INTRODUCTION
In late September 2021, when I sat down with my brother in the White House, Washington, DC, had just experienced one of its periodic late-summer thunderstorms. Loud bursts of thunder threatened to tear open the sky before finally giving way to a gentle rain. At last, the city bathed in calm. It was hard not to see a metaphor in that. Joe and I had certainly weathered our share of storms in the past seven decades.
Since Joe was elected to the presidency in November 2020, I have been to the White House many times. I am thrilled with the majesty of what it represents—power, diplomacy, and American values. Never once, not even for a moment, have I taken that honor for granted. I will never forget what it took to get here, the millions of people who put their faith in Joe, who devoted their financial resources, time, and effort. Nor have I forgotten those we lost along our improbable, seemingly impossible journey. I still feel them with us every day, their imprint on everything we do.
On this September night, I was here again, back in the home of Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt. And now Biden. The White House’s thoughtful and professional stewards had left no detail to chance. Jill had requested that my favorite wine be chilled for my arrival. The stewards had already made sure that the specially created cookies, on which the White House pastry chef had piped “Valerie” in blue icing, awaited me in my room. Jill had gone home to Delaware earlier in the day. Joe had stayed for meetings and a speech he had to give the following afternoon.
When Joe arrived in the family residence, he and I walked into the dining room for a quiet dinner alone. We sat at a long mahogany table—Joe at its head, and me at his side. It was beautifully set with crystal, china, and the evening’s entrée: salmon in a pastry shell with a medley of vegetables.
“Damn, she makes me eat this healthy stuff all the time,” my brother said. Neither of us particularly likes salmon. But he ate it. So did I. Who were we to challenge the First Lady of the United States?
My daughter Missy stopped by later to visit with us, so the three of us moved to the living room to talk. After a few minutes, Joe, the President of the United States, excused himself to raid the refrigerator. He brought back some dessert for us—a delicious lemon pound cake with ice cream—only to go back an hour later for round two. This time, he appeared with a carton of Breyers chocolate chip ice cream that he proceeded to finish with nothing but a spoon. Our father, a stickler for table manners, undoubtedly would have commented: “Champ, put that in a bowl.”
Eventually, the conversation turned to my book. Missy asked Joe his thoughts about our lives together. He praised my decency and loyalty, but then cut to the essence of our bond: “She’s been my best friend since I was three years old,” he said.
“Everyone knows that already,” Missy reminded us. She was curious about what more we could share. We hadn’t quite come up with anything, any big moment or anecdote that offered the key to understanding how we operate.
Trying again, Missy asked if we had ever had a major disagreement over all these years. We both drew a blank. Joe and I don’t work that way. We don’t hold grudges against each other. There’s no long list of grievances, no scorecard.
The truth is, we never disagreed about much—especially on the important things. Don’t get me wrong: he could drive me up the wall. And I had no problem telling any of my brothers when I thought they were being jerks. They did the same for me on those occasions when I was in the wrong.
But those were small things. On the big things, we shared a common worldview. In various profiles of Joe over the years, I have been called “the Biden Whisperer,” and that isn’t wrong. We intuitively understand each other. We can finish each other’s sentences. With just a glance, we know what the other means. As his campaign manager, I could instantly tell whether a mailer, speech, logo, or TV ad was true to Joe or not. He needed me to do that. He trusted me to do that. Without question.
Well, except for once.
As we sat together in that spacious private living room on the second floor, flanked by grand arched windows, I reminded my brother of a tense moment many campaigns ago.
The year was 1996, and Joe was up for reelection to the Senate. I had approved a campaign ad that was running in the expensive Philadelphia media market, and someone who’d seen it complained to Joe. Joe was furious about what he’d heard, and he stormed into my campaign office with a look I’d seen before, but never directed at me—one of contained fury.
He leaned over my desk, reciting a litany of complaints about the ad. “Why the hell would you approve something like that?” he demanded.
I looked back at him. “Because it’s the best ad I’ve ever seen.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” he asked. Then he came around my desk, kissed me on the forehead, and left.
Within seconds of that explosion, the storm had subsided. He had humbly backtracked, remembering that there was no way I would do anything that I didn’t think was in his best interest.
Now, in 2021, as we relived that moment, I walked over to his chair and kissed him on the forehead.
The President of the United States leaned back. I saw the tears well up as he closed his eyes. I stayed quiet—no words were needed to explain total trust.
There we sat, filled with love and gratitude in recollecting that incident, reminded of our gift of understanding and rapid repair, grateful we were still a team.
“That’s it,” he said, his voice low. “That says it all.”
We had found the elusive memory that explained us. And then I urged my brother, the leader of the free world, to finally go off to bed.
* * *
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Maybe you’ve heard this quote before. Like a lot of resonant sayings, it’s been passed around to the point that some people don’t even know where it came from. As the legend goes, these were the great artist Michelangelo’s immortal words when asked how he could have created a masterpiece like his Angel sculpture at the Basilica of San Domenico. Whether or not that story is true, the message is powerful. We all carve and are carved. Sometimes we hold the chisel, and sometimes we are the marble.
There’s still dust on my shoulders from the many Michelangelos in my life who saw the angel, that potential, in me—my parents, my brothers, my husband, so many teachers and family members, so many good friends. And I’ve tried to pass on the gift to be a Michelangelo to others around me who’ve looked over the years for advice, guidance, or unflinching love.
My three brothers and I grew up with many advantages. I’m not talking about wealth or status—we Bidens had neither. Rather, I’m referring to things that are far more valuable and precious—our family, our upbringing, our faith. Because of these values, our parents expected us not to squander what we had been given but to be change agents, to make a difference. And that’s just what my brother Joe and I set out to be—agents of change—to share our ideas, and to invite others to engage with us on this journey toward a more just and equitable future.
Together—with me as campaign manager—we launched Joe’s first US Senate race on a platform to advance Civil Rights, end the war in Vietnam, and protect our planet. He was twenty-nine years old. I was twenty-six. We had no pedigree, no established organization behind us, and no influence. But we had passion and commitment and hope. We were too idealistic and too young to know what we shouldn’t be doing. So we made our own rules. We worked hard and scrambled—and, yes, sometimes we had small disagreements along the way. After all, it isn’t easy raising an older brother.
I was the kid sister whose brother pulled up a chair for her at a table where there had been no room for women. All the political pundits were men, all the consultants were men, and most of the reporters covering Joe’s campaign were men. They believed that a woman’s rightful place in politics was answering the phones and sending out mailers. Women didn’t manage Senate campaigns in 1972. But I did. So, sometimes I had to set the guys straight. I wasn’t dubbed “the Hurricane” by happenstance.
Copyright © 2022 by Valerie Biden Owens
