Biden and the Peter principle

Joe Biden’s quandary reminds me of the Peter principle. For those of you too young to remember, I’m talking about a management concept explained in Laurence J. Peter’s book (1969) who observed that people, in organizations, tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence". 

In other words, people are often promoted within hierarchical organizations based on their success in previous positions, and as they keep on climbing the ladder they eventually reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as the new skills they’d need in that new job have no longer anything to do with those they had acquired previously. 

This said, I tried to dig a little more into that subject to see if the principle could also apply to politics and to president Biden. That’s how I ran across an article written by Russ Sloan, a guest columnist, that appeared in the Daily Commercial, a Florida newspaper, on December 4, 2020. This piece, clearly not written by someone who loved Biden, remains interesting in terms of tracking our current president’s political career and limitations. 

Biden was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 and was re-elected in '78,'84, '90, '96, 2002 and 2008. All of this time, he was in the same Senate position, a pretty cool and quiet line of work. During his lengthy Senate career he tried twice for the presidency and failed miserably both times. The first time was in 1987, when he had to withdraw upon revelation that he had plagiarized a major speech from British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. 

He also ran in the 2007 primaries, finished a dismal 5th and, as a consolation prize, became Barack Obama's VP in 2008, that he’d serve in that capacity for eight years. On his last and successful attempt in 2019, it’s interesting to observe that Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, both presidential candidates, failed a different moments in their efforts to seek their party's nomination, yet theses two uninspiring candidates managed to beat Trump in 2020 as America was sick of the continuous chaos the Donald created. 

At the end of all his attempts, the "Peter Principle" seems to have matched the old adage that the "the third time’s a charm” and his election had more to do with sheer luck than merit...