But he wasn’t ready to give up on his White House dream just yet. After Sen. John Kerry lost the presidential election to George W. Bush in 2004, Jill knew he was thinking about running again, Biden writes. “But we never really talked about it.” Then, around Christmas time that year, Jill brought it up, and they had a family meeting while all the kids were playing.
The night before the meeting, Biden had trouble sleeping, pacing around the house, anticipating what his family would say the next morning: “Remember how they treated you in 1987? Why incur more pain and heartache? Why take the risk?”” He realized he was preemptively venting his anger, but he knew he needed his family’s support. “If they didn’t want me to run, I figured I couldn’t run,” he wrote. “That’s not up for debate.”
The next morning, with everyone gathered at the library — including her sister Val, who had played key roles in many past elections, and her longtime friend and adviser Ted Kaufman — Jill delivered her verdict: “This time we want you to run,” she said. “That’s up to you, but we support you.” Jill explained that they thought he was “the person best suited to unite the country.”
Biden didn’t win the presidency in 2008, but when he accepted the nomination as vice presidential candidate at the Democratic Convention, he spoke of a philosophy that may still stick with him today: “You’re going to fail at some point in your life, but you can’t give up.” He didn’t give up trying. As his second term as vice president drew to a close, Biden again considered the presidency.
His son Beau’s illness posed challenges both logistically and emotionally. “The question of whether to run for president was intertwined with Beau and my purpose and hopes,” Biden wrote in his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Trial and Purpose.” “Giving up on the presidency would have been the same as giving up on Beau.”
