Joe Biden: The only conservative running for president

[O]ver the past half century or so in the United States — since the presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater in 1964 — the term “conservative” has been given a precise ideological spin. To be conservative is to favor economic libertarianism (low taxes, minimal regulations on business), moral traditionalism (opposition to feminism, abortion rights, gay rights), and foreign policy hawkishness (originally a willingness to use military force to contain the Soviet Union, now an eagerness to use military force to accomplish just about every goal in international affairs).

Biden obviously isn’t a conservative in this sense …

[But t]hroughout his career he has taken his strongest public stands in favor of norms, rules, traditions, and institutions designed to restrain and balance competing forces in our politics.

Damon Linker, Joe Biden: The only conservative running for president