'I come from a different generation,' said one female septuagenarian donor, 'when people were really friendly and were not afraid to show it.'
Longtime Democratic donor Susie Tompkins Buell, 76, has met Joe Biden several times over the years and says he's a hand-holder and a hugger; physically, but innocently, affectionate.
“He’s just like a friendly grandpa, what can I say,” Buell said.
Lucy Flores, 39, a former Nevada assemblywoman and 2014 candidate for lieutenant governor, described her interaction with Biden — his kissing her on the head — as uncomfortable and unacceptable.
"He needs to have an awareness and — after all of those years where he was acting inappropriately — someone around him should have said to him, ‘Joe Biden, stop doing that,” Flores said.
Now that Biden’s past physical interactions are under the microscope, there are signs that the behavior is being viewed through vastly different lenses, in many cases based on generational differences: What’s creepy to one person is welcome, or at least not bothersome, to another. The discussion of inappropriate touching, however, comes just as Biden is preparing to announce whether he’ll enter the 2020 field against a historically diverse roster of Democrats. It’s the latest sign of a new playing field to which the 76-year-old Biden must adapt, even as factions within the party have expressed a hunger for fresh faces.
“I come from a different generation, people were really friendly and were not afraid to show it," Buell, who supports Kamala Harris in the Democratic primary, said. "He’s a hand-holder, he’s appreciative of people who’ve done good things. And if he appreciates you, he likes to show it. He’ll hold your hand, he’ll hug you. I hate to see that being chased off.”
Massachusetts Democratic Party vice chairwoman Deb Kozikowski described a deep disconnect between generations, to the point where she said she feels the need to have a broader discussion about today’s rules of conduct. In her view, some of the complaints today are of behavior she's long considered acceptable.
“All I know is if you can’t touch someone without their permission anymore, then put my picture on the wall at the post office,” Kozikowski, who is neutral in the Democratic primary, said. “How do we know how to behave with each other? Do we walk into a room and say ‘hey, are you a hugger? I’m a hugger.’ … I just need to understand what the parameters are and how do we deal with it.”
Nelini Stamp, a 31-year-old director of strategy and partnerships for the Working Families Party, said she was disappointed that those who reacted to Flores’ statement by saying they always felt comfortable around Biden didn’t get the “nuance” that younger progressives do.
“I do think that there is a generational divide. This is about the future of not just the Democratic Party but our community at large that wants to see a world in which we have no tolerance for inappropriate behavior and sexual assault,” Stamp said. “The point is that Lucy did feel uncomfortable. This is not about negating your experience [with Biden] but about elevating hers.”
The difference in perception presents a strategic challenge to Biden as he weighs a presidential bid and whether he can push back against a “creepy Joe” labeling along with a montage of photos of Biden plastered across social media. A conversation about how to characterize Biden’s past interactions with women raged across social media and cable news after Flores and a second woman from Connecticut said he touched them in a way that was unwanted and made them feel uncomfortable.
“Anyone who knows Biden knows that he is a very warm and tactile personality. There are a million examples of it,” says David Axelrod, longtime adviser to Barack Obama. “It’s not lasciviousness. It’s just his style. The problem he has is that these gestures, which he and most of the recipients viewed as benign, are now being judged in a different time and through a different lens.”
Biden’s camp has aggressively pushed back at suggestions that the former vice president had a deeper history of being too touchy with women, referencing a “cottage industry of lies” and specifically pointing to public rebuttals of online memes surrounding Stephanie Carter, the wife of former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, and the daughter of Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.).
“The Vice President has issued a statement affirming that in all the many years in public life that he has shaken a hand, given or received a hug, or laid his hand on a shoulder to express concern, support, or reassurance, he never intended to cause discomfort. He has said that he believes that women who have experience any such discomfort, regardless of intention, should speak and be heard, and that he will be among those who listen,” said Biden spokesman Bill Russo.
“But the important conversation about these issues are not advanced, nor are any criticisms of Vice President Biden validated, by the continued misrepresentation of the Carter and Coons moments, or a failure to be vigilant about a cottage industry of lies.”
Still, Alyssa Miller-Hurley, a Democratic operative from South Carolina, said the stories about Biden's interactions — and how they're being perceived by people of different generations — calls attention to his age. That's not necessarily a good thing for him, since Democrats generally want in a potential president a fresh face talking about the future.
“It just brings the two sides to what is inevitably going to be a clash between those who want something comfortable and something they know and something they’ve seen win, versus folks who want something new and [someone] that looks more like them and has had experiences that are closer to what their experiences in the White House,” she said. Miller-Hurley added, “People love him. I love him. But a lot of folks don’t want him to run for the same reasons they don’t want to vote for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. They don’t want octogenarians representing them."
A conversation about how to characterize Joe Biden’s past interactions with women raged across social media and cable news on Monday.
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