• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      He was a frontrunner leading up to it…

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_1988_presidential_campaign

      Originally, Biden was regarded as potentially one of the strongest candidates in the field. In September 1987, however, reports emerged that he had plagiarized a speech by the British Leader of the Opposition and Labour Party Leader, Neil Kinnock. Other allegations of past law school plagiarism and exaggerating his academic record soon followed and Biden withdrew from the race later that month.

      Voters just cared more about plagiarism and lying back then. Which is why he couldn’t win a primary until post trump, and that was with around 10 candidates all drop and endorse him in a week.

      If trump was never president, Biden wouldn’t be either.

      Side note:

      No signs of any issues with public speaking back then:

      Biden was active on the party speaking circuit from 1985 on, and was considered one of the best orators among the potential presidential candidates for 1988

      It might be before you were born, but 1988 isn’t ancient history, we still have plenty of records of what happened back then.