A unique First Lady who won’t give up the day job
IT was an icy afternoon in Davenport, Iowa, and Dr Jill Biden was knocking on doors with a rare energy. Engaging with people, she was warm but not gushing. And it was clear she very much believed in the product she was selling — the presidential candidacy of her husband, Joe Biden.
“I have heard this all over Iowa and New Hampshire. We need someone we can respect — a leader,” she said in February 2020, days before the Iowa caucuses, the first and often crucial contest in the primary season.
Joe Biden took a political beating in that heartland showdown. Many started to question the viability of Biden’s candidacy, particularly his assertion that he was most favoured not just to defeat just his rival Democrats, but Donald Trump too. Jill Biden was not among them.
Now, a year after having been deployed as her husband’s best known “secret weapon”, Biden is set for a new role, that of first lady of the United States.
This afternoon, when Joe Biden is sworn in as the nation’s 46th president, Jill Biden will become America’s first lady, a position that has no constitutional duties, but is weighted with challenges and expectations.
On paper, Jill (69) will step into the job with several advantages that some of her predecessors did not have. She will not face racist abuse, and she has shown from the time spent on the campaign trail that she wishes to be part of her husband’s team, even if she does not get down in the weeds on policy issues.
Two other things make it likely she will step into the role, if not with utter ease, then with some degree of comfort. One is that she has already done a version of it before. For the eight years Joe Biden spent as Barack Obama’s vice president, so she was second lady, in the front row of the action, if not under the persistent ark lighting scrutiny that Obama and his wife endured. It allowed her to pick up plenty of tips.
The second thing that will be both a challenge and a shield is that she intends to continue her job, teaching English and writing, at the Northern Virginia Community College, about 20 miles west of the White House.
More than 230 years after Martha Washington, wife of George Washington, became the very first first lady in 1789, Jill Biden will be the only one of all the women who preceded her to hold down a day job.
Biden, who has five grandchildren and who calls Prince Harry a friend, will be taking with her their dog, Major, “adopted” from an animal shelter in Delaware.
She has also named a team, who will follow her into the White House, including Michael Larosa, who served as her press secretary during the 2020 campaign. She plans to continue the programme to help military veterans and their families, a project she worked on with Michelle Obama.