While much is known about Joe Biden’s knack for a deliciously inappropriate malapropism (Lesson of the day: Calling a presidential candidate an “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking” African-American will not necessarily preclude you from being said African American’s V.P.), less is known about his tricky commute.
But not for long.
Often called the stingiest man in the Senate, Biden is known to commute via Amtrak from Capitol Hill to his home in Wilmington most every day.
Biden even thinks of the Amtrak workers he sees each day as “family.”
The A.P. reports:
Sen. Joe Biden, the vice presidential half of the soon-to-be-official Democratic ticket, made a surprise appearance Monday at the Amtrak station he has used for years to commute to his day job in the U.S. Senate.
“These guys have been my family,” said Biden, who has taken Amtrak during his 35 years in the Senate. After Senate sessions, Biden travels home almost every day to Wilmington on a train.
Expect the Biden-Amtrak story to get lots and lots of play in media outlets considerably larger than Trainjotting. As the pundits either try to paint Biden as a DC insider, or distance him from that sketch, the fact that he schleps home to his family–well outside the Beltway–for dinner each night will be referred to frequently.
In fact, no less a figure than Biden’s favorite well-scrubbed minority mentioned it in a speech this past weekend.
“He never moved to Washington,” Obama told a crowd of several thousand here, in one of several references to the train. “Instead, night after night, week after week, year after year, he returned home to Wilmington on a lonely Amtrak train.”
A round-trip on the Acela from Wilmington to Washington costs between $83 and $97, and the pokey ol’ Northeast Regional runs one about $60-$75. The trip takes around 80 minutes.
We’re curious to see if Amtrak seeks to capitalize on its highly visible customer with some sort of marketing campaign.
[image: phl-caw.org]
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