Tag: Jennifer L. Lawless

Now, as he considers a run for president, Mr. Biden is struggling to prevent a strength from turning into a crippling liability; on Tuesday alone, two more women told The New York Times that the former vice president’s touches made them uncomfortable. Mr. Biden has denied acting inappropriately but has said he will “listen respectfully.” So far, no prominent Democrat has suggested he not run, and the women complaining about him have not claimed sexual harassment or assault. Other women have stepped forward to say Mr. Biden’s touches were welcome. But the accusations lodged against Mr. Biden have raised questions about when a “tactile politician” crosses the line into inappropriateness. “It opens the door for a discussion about whether Joe Biden can actually credibly take on Donald Trump on a series of issues that the Democratic Party is seen as quite strong on,” said Jennifer L. Lawless, an expert on women in politics at the University of Virginia. But she said it was particularly uncomfortable because she had just shared her own story of sexual assault and had expected Mr. Biden — an architect of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act — to understand the importance of physical boundaries. “These are supposed to be people you can trust.” D. J. Hill, 59, a writer who recalled meeting Mr. Biden in 2012 at a fund-raising event in Minneapolis, said that when she and her husband, Robert, stepped up to take their photograph with the vice president, he put his hand on her shoulder and then started dropping it down her back, which made her “very uncomfortable.” Her husband, seeing the movement, put his hand on Mr. Biden’s shoulder and interrupted with a joke. “Only he knows his intent,” she said. “This is stuff mostly that he’s done in front of everybody,” said David Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama while Mr. Biden was vice president. The controversy around Mr. Biden erupted over the weekend when Lucy Flores, a former candidate for lieutenant governor of Nevada, described how Mr. Biden placed his hands on her shoulders, leaned in to smell her hair and “proceeded to plant a big, slow kiss on the back of my head” before she went onstage at a campaign rally.