Announcement At the age of 44, Biden formally declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States at the
Wilmington train station on June 9, 1987. In his June 9 speech, Biden said that Americans should rise above "the mere accumulation of material things". his press secretary was Larry Rasky (1951–2020), and his pollster and strategist was
Pat Caddell (1950–2019). Biden's Senate chief-of-staff
Ted Kaufman served as the campaign treasurer and principle fundraiser. and was considered "first among equals" in making decisions.
Summer 1987 Once underway, Biden's campaign messaging became confused due to staff rivalries and bickering. Four different themes were presented, sometimes simultaneously: "Pepsi Generation", "Voice of optimism", "Save the children", and "Scold the voters". Indeed, Biden had a theory of presidential elections as a cycle, wherein there are candidates, such as he saw himself, who can bring with them large spurts of sometimes disruptive progress, followed by periods of adjustment in which voters prefer candidates who can "let America catch its breath." Biden was also hurt by his never having been a player in the Washington social scene. He would later write that his messaging had been "a bit opaque, like audiences were hearing me through a veil. ... I started looking at the race through the wrong prism. I looked around, judg[ing] myself against the other potential candidates for the nomination ..." Biden received audience applause for his energy policy in favor of domestic oil production, for his objections to what he called unfair trade practices of foreign countries, and for his criticisms of the Reagan administration's policies in Central America. although he had still raised more funds than all candidates but Dukakis, and was seeing an upturn in Iowa polls.
Kinnock controversy Major controversy beset Biden's candidacy, beginning on September 12, 1987, with high-profile articles in
The New York Times and
The Des Moines Register. Biden was accused of
plagiarizing a speech by
Neil Kinnock, leader of the
British Labour Party. Kinnock's speech, delivered to a
Welsh Labour Party conference on May 15, 1987, and then rebroadcast during the
UK 1987 general election, made reference to his background and that of his wife
Glenys. It included the lines: Biden's speech made reference to himself and his wife Jill, and included the lines: Biden went on to duplicate other parts of Kinnock's speech, such as their forebears' ability to read and write poetry, their strength in working for hours underground in a mine only to come up and play football afterward, and their being limited by lack of a "platform" upon which to stand. nor in an August 26 interview for the
National Education Association. Moreover, while political speeches often appropriate ideas and language from each other, Biden's use came under more scrutiny because he fabricated aspects of his own family's background in order to match Kinnock's. In the Kennedy case – which got the greater attention, since there was film footage of both versions that television news programs could play side-by-side – Pat Caddell stated that the reuse without credit was his own fault, and that he had never informed Biden of the source of the material.
Academic revelations During the Kinnock controversy, there was discussion of an incident during Biden's first year at
Syracuse University School of Law in 1965. Biden initially received an "F" in an introductory class on legal methodology for writing a paper relying almost exclusively on a single
Fordham Law Review article, which he had cited only once. Though the then-dean of the law school, as well as Biden's former professor, downplayed the incident, they did find that Biden drew "chunks of heavy legal prose directly from" the article in question. Biden said it was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation. After ending his presidential campaign, Biden requested the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Delaware Supreme Court review the issue. The Board concluded on December 21, 1987, after Biden had withdrawn, that the senator had not violated any rules, although Biden did not release this result until May 1989. When questioned by a
New Hampshire resident about his grades in law school, Biden replied "I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect," and then had lied saying that he had graduated in the "top half" of his class, that he had attended law school on a full scholarship, and had received three degrees in college. In fact, he had earned a single
B.A. with a double major in history and political science, and had received a half scholarship to law school based on financial need with some additional assistance based in part upon academics, and had graduated 76th out of 85 in his law school class. Statements of this nature had been made by Biden going back to at least 1983. when most of the public were not yet paying attention to any of the campaigns; Biden thus fell into what
Washington Post writer Paul Taylor described as that year's trend, a "trial by media ordeal". As
Valerie Biden Owens later said, "It was a tsunami." The controversy also hit Biden in his most vulnerable area, accentuating the notion that he lacked mental and verbal discipline. Biden withdrew from the nomination race on September 23, 1987, saying his candidacy had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his past mistakes. His formal campaign had lasted only three and a half months. ==Endorsements==