Amid the public fretting and finger-pointing rage over how to deal with a Democratic presidential nominee who most Americans think is too old for the job, some of the frustration is being directed at the first lady, Jill Biden. Which has me thinking back to one of the viral moments from her husband’s 2020 campaign.
On the night of Super Tuesday, as Joe Biden was delivering his celebratory speech at a rally in Los Angeles, two anti-dairy demonstrators rushed the stage, only to run smack up against the protective wall of Dr. Biden. With impressively fleet feet — rocking metallic sling-back pumps, no less — she inserted herself between her man and potential harm. There is an amazing photo of her grimacing and holding a protester at bay by the wrists as Mr. Biden looks on with concern. “We’re OK,” she assured everyone once the spectacle was over. “We’re OK.”
Notably, this was not the first time the candidate’s wife had served as a human shield for him in that race. Less than a month earlier, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, she blocked an aggressive heckler and then showed him the door, joking afterward, “I’m a good Philly girl.”
Philly tough. That is who Dr. Biden is, fiercely and reflexively, when it comes to protecting and supporting her husband. This has been her role since the couple’s courting days, when he was a young senator struggling to recover from losing his first wife and baby daughter in a car crash. And those looking to recruit her to encourage Mr. Biden to reconsider his presidential bid may sorely misunderstand her — and their marriage.
“She gave me back my life,” he gushed of Dr. Biden in his 2007 memoir, “Promises to Keep.” Even before officially joining the family, she became a surrogate mother to his two young sons. And for nearly half a century since, she has sustained her husband through enough high-intensity drama to shatter a lesser spouse: his near-fatal aneurysm, the death of his oldest child, the disastrous drug addiction of his younger son, multiple presidential runs.
Which means that if Mr. Biden is determined to stay in this race, Jilly, as he calls her, is going to have his back. Period. Even if much of his own party suspects that he is very much not OK. In fact, the more that elite establishment types clamor for him to move aside, the more Dr. Biden is likely to get her back up.
And don’t expect appeals to the common good to impress her. She has been in this sort of situation before — more than once, in fact — and is unlikely to be moved. We “will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight,” she told Vogue magazine, whose August cover she graces wearing a high-end frock by Ralph Lauren that doesn’t exactly scream community-college instructor.
Being a political spouse is a brutal gig. Those willing to endure the scrutiny and abuse come in all shapes and sizes but frequently fall into a smattering of common categories.
There are the hard chargers, like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Dole, for whom public life is a shared mission that defines the marital relationship. The harsher, unflattering spin on this has been the political wife as Lady Macbeth — a trope that feels out of date now that women are commonly political stars in their own right.
There are those who seem to be in it for the glamour and attention, such as Kimberly Guilfoyle, who once upon a time was married to Gavin Newsom and is now betrothed to Donald Trump Jr.
There are those who seem to fall for a man in part because he is important and powerful, for instance, Callista Gingrich, who, on her way to becoming the third wife of Newt Gingrich, carried on a multiyear affair with him when he was the House Republican whip and later the speaker and she was a young congressional staff member.
There are those who don’t really seem interested in or cut out for public life but make their peace with it, à la Laura Bush.
There are those who refuse to engage with the circus any more than absolutely necessary. See: Donald Trump’s third wife, Melania.
There are those who aren’t crazy about the idea of life in the political eye but wind up throwing themselves into the fray in the name of love or honor. Michelle Obama made no secret of her distaste for politics, but by God, there was no way she was going to let the haters take down Barack Obama on her watch.
Dr. Biden seems to fall into this last group as well. “Jill wanted nothing to do with politics,” Mr. Biden observes in “Promises to Keep” of their early relationship. And although she has not displayed an anti-politics edge like Ms. Obama, Dr. Biden has internalized some harsh political lessons that have shaped her sense of love and loyalty. For instance, she apparently has neither forgotten nor forgiven how Mr. Biden was driven out of the 1988 presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing parts of a speech.
“She saw him be forced out by the press, pundits and polls, and it was really a scarring experience for both of them,” one of her former aides told The Times this week.
More recently, many Democrats in 2020 were convinced that Mr. Biden was a loser and, until late in the primaries, harbored dreams of a jazzier, more inspiring champion riding in to save them. The president’s allies love to talk about how he thrives when underestimated by the political establishment and punditocracy — a theme that has, for obvious reasons, gained energy post-debate. For better or worse, Dr. Biden has learned better than to listen to the experts.
Biden family lore has it that he had to ask her to marry him around a half-dozen times before she relented. In “Promises to Keep,” he takes the story further. At some point in 1977, desperate to seal the deal, he offered to leave the Senate if she wanted him to, going so far as to dial the chief political correspondent for The Wilmington News-Journal to give him the news. She cut the call off before the reporter answered.
“If I denied you your dream,” she later explained. “I would not be marrying the man I fell in love with.”
Dr. Biden has seen him through enough blows to his spirit. She knows better than perhaps anyone else how public service has kept him going, through the good times and the unimaginably awful ones. After everything the two of them have been through together, she is not the person to nudge him out of the game for the greater good. She may not even be the person to raise the question of his enduring legacy.
Such abstract arguments seem better suited for someone with a bit more emotional distance, someone who can embrace and talk frankly about the possibility of his losing — not because he has done anything wrong but because he is fading.
The only argument for Mr. Biden stepping aside that feels as though it might pass muster with his wife is that staying in the race would destroy his health or well-being. In light of how stressful the presidency is and what it clearly has done to him already, that might seem like an obvious assumption.
But few spouses are cleareyed about the true toll that time is taking on the love of their life. With many high-level politicians, the job is a big part of what bolsters them as they grow older. For someone like Mr. Biden, who has spent his entire life chasing this dream, who knows what it would mean to bow out expressly because of the ravages of time? That is a tough call for any spouse to make. Even a good Philly girl.
