PHILADELPHIA _ Joe Biden directly challenged President Donald Trump as America's "divider-in-chief" and offered himself as an antidote who can work across political divides in a speech Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia.
"If the American people want a president to add to our division, to lead with a clenched fist, closed hand and a hard heart, to demonize the opponents and spew hatred _ they don't need me. They've got President Donald Trump," Biden said, standing on a platform in sun-bathed Eakins Oval. "I am running to offer our country _ Democrats, Republicans and independents _ a different path."
Criticized on the left for his sometimes warm words for Republicans and promises of bipartisan comity, Biden doubled down on that sentiment. "I know how to go toe-to-toe with the GOP," he said, "but it can't be that way on every issue."
Biden urged: "Let's stop fighting and start fixing."
He repeatedly argued that the country wants to move past political divisions, while also saying he would fight when it was called for.
"I know how to make government work," Biden said. "Not by talking or tweeting about it, because I've done it."
Biden's speech capped a three-week opening campaign swing that has seen him expand his lead over the rest of the crowded Democratic field. While many of his rivals have spent months introducing themselves or laying out policy prescriptions, the former vice president, already nearly universally known, has worked to establish himself as the Democrat with the stature to counter Trump, whom he has painted as an existential threat to the country's character.
Pennsylvania's Republican chairman, Val DiGiorgio, said that as Biden campaigns, voters _ especially those in the Keystone State _ will see that the former vice president offers no "meaningful success and no real vision for the future."
"We are happy to have the debate over whether or not Americans want a return to the failed Obama-Biden years or feel that they are better off due to the economic achievements seen under President Donald Trump's leadership," DiGiorgio said in a statement.
National Republicans pointed to Pennsylvania's record low unemployment rate as they argued that Trump has delivered for the state.
Biden directly countered that argument, perhaps Trump's main reelection talking point, by saying it was he and former President Barack Obama who rescued the country from a recession and handed over a healthy economy.
"It was given to him, just like he's inherited everything else in his life," Biden said of Trump. "And just like everything else he's been given in his life, he's in the process of squandering that as well."
Biden's event Saturday, coming the same week he announced that he will base his campaign in Philadelphia's Center City neighborhood, bookends a campaign launch that held its first major public event in Pittsburgh (after a high-dollar fundraiser in Philadelphia).
Both parties see Pennsylvania as vital to deciding the outcome of the 2020 election. The Scranton-born Biden has made his Keystone State ties one of his major selling points as he argues that he is best-positioned to win back working-class white voters and Rust Belt swing states.
Trump has his own rally planned Monday near Williamsport.
Biden leads the Democratic field in national polls and had a substantial lead in a Pennsylvania survey released this week.
"There is a broader hunger across the country in the base of the Democratic party for someone who can beat Trump by unifying the country and laying out a positive message and vision that they actually have the experience to be able to deliver," said Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a Biden supporter.
His Democratic rivals and the Trump campaign have begun to question many aspects of his long record, however, and plan to test his staying power over the coming months.
In the crowd were a wide range of views on Biden and what he offers in a primary with a vast array of flavors.
Mackenzie Halter, 26, and Erica DePalma, 25, each wished that Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had put their energies into supporting younger, female candidates _ though each said they would certainly support the former vice president if he wins the primary.
"I don't want to pick a candidate just because I know they can win a state," Halter said.
DePalma worried that Biden is "coasting, without putting novel ideas into the mix."
At the same time, Halter said she wanted a nominee willing to stake out middle-ground positions that could salve some of the deep divisions in the country.
"Even though I want universal health care, we're not there yet," said Halter, who argued that more incremental steps are more realistic now.
Rusat Ramgopal, on the other hand, was so firmly behind Biden that after flying home from London Friday night, he took a Greyhound bus from New York to Philadelphia Saturday morning to see the former vice president.
"If the Democrats are going to win, Joe Biden is the person," Ramgopal said. "People that like politics like Biden, and people who don't like politics like Biden."
Ramgopal, an 18-year-old student at the University of London, saw Biden as the candidate who could resurrect an earlier era in politics and "return to what we have lost."
But Biden's age cut both ways. While Cathie Harty, 72, believed Biden could go toe-to-toe with Trump, she added, "I'm a little concerned about his age, because I think it's time for youth."
Harty was undecided in the primary. So was Maurice Rouse, 34, who said he would have certainly supported Biden had he run in 2016, but now was intrigued by a number of candidates, including Sanders and Sens. Kamala Harris, of California, and Cory Booker, of New Jersey.
"I like his toughness, his grit," Rouse said, but he still wanted to hear more from the former vice president.
