experienced, the least controversial, and the most cautious Democrat in the current political environment but also the only Democrat in Washington who has consistently voted on the issues.
Here, a brief review of America’s most consequential politicians over the last decades.
Joe Biden: From the Hill
A big, burly-built man with a deep, booming voice, Biden (born Joseph Christopher) was a Yale law graduate who served as a U.S. senator for 28 years. He has served nine terms in
