Flaws and all I loved Joe Biden in 1988. Flaws and all I love Joe Biden again in 2024.

In 1988 I was 25-years old. I had been passionately involved in politics since I was 16-years old, and I lived and breathed the idea that I could change the world by activism.

I was the President of the St. Cloud State University Campus DFL four years earlier when Walter Mondale, having chosen Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, was soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan.

I was crushed and devastated and convinced that the world would collapse around me.

It didn't. And despite being crushed and devastated and convinced the world would collapse around me throughout the years, it has not.

In 1988, with Freddy Gates as Minnesota Chair of the Biden for President Campaign, I was renewed in spirit and activism when Biden stepped up to run for the highest office in the land. I LOVED Joe Biden. I loved his passion. I loved the man who had suffered so much in his personal life yet loved his country so much he wanted to serve it with passion and purpose.

I hated it when Joe Biden quit his campaign in 1988 because he loved other people's words too much and took credit for them without giving them credit.

Yet, Joe Biden has always represented to me exactly the persona of the politician I would come to rally around throughout my life.

Someone who was far from perfect - and in so many ways terribly flawed - and who could stand firmly on the side of one issue with such conviction that might seem hypocritical to understand how he could stand equally firmly on the other side of the same issue with such conviction later in his life.

He much too much loved the sound of his own voice. He screamed too loudly to prove how much he cared about something. He was blatantly opportunistic and craven and profoundly disappointing at times.

He was human. He was, and is, just like the vast majority of the inhabitants of this country called the American people.

I haven't thought Joe Biden should run for re-election for a long time. Long before a debate exposed the lie of a man who could win re-election and then govern effectively the most consequential nation on Earth for another four years.

It wasn't a surprise to me that an 81-year-old man, with decades of power and influence in his DNA, would balk at any suggestion he was not capable of waging a campaign and defeating his opponent. Nor did it surprise me that those closest to him would enable him. Power is power and in the proximity of power it makes people with even the best intentions exercise the worst judgement at times when the best judgement is required.

Joe Biden's decision to exit this race and complete his term of office is the Joe Biden I like to believe was the Joe Biden I fell in love with in 1988. Someone who saw the world through the eyes of a young man convinced it was time for a new generation of Americans to carry the nation forward into its next chapter.

Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of men and women in their 60s and 70s and 80s - and older - who contribute meaningful to this American life. Every single day they do. However, we need to be honest and truthful that not every person in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s should occupy every position of importance in American society.

We need to be honest and truthful that 81-year-old Joe Biden can effectively complete his current term of office, but he cannot effectively complete another four-year term as President of the United States of America.

We live in a nation that is getting older and older every day. I am included in that number. The older America gets the more important it is that we prepare the younger of America to lead. I am 61 and committed to being here until I am 100. I spent nearly 35 years of my life in local, state and national politics, government and public policy. While I believe I still have some things to contribute to the arena, it is no longer my arena to occupy in a way I once used to. Nor do I want to.

I want to see others in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s step forward to run for public office at every level - to embrace the words we tell our kids every chance we have "The World Needs Leaders" and go become the leaders the world needs.

Those of us who are of a certain age - again, I consider myself to be of that age - do have an obligation to contribute to the betterment of public discourse in this nation. It's become so vicious and brutal and cruel that I find myself physically repulsed by so much of what I see, hear and read from politicians of every ideology and party.

We have so poisoned the body politic in America in so many ways that we get the leadership and government we deserve. We have attacked every institution, every political leader, every idea, and nearly every person within the sound of our voice or a screen.

There's a perverted joy that far too many in government and politics - and on social media - get today from scraping the humanity off of everyone. We've allowed the lowest of society's public discourse to occupy the highest offices in our land - and given them access to the levers of power and policy at every office in our land - and they have chosen to use that privilege for personal embellishment.

My Republican friends who read this may say, "That's right, Democrats suck for doing this!" and my Democratic friends who read this may say, "That's right, Republicans suck for doing this!"

We all suck for doing this.

I'm not sad Joe Biden will not be running for re-election. I am sad that Joe Biden found himself in a situation where being human meant that he could not be President for another four years.

I am, however, in love again with the Joe Biden I knew 36-years ago.

I love the old man who fought like Hell to become president so many times until he became president. I love the old man who served his country in so many ways as a public servant. I love the old man whose policies I so often opposed, the old man who said things that I so often cringed at, the old man who failed to lead when we needed him to and succeeded and led when we needed him to.

Joe Biden has been far from perfect -and in so many ways terribly flawed - who could stand firmly on the side of one issue with such conviction that might seem hypocritical to understand how he could stand equally firmly on the other side of the same issue with such conviction later in his life.

He has much too much loved the sound of his own voice. He has screamed too loudly to prove how much he cares about something. He has been blatantly opportunistic and craven and profoundly disappointing at times.

He is human.

He is, and remains, just like the vast majority of the inhabitants of this country called the American people.

God Bless Joe Biden.

God Bless our Troops.

God Bless America.