"Well, he would be crazy not to keep his options open," staffers started saying then, whenever the 2016 issue came up. Which still wasn't often. The parlor game was not my reason for being there. I wanted to get to know Biden. I wanted to understand why "President Joe Biden" has such a preposterous ring to it, and I wanted to know if he knew it did.

There's a joke. Something fundamentally comical. That's where the public starts with Biden. I recognized it in Rome, when I traveled with him to the pope's inauguration. He was meeting with friends, presidents from across the globe. Because Joe Biden has been at this so long, don't forget, that he is the stuff of middle-school civics exams. I saw him freelance a grand Joe Biden entrance into President Giorgio Napolitano's palace, teeth gleaming, arms fully outstretched, ready to hug this guy, that guy, Hey, guys! I'm here! You're here! We're beautiful! Decked out in his smooth blue suit, white pocket square—his broad smile the kind a man reserves for his bowling team. This demeanor contrasted sharply with everyone else's. Guards in shiny helmets sprouting horsehair ponytails, bedraggled White House advance team in smart skirts and solid-color pumps. A Biden entrance can make the stuffiest event intimate, for an instant human and vaguely...funny.

Sunshine, apt and miraculous, broke through the day of the pope's installation Mass. "Your Holiness, this is my sister, Valerie," Biden said. The pope. Joe Biden and the pope. Val was next to him in her long black chapel veil, the two of them together at church just like back in Wilmington, and Scranton before. Except it was the Vatican. In the reception line, Val didn't kiss the pope's ring, and Biden didn't kiss the pope's ring (to be fair, plenty of people didn't kiss the pope's ring), because they are Bidens, equal, not below or above anyone, not the pope, not some schlub on the street. "Nobody is better than you." That's the message their mom hammered into their heads. "You're not better than anybody, but nobody is better than you."



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