Biden's brand was overcoming obstacles. But this one, he couldn't beat

When President Biden announced he was giving up his bid for reelection, he did something few presidents before him had ever done. He stepped aside when he had one more race to run.

It was a decision made all the more stunning because Biden, 81, is someone who has made a career of digging in and proving the doubters wrong.

Biden’s defiance was often his superpower during his decades-long career in politics.

But as withering criticism from his own party built day by day after his very bad debate against former President Donald Trump, that stubbornness became his Achilles’ heel.

To understand what made Biden believe he could hang on, you have to understand what else he’s survived.

“Joe Biden has been knocked down harder by life and gotten back up more, stronger, better than any … person I’ve known in my life,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close friend of Biden.

Biden overcame a series of challenges: the stutter he had as a child, the 1972 car accident that killed his wife and baby daughter, an aneurysm in 1988, the death of his son Beau from brain cancer in 2015, and more recently, the spiral of addiction and destruction that afflicted his son Hunter.

“He’s come back off the ground so many times whether it’s personally or politically,” said Barbara Boxer, who served with Biden in the Senate for years. “He doesn’t give up. He’s a deeply spiritual person.”

Boxer said Biden is driven knowing that he must still be here on this earth for a reason, to do everything he can “to make life better for everyone” that he can.

She worked with him on the Violence Against Women Act. Biden, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, fought to get it added to the 1994 crime bill.

After years of work, Biden took a victory lap,