Joe Biden announces he's running for president

Joe Biden announces he’s running for president:



I’m surprised by his announcement video. It’s negative and depressing, mentioning racism and anti-Semitism and a woman who died at a white supremacist rally, even as it tries to be inspiring (showing Martin Luther King, Jr. right before cutting to Biden announcing his candidacy). He’s focused on what’s wrong with the incumbent president, but says nothing distinctive about himself in over 3 minutes.

The subtext is: Unlike the many candidates who’ve only come to your attention this year, I don’t need to introduce myself. I need no introduction. You don't need to be reminded of my time as Vice President, and I don't need to tell you where I stand on the issues.

Instead of talking about himself, he talks about us. He ends by saying dramatically: "We have to remember who we are! This is America."

We only see him sitting down in one place; there are no shots of him walking around interacting with people. He's been criticized for his age (he'll be 78 on Inauguration Day), so why not show him being more active? But shots like that would make him look more like a “politician.” And he doesn’t want to look like one more politician. He’s presenting himself to us not as Vice President Biden, but as Joe, your friend.

He starts out quoting the famous line from the Declaration of Independence about how “all men are created equal.” We all know to read that as if it said “people” instead of “men,” but it’s still an odd choice for a candidate who’s going to be criticized for being an old, white man who’s intruded into women's personal space. He includes the part about being “endowed by our Creator” with inalienable rights, signaling that he'll overtly use religion on the campaign trail.

UPDATE: The ad has been roundly criticized. That Politico article quotes a Democratic ad maker:

“It looks in memoriam. The font is your grandmother’s funeral card. To get people to watch your video and make it go viral, you want people to share it and say you’ve got to see it. Your first four seconds have to be the hook, something to get people to stay. The first 15 seconds of this is Joe rambling along. It’s the most Joe thing ever. It’s what you would’ve done in 2004.”