Former vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife Former Second Lady of the United States doctor Jill Biden stand on stage at the end of the third day of the Democratic National Convention. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AF When Joe Biden steps to the podium Thursday night as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, he will offer himself to a wounded, meandering nation as balm — and as a bridge.A 77-year-old steeped in the American political establishment for a half-century, Biden cannot himself embody the kind of generational change that Presidents John F.
Kennedy or Bill Clinton represented. Even with wide-ranging proposals for government action on health care, taxation and the climate crisis, he will never.