The "crass edge"?

Tom Porter of Newsweek had text on Joe Biden in the post --This Is Who Trump Is Afraid of Facing in 2020, and It's Not Bernie Sanders --:



“What we can’t let voters do is think they can get the same policies with someone they like better, like Joe Biden—someone who would fight for them but who doesn’t have the crass edge,” one former White House staffer told Politico.


As to "crass," recall Biden's IQ remark, as mentioned for example within IPBiz:


See also E.J. Dionne's 1987 piece Biden Admits Errors and Criticizes Latest Report , which includes text about an outburst by Biden on April 3, 1987 in Claremont, NH:

The tape, which was made available by C-SPAN in response to a reporter's request, showed a testy exchange in response to a question about his law school record from a man identified only as "Frank." Mr. Biden looked at his questioner and said: "I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do."

He then went on to say that he "went to law school on a full academic scholarship - the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship," Mr. Biden said. He also said that he "ended up in the top half" of his class and won a prize in an international moot court competition. In college, Mr. Biden said in the appearance, he was "the outstanding student in the political science department" and "graduated with three degrees from college."

IPBiz notes that, even if what Biden said were true (i.e., graduated in top half of class at Syracuse Law School and had three (undergrad) degrees from the University of Delaware), such credentials probably should not be used to assert "I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do." In fact, what Biden said wasn't true. He graduated well-into the bottom half of his class at Syracuse Law (76th in a class of 85). Anybody who has any familiarity with law school knows how grade-conscious law students (and potential employers of law students) are. When Biden later said: "I did not graduate in the top half of my class at law school and my recollection of this was inaccurate", it was an unbelievable understatement. Law students do not have inaccurate memories of their final grade point average, or whether they were in the "top half" or "bottom half" of their class. Biden is a legend in his own mind, and an overachiever trying to compensate for less than stellar credentials.




from Went to a garden party: does Joe Biden hide in your shoes?

From the 1987 Dionne piece in the NY Times:


WASHINGTON, Sept. 21— Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a formal statement today acknowledging that he had misstated several facts about his past last April in a campaign appearance in New Hampshire.

But the Delaware Democrat insisted today, as he had Sunday night in an interview with The New York Times, that some of the disputed statements were true and that his misstatements were the product of a faulty memory and the fact that he lost his temper.

Mr. Biden, whose Presidential campaign has been shaken by news reports about his unattributed use of speeches from other politicians and a plagiarism incident while he was in law school, said in The Times interview that he was ''frustrated'' and ''angry as hell'' over the reports.

(...)

Mr. Biden's campaign staff met this weekend in Wilmington, Del., in an effort to come up with a strategy in face of the building controversy. A senior adviser to the Biden campaign dismissed speculation that he would withdraw from the contest. ''Of course he's going to stay in,'' the adviser said, dismissing the recent reports on Mr. Biden as ''random press frenzy.''

The adviser said the latest troubles might ''free'' Mr. Biden to ''get into being himself'' and to campaign as an aggressive ''populist, anti-Establishment'' candidate and a defender of the interests of the American middle class.




from http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/22/us/biden-admits-errors-and-criticizes-latest-report.html

See also post at Yelp:

In this clip from 1988, Joe Biden becomes irate with an interviewer, interrupts him and proceeds to boast about his intelligence and academic achievements. He mentions how he was the only one in his class in law school with a full academic scholarship and boost about his awards and degrees. youtube.com/watch?v=D1j0…