They are not dealing with George McGovern. They are dealing with Joe Biden and Bill Clinton.

 — Joe Biden on the GOP and the issue of crime, 1994.

By 1993, for all intents and purposes, Joe Biden had won. Sure, his 1987 exit from the presidential campaign trail had been humiliating. But he had survived a near-death experience, returned to the Senate with renewed purpose, been sent back to Congress for another six years by the people of Delaware, and, with three terms and a prestigious committee chairmanship under his belt, was now one of the Democratic Party’s most influential and powerful lawmakers.

What’s more, the party had moved exactly where he had been urging it to go. In 1992, Democrats nominated Arkansas governor Bill Clinton to be their presidential nominee, a business-friendly Southern Democrat who antagonized the party’s left wing, held conservative stances on criminal justice and the role of the government, and connected with those same conservative, white, Reagan-backing voters who Biden was convinced needed to be the beating heart of the party.