Over the past few weeks, as Joe Biden took a commanding lead in the Democratic Party presidential primaries, I began reading What It Takes, Richard Ben Cramer's book that covers Biden's first 1986-88 presidential campaign.

What emerges from Cramer's account, as he describes Biden's grueling primary contest, intense debates, and his work on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is the portrait of a determined man. Now, 32 years since his first presidential campaign, 48 years since he was first elected to the United States Senate, and after countless political setbacks, Biden has finally arrived at base camp just below the summit. With one final push, he could make it to the top of the world.

Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1942. It is an archetypical working-class town and was once home to thriving coal and steel industries. When Biden returned there last October, he attacked Trump for his disconnect with the working class, saying, "This administration has no idea what hard-working, decent, ordinary Americans are going through."

Biden was a star football player in high school. He got his law degree from Syracuse University, but spent most of his time at the pizza parlor and even plagiarized one of his papers. Once he graduated, he started a local law firm in Delaware and started networking his way into local politics. Once he had won local elections, he began campaigning for the U.S. Senate. 

He's the common man's political climber. Unlike many of America's recent presidents, he wasn't born into money or power; he didn't get accepted into an Ivy League university for being the son of an alumnus, like George W. Bush; he didn't get a $400 million inheritance like Donald Trump; and his father didn't set him up with lucrative jobs or help fund his run for governor. 

Trump and Biden have both been noted for stretching the truth from time to time (to put it diplomatically). They are both known to go off on tangents that don't always make sense. Frankly, if you put them side by side, Biden is more honest than Trump, but it's by a matter of degrees. 

However, Biden truly cares about people from all walks of life. In 2018, a photograph of Biden talking to a homeless man outside a movie theatre went viral. He frequently visits schools, and after his speeches, he'll talk to students who are bullied for their stuttering, telling them his story of how he learned to overcome his stutter.

As Biden has failed so many times when running for president, many were surprised when he finally won the nomination after Bernie Sanders dropped out on April 8. In 1986, he was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and powerful Republican President Ronald Reagan nominated a radical judge for the Supreme Court: Robert Bork. It was up to Biden to stop Bork. He, the Syracuse University law graduate, against a Yale law professor. George Will summed up what many people thought in a column titled "The Senator is Overmatched." However, Biden studied up and ripped into Bork's controversial quotes and opinions, exposed him through questioning, and won the necessary Republican votes to defeat him.

Throughout the 2020 primary campaign, critics have stressed that Biden is old, stale, and doesn't excite people. He was said to have lost the debates. It was said that he couldn't recover from placing fourth in Iowa, the first state. But he always maintained the support of his loyal base: African-American voters and white suburban moderates. 

Biden will face his share of challenges during the general election campaign. There will be times when it will look like he's done for, but it's never a good idea to count him out.

Mitchell Blatt is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/MitchellBlatt.htm

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