The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s speech worth the wait
Plane troubles cause of late arrival to event
NEW HAVEN — Former Vice President Joe Biden was quickly forgiven by a crowd of more than 1,500 at Southern Connecticut State University on Friday night, after arriving more than an hour late for the lecture he was scheduled to deliver.
He had a good reason. Biden was in Annapolis, Md., earlier in the day, accepting the Naval Academy Alumni Association’s Distinguished Graduate Award on behalf of Sen. John McCain, who was unable to attend the ceremony due to a battle with glioblastoma, the same aggressive brain cancer Biden’s son, Beau, died from in 2015.
“He’s a very close friend of mine, and a political opponent, and he’s in tough shape and he asked me to go to Annapolis and speak for him,” Biden said. “He’s my friend. So of course I went.”
In many ways, the source of his tardiness — plane troubles on an already tight schedule — was the perfect precursor for his lecture in the annual Mary and Louis Fusco Distinguished Lecture Series, which came on the heels of a week of headlines pitting Biden against the current administration for comments he made at a rally in Florida.
Once Biden began speaking, shortly after 8:30 p.m., the audience was captivated by his stories of being a young senator, learning of the deaths of his wife and children, and his analysis of the current political climate.
“We’re in a battle for the soul of this nation,” Biden said.
Still grieving from the loss of his son, Biden said only time will tell if he makes a run for the presidency in 2020. But he said the country cannot afford eight years of the current administration.
“I can’t honestly say that I’m ready yet or that my family is ready yet,” Biden said. “Barack (Obama) used to always ask me when we’d have lunch together. I have to be able to stand in front of a mirror and know that if I don’t run, it’s not because I’m afraid of losing, it’s because there’s somebody better to do it and/or because I’m not in a position to be all in. The jury is still out. I've done nothing to promote running.”
Seated front and center, SCSU student Kyrstyn Devlin, of New Haven, has followed Biden’s political trajectory, watched every interview and read every book. So when she heard he would visit her university, she bought a ticket immediately.
“Just to be able to meet him and be inspired by him in person more than I have been by all of his books and lectures and talks I’ve seen,” she said. “It’s just a different feeling seeing him in person.”
Kevin Kurian was barely in elementary school when Biden was elected with Obama in 2008. Now a junior in high school, he remembers watching Biden’s and Obama’s debates and elections, and was giddy ahead of Biden’s appearance on Friday.
”I’ve always been interested in politics, and one of my favorite moments was Joe Biden’s debate with Paul Ryan in 2012,” Kurian said.
Despite being self-proclaimed die-hard Biden fans, both Devlin and Kurian were dissappointed in Biden’s comments he would “beat the hell” out of President Donald Trump, and hoped he would address the incident.
Joe Vellaitanambil, Kurian’s father, liked Biden’s fire, though.
”I think it’s good to get under the president’s skin a little,” he said. “And his response was swift. I hope he addresses it in a lighthearted moment.”
Biden addressed his commitment to cancer research and the loss of his son, Beau, as well as domestic and foreign policy, and the state of politics in the U.S.
The lecture was moderated by Lucy Nalpathanchil, host of WNPR’s “Where we Live” talk show. Now in its 20th year, previous speakers at the lecture series have included NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno and actor Michael J. Fox, among others.