Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008

Presidential Run, 1987

Biden ran for President in 1987 but dropped out six months before the first primary after he was found to have lifted parts of a speech on his personal background from British politician Neil Kinnock. The plagiarism charge did less damage than the false impression Biden tried to convey of a scrappy working-class background; he grew up in a middle-class family in suburban Pennsylvania and Delaware.

—Massimo Calabresi