![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/29-biden-lede.w700.h467.jpg\")
<\/a>Joe Biden. Photo: Leigh Vogel\/2017 Leigh Vogel<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
By Lucy Flores
\nThe Cut<\/p>\n
In 2014, I was the 35-year-old Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in Nevada. The landscape wasn\u2019t looking good for my party that year. There were no high-profile national races to help boost turnout, and after the top candidate bowed out of the governor\u2019s race, \u201cNone of the Above\u201d ended up winning the Democratic primary.<\/p>\n
So when my campaign heard from Vice-President Joe Biden\u2019s office that he was looking to help me and other Democrats in the state, I was grateful and flattered. His team offered to bring him to a campaign rally in an effort to help boost voter turnout. We set the date for November 1, just three days before election day.<\/p>\n
In a state as large but sparsely populated as Nevada, it takes nonstop travel to connect with all its residents. You\u2019re lucky to get properly fed, much less look properly coiffed as female candidates are often required to do. I was exhausted and short on time, so decided to not to wash my hair the morning of the rally. I sprayed some dry shampoo in my hair, raced off to the Reno airport, and flew back to Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
The event proceeded as most political events do: coordinated chaos with random problems that no one can predict. I found Eva Longoria, co-founder of the Latino Victory Project, roaming the parking lot trying to figure out how to get inside the union hall. My staff was running around town trying to purchase ferns because according to Biden\u2019s team, no other vegetation was acceptable for the stage.<\/p>\n
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nI found my way to the holding room for the speakers, where everyone was chatting, taking photos, and getting ready to speak to the hundreds of voters in the audience. Just before the speeches, we were ushered to the side of the stage where we were lined up by order of introduction. As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. \u201cWhy is the vice-president of the United States touching me?\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, \u201cI didn\u2019t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?\u201d He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn\u2019t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, \u201ctragame tierra,<\/em>\u201d it means, \u201cearth, swallow me whole.\u201d I couldn\u2019t move and I couldn\u2019t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.<\/p>\n By then, as a young Latina in politics, I had gotten used to feeling like an outsider in rooms dominated by white men. But I had never experienced anything so blatantly inappropriate and unnerving before. Biden was the second-most powerful man in the country and, arguably, one of the most powerful men in the world. He was there to promote me as the right person for the lieutenant governor job. Instead, he made me feel uneasy, gross, and confused. The vice-president of the United States of America had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners \u2014 and I felt powerless to do anything about it.<\/p>\n Our strange interaction happened during a pivotal moment in my political career. I\u2019d spent months raising money, talking to voters, and securing endorsements. Biden came to Nevada to speak to my leadership and my potential to be second-in-command \u2014 an important role he knew firsthand. But he stopped treating me like a peer the moment he touched me. Even if his behavior wasn\u2019t violent or sexual, it was demeaning and disrespectful. I wasn\u2019t attending the rally as his mentee or even his friend; I was there as the most qualified person for the job.<\/p>\n Imagine you\u2019re at work and a male colleague who you have no personal relationship with approaches you from behind, smells your hair, and kisses you on the head. Now imagine it\u2019s the CEO of the company. If Biden and I worked together in a traditional office, I would have complained to the HR department, but on the campaign trail, there\u2019s no clear path for what to do when a powerful man crosses the line. In politics, you shrug it off, smile for the cameras, and get back to the task of trying to win your race.<\/p>\n After the event, I told a few of my staff what happened. We all talked about the inexplicable weirdness of what he did, but I didn\u2019t plan on telling anyone else. I didn\u2019t have the language or the outlet to talk about what happened. Who do you tell? What do you say? Is it enough of a transgression if a man touches and kisses you without consent, but doesn\u2019t rise to the level of what most people consider sexual assault? I did what most women do, and moved on with my life and my work.<\/p>\n Time passed and pictures started to surface of Vice-President Biden getting uncomfortably close with women and young girls. Biden\u00a0nuzzling the neck<\/a>of the Defense secretary\u2019s wife; Biden\u00a0kissing<\/a>\u00a0a senator\u2019s wife on the lips; Biden\u00a0whispering in women\u2019s ears<\/a>; Biden\u00a0snuggling female constituents<\/a>. I saw obvious discomfort in the women\u2019s faces, and Biden, I\u2019m sure, never thought twice about how it made them feel. I knew I couldn\u2019t say anything publicly about what those pictures surfaced for me; my anger and my resentment grew.<\/p>\n Had I never seen those pictures, I may have been able to give Biden the benefit of the doubt. Had there not been\u00a0multiple<\/a>\u00a0articles<\/a>\u00a0written<\/a>\u00a0over<\/a>\u00a0the<\/a>years about the exact same thing \u2014 calling his creepy behavior an\u00a0\u201copen secret\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 perhaps it would feel less offensive. And yet despite the steady stream of pictures and the occasional article, Biden retained his title of America\u2019s Favorite Uncle. On occasion that title was downgraded to America\u2019s Creepy Uncle but that in and of itself implied a certain level of acceptance. After all, how many families just tolerate or keep their young children away from the creepy uncle without ever acknowledging that there should be zero tolerance for a man who persistently invades others\u2019 personal space and makes people feel uneasy and gross? In this case, it shows a lack of empathy for the women and young girls whose space he is invading, and ignores the power imbalance that exists between Biden and the women he chooses to get cozy with.<\/p>\n For years I feared my experience would be dismissed. Biden will be Biden. Boys will be boys. I worried about the doubts, the threats, the insults, and the minimization. \u201cIt\u2019s not that big of a deal. He touched her, so what?\u201d The immediate passing of judgement and the questioning of motives. \u201cWhy now? Why so long after? She just wants attention.\u201d Or: \u201cIt\u2019s politically motivated.\u201d I would be lying if I said I didn\u2019t carefully consider all of this before deciding to speak. But hearing Biden\u2019s potential candidacy for president discussed without much talk about his troubling past as it relates to women became too much to keep bottled up any longer.<\/p>\n When I spoke to a male friend who is also a political operative in Biden\u2019s orbit \u2014 the first man who had heard the story outside of my staff and close friends years ago \u2014 he did what no one else had and made me question myself and wonder if I was doing the right thing.\u00a0<\/strong>He reminded me that Biden has significant resources and argued points that made me question my memory, even though I\u2019ve replayed that scene in my mind a thousand times. He reminded me that my credibility would be attacked and that I should be prepared for the type of \u201cback and forth\u201d that could occur. (When reached by\u00a0New York\u00a0<\/em>Magazine, a representative for Vice-President Joe Biden declined to comment.)<\/p>\n I\u2019m not suggesting that Biden broke any laws, but the transgressions that society deems minor (or doesn\u2019t even see as transgressions) often feel considerable to the person on the receiving end. That imbalance of power and attention is the whole point \u2014 and the whole problem.<\/p>\n