"Becoming chief sausage-maker for President Obama.... Plotting a 2016 presidential run, only to be discouraged by Obama.... Running as a moderate, but governing as a progressive.... Signs of slipping concerned allies.... A legacy now tied to his own vice president’s candidacy...."

Those are the "Six Takeaways From the Magazine’s Profile of Joe Biden/His decision to quit the race ended a remarkable chapter in American political history — and started one that may yet define his legacy" (NYT).

The profile itself is, "Joe Biden’s Interrupted Presidency/He sought the office nearly all his life. When he finally got there, it brought out his best — and eventually his worst" (NYT)(free access link).

I'm most interested in the heading "Running as a moderate, but governing as a progressive," at the first link:

According to those close to him, Biden believed he had become president because of his instincts, honed in the Senate, to build a winning coalition — in this case, with the progressive wing of his party that felt disrespected by the Hillary Clinton campaign four years earlier. “When he became president, he felt compelled to govern with them being a part of it,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, who added: “I also think Biden went through this metamorphosis.”

“For an older white man who most people would call a moderate,” said Pramila Jayapal, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, “I certainly didn’t think he was going to be a progressive.”

But Biden came to see Bernie Sanders, his chief opponent in the 2020 Democratic primaries, as the standard-bearer of a movement that would be necessary for his own success as a president. When Sanders visited the White House in early 2021, he told Biden he wanted to see the bill that would become the Inflation Reduction Act funded to the tune of $5 trillion to $6 trillion. “Bernie,” the president replied, “I want to go as big as we can possibly get.”

From the second link: 

Still, Republicans were not wrong in pointing out the strikingly leftward tilt of Biden’s agenda. His administration accomplished objectives that progressives had been pining for years to see realized, from forgiving student loans to expanding Title IX protections to include gender identity.... 

Jayapal, who would become a key figure in shaping Biden administration policy, told me that she had been advised early on by the liberal icon Bernie Sanders that “Biden is a very relationship-oriented person, and I think it would be good for you to get to know him.”

Sanders himself remembered how he and his wife, Jane, were warmly welcomed by the Bidens when he first got to the Senate in 2007, following 16 forgettable years as a disgruntled backbencher in the House. It was a case of Biden paying forward the kindnesses he himself received from elder senators who offered camaraderie when he first took office in 1973, weeks after the car accident that killed his wife and daughter.

Later, as a rival for the Democratic nomination in 2020, Sanders repaid the favor: He insisted that his campaign staff members treat Biden with civility. Biden came to see Sanders as the standard-bearer of a movement that would be necessary for his own success as a president. When Sanders visited the White House in early 2021, he told Biden that he would like to see a munificently funded social-spending bill — somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 trillion to $6 trillion. “Bernie,” he replied, “I want to go as big as we can possibly get.”

Ultimately, the multitrillion-dollar Build Back Better bill was downsized over a year to the $433 billion Inflation Reduction Act. That eventual triumph came to pass in no small measure because Biden understood the Senate’s meandering cadences better than a lesser-versed politician might have. But other feats of his presidency suggested a memory that stretched further back than his days in the Senate.