Jill Biden: Who is the potential first lady of the United States?

IF the polls and the bookmakers are correct, Senator Joe Biden will beat President Donald Trump in the US election a week today and the country will therefore also have a new first lady in the person of Jill Biden, the former vice-president’s wife for the last 43 years.

At the weekend Biden had a senior moment – well he is 77 – during a television interview when he referred to his opponent as “George”, presumably either of the President Bushes. Jill came to the rescue muttering Trump under her breath, playing the supporting role as her husband nears the end of a long and exhausting campaign.

She has already been second lady alongside her husband for eight years, so stepping up is not that great a leap for her.

WHO IS JILL BIDEN?

UNLIKE so many politicians and their wives, Jill Biden is interesting both for her own life and the interests she has maintained in a long career in education.

Born Jill Jacobs in Hammonton, New Jersey, on June 3, 1951, she was raised in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, with her four younger sisters. The family would drive every weekend to Hammonton, where both grandparents lived and where her parents were raised.

Describing herself as rebellious when a teenager, she had a number of part-time jobs after school in Willow Grove and worked for two summers in Ocean City as a waitress at Chris’s Seafood Restaurant, saying she “ loved it”.

She once said: “I’m a sixties girl from Philly. Before Joe, the men I dated wore jeans and clogs, and my hair was down past my waist – and some of theirs was too.”

After one semester at university studying fashion merchandising she quit and married former football player Bill Stevenson who opened the renowned Stone Balloon bar near the University of Delaware, famous for hosting one of the first gigs by Bruce Springsteen – she has been a lifelong fan of The Boss and the early campaign theme this year was Springsteen’s The Rising.

After a short term at Delaware University and a stint as a model, her marriage broke up and she went on a blind date with Joe Biden who is eight years her senior and was already a senator. Biden had lost his wife and baby daughter in a car accident in 1973 and had two young sons. He was impressed by Jill and made a very important telephone call.

She said years later: “Not only had I not expected a random call from Joe Biden, but I could never have imagined he would make that call to ask me out. I’ve been asked if I was starstruck by the fact that a US senator thought I was worth a call, but I honestly wasn’t. I was flattered that someone I’d heard of was interested.”

WHAT ARE HER STRENGTHS?

HER background in education is her greatest strength. She went back to university and gained degrees in teaching and in 1977 she accepted Joe Biden’s proposal of marriage. It meant that she took on Biden’s sons, Hunter and Beau as her own children and they later had a daughter, Ashley.

She has taught in schools and community colleges ever since and had a stint teaching emotionally disturbed students at school and in a psychiatric hospital.

In her speech to the 2012 Democratic National Convention, she said: “For me, being a teacher isn’t just what I do – it’s who I am.”

In one interview she told how she combined life as second lady with teaching: “Back in 2008, after we’d won the election, no-one really expected me to keep teaching. But I couldn’t just walk away ... So I did both. For eight years, that was my life’s dichotomy. State receptions – and midterms. Dinner with the most powerful man on Earth – and study sessions with single mums.”

She and Joe came through their greatest trial, the death of their son Beau from brain cancer in 2015. He had served in the US Army in Iraq and both Bidens still campaign for veterans and their families. She said: “When you have a family member who is in the military, the whole family serves, too.”

ANY WEAKNESSES?

ALTHOUGH she has improved in recent years, she never rated herself as a public speaker, once saying: “I never used to speak at all. I always said Joe is the speaker of the family. I mean, I’d go to events and volunteer, but I was never a speaker.”

She is known to have avoided politics in the past and had to be persuaded by President Obama to head up his project to boost community colleges.

Some observers have noted a different side to Jill Biden since Trump won the 2016 election. She is known to have been furious at his disrespect for women and veterans – a motivating force for her greater involvement?

WILL SHE BE A DIFFERENT FIRST LADY?

SHE was the first vice-presidential wife to carry on with her paid job after her husband was elected alongside President Obama and says she wants to continue in education even if she has to go and live in the White House.

Jill Biden will also use her position to advance her causes – especially education, veterans’ families and cancer charities.

She once said: “The responsibility for educating a young person is not the student’s responsibility alone, nor is it the job of the teacher alone, nor is it the obligation of the parents alone.

“It is a responsibility that belongs to all of us. Because we all reap the benefits when our citizens are well educated.”

She is keen to boost cancer care and research, once saying: “Cancer has been a dark thread that has run throughout my life. It’s taken my friends, my parents. My beautiful son.”

Her personal campaign pitch? “We can be proud of a president that brings families together instead of tearing them apart. A president who believes our best days are ahead of us. That’s Joe Biden.”