Joe Biden once said that his youth allowed him to win his first run for the Senate because he was like the “token” African-American or female.
“I’m like the token black or the token woman. I was the token young person,” Biden said in a 1974 PBS debate .
Biden said that he was able to raise $276,000 in that 1972 race because he was a young man.
“I’m a 29-year-old oddball,” Biden said. “The only reason I was able to raise the money is that I was able to have a national constituency to run for office, because I was 29.”