#pltcs

You can see him walk to a microphone, looking easy and confident, chewing his gum. He starts telling the story of his first years as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side, when he was 25 and trying to find his way, with little success. “It’s not that you guys actually remind me of myself,” he says to the young staff before him. “It’s the fact that you are so much better than I was in so many ways. You’re smarter, and you’re better organized, and you’re more effective … Even before last night’s results, I felt that the work that I had done in running for office had come full circle,” he continues, “because what you guys have done means the work that I am doing is important. I’m really proud of that. I’m really proud of all of you.” Then he breaks down. Tears well and drop.

“Just when you think, ‘Maybe I’m going to make it,’ ” he said, “you’re riding down the road and you pass a field, and you see a flower and it reminds you. Or you hear a tune on the radio. Or you just look up in the night.” “For the first time in my life,” Biden continued, “I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide.” But he also recounted marking his worst days on a calendar, and finding over time that they grew further and further apart. “There will come a day — I promise you, and your parents as well — when the thought of your son or daughter, of your husband or wife, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen.”

Yo, I need someone to not vote with me.