Former VP Joe Biden visits St. Louis ahead of March 17 primary. What are his views?
St. Louis was set to get some attention from presidential candidates this week ahead of Illinois’ March 17 primary.
Former Vice President Joe Biden visited the city on Saturday and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was scheduled to make a stop Monday on the eve of Missouri’s primary.
Sanders’ campaign is also expected to send a representative to a public forum Sunday at Macedonia Baptist Church in East St. Louis. Organizers with United Congregations of Metro-East said Biden’s campaign offered to have state Rep. LaToya Greenwood, D-East St. Louis, stop by on his behalf.
Attendees at the Saturday rally began lining up to see Biden at Kiener Plaza downtown more than two hours before he was slated to begin speaking.
Zach Thompson, 20, of Waterloo, said he supported Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren before she dropped out of the race. He said he believes the former vice president under Barack Obama is less “divisive” than Sanders.
“It was just kind of a no-brainer that he was the unifying candidate and the one we need to defeat the divisiveness of Donald Trump,” said Thompson, an English education student at Missouri State University.
Thompson liked Warren’s bipartisan record as a senator. An Associated Press analysis of her record showed she worked with Republicans on 39% of the legislation she introduced since 2013. Biden is “the next best thing” as far as bipartisan candidates go, Thompson added.
Demetrius Alfred, president of St. Louis Firefighters Local 73, said he believes Biden is a friend of first responders.
“I think he would show the people of St. Louis how he would bring them together to get the job done,” Alfred said.
In a roughly 10-minute speech, Biden celebrated his Super Tuesday wins and hit on talking points including affordable health care, access to rural health care, climate change, gun control and reducing student loan debt.
The former vice president said he would build on the legacy of “the most successful president of our lifetime, Barack Obama” in part by building on the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and making health care more accessible at rural hospitals.
Windy conditions and quiet speakers made it difficult to hear Biden at times especially as a protester yelling “no to crime bill Joe” threatened to drown out his voice. Biden wrote a 1994 crime bill that critics say lead to more incarceration of black Americans.
“Let dairy die” activists campaigning against the dairy industry also made an appearance, heckling Biden loudly. The vegan group made headlines Tuesday when they managed to get on stage with Biden in Los Angeles.
But Biden said he would be a unifying force.
“I promise you we’re going to bring together Americans, every race, ethnicity, gender, economic status, Democrats, Republicans, Independents.
The U.S. would rejoin the Paris Agreement on “day one” of his presidency, should he be elected to office, Biden said. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. withdrew from the global accord signed by nearly 200 nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Biden also took aim at President Donald Trump, who he said “embraces autocrats” and harms relationships with foreign allies.
“I’ve met every major foreign leader,” Biden said. “I would repair our alliances.”
Candidate viewpoints
Biden, 77, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 and remained there until his two terms as vice president from 2009 to 2017. Sanders, 78, won his U.S. House seat in 1990 before making the jump to the U.S. Senate 16 years later.
But in terms of their voting records and policy proposals, Biden and Sanders provide arguably the clearest contrasts of all the candidates in the field. Sanders promises a political revolution, while Biden has framed his campaign as a return to stability after four years under President Donald Trump.
Biden would like to preserve the Affordable Care Act and expand on it with a public option, an idea initially explored under President Barack Obama. Sanders has built his candidacy on Medicare for All, a massive new federally-funded health care system that would effectively replace the private insurance industry.
Biden voted for the 2003 invasion in Iraq, a decision he now calls a mistake. Sanders, one of the few dissenters in Congress, has remained one of Washington’s biggest skeptics of the use of military force.
On climate change, Sanders has supported the ambitious “Green New Deal,” which hopes to achieve 100 percent clean energy by 2030. Biden has favored a more incremental approach to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 in a recommitment to the Paris Agreement, which was abandoned under Trump.
Sanders has hit Biden for previously supporting a freeze on increases in Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Biden has criticized Sanders’ record on gun control, including a 1993 vote against background checks and 2005 vote to shield gun manufacturers from liability.
Sanders lost the Illinois primary by less than 2 percentage points to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 and essentially split the state’s delegates.
This year Illinois Democrats have laid out the red carpet for Biden ahead of his visit to St. Louis, with U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot endorsing the former vice president on Friday.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the first Thai-American woman elected to Congress, endorsed Biden this week, though Gov. J.B. Pritzker has stayed away from supporting a candidate.
A Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll put Sanders at the head of the pack with 23% of Southern Illinois voters. Biden came in fourth place behind former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who both dropped out of the race after Tuesday.
This story was originally published March 7, 2020 at 2:44 PM.
