Since crossing paths nearly two decades ago, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have forged one of the more potent partnerships in modern American politics – winning three of the last four presidential elections between them – and have built an enduring friendship. It is all the more remarkable for its rarity. The pressures of the White House, overlapping ambitions, and competing loyalties have soured the relationship between most presidents and their deputies (think of Richard Nixon’s notorious bitterness towards Dwight Eisenhower or the froideur between Al Gore and Bill Clinton). 

In The Long Alliance: The imperfect union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Gabriel Debenedetti (national political correspondent for New York Magazine) aims to get beyond the ‘popular notion that they share some sort of uncomplicated bromance’ and explore the shifting contours of this complex, and sometimes fraught, relationship that nevertheless may be ‘the most consequential of any in twenty-first-century politics’.

Although they were initially rivals during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, Obama was impressed by the older man’s seriousness on policy issues and recognised the political advantages that Biden’s experience and credibility with America’s middle class would bring. Importantly, the more experienced Biden was prepared to commit to the role of junior partner, stumping for the ticket through the Midwest and offering implicit reassurance to voters uncertain about Obama.