Joe Biden was a political rising star for Democrats in the 1980s whose public service and life were tragically cut short by a series of brain aneurysms. A Delaware lawyer, Biden had been heavily recruited for political office by the Republican Party, but drifted away from them after their nomination of Richard Nixon and eventually registered as a Democrat. After a brief stint on the New Castle City Council, Biden mounted an improbable Senate campaign at the age of 30 that unseated long-time Republican Caleb Boggs, helped in part by Boggs' sluggish campaign (the senator having only been persuaded to seek a third term to avoid a divisive Republican primary) contrasting with Biden’s youth and vigor.
One of the youngest senators in history, Biden quickly carved out a comfortable niche in the Senate as a consumer and environmental advocate while supporting an establishment foreign policy stance regardless of the president's party. Ambitious, Biden declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in 1988 shortly after becoming the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee following the 1986 midterms. Joining a crowded field, Biden was, like everyone else, surprised by his Kentucky colleague Walter D. Huddleston's success in the first month of primaries and shrugged off reoccurring bouts of severe neck pain as he campaigned in the furious lead-up to the primaries.
While recuperating after a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, Biden collapsed after suffering an aneurysm. Emergency surgery prevented Biden from dying that night, but Biden had suffered damage to the speech center of his brain and partial loss of control of some of his extremities on his left side. Writing a statement read by his wife Neilia, Biden withdrew from the campaign, instead planning on returning to the Senate. A second aneurysm in July 1988 left him in a week-long coma, after which he opted to resign, fearing that another coma could leave his beloved state without two full-time senators.
Biden never recovered from his aneurysms, and died in January 1990 at the age of 47. Biden’s eldest son Beau later was elected to a term for the same Senate seat his father held and like his father, opted to retire facing illness that eventually caused his death at a young age.
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