Washington (AFP)
A 13-year-old boy with stuttering stirred up emotion at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, thanking Joe Biden, known for his long personal struggle with the disability.
"Without Joe Biden, I wouldn't be speaking to you today," Brayden Harrington said, in a video pre-recorded and released before the White House candidate's solemn speech.
"A few months ago, I met him in New Hampshire. He told me that we were part of the same club: we stutter," said the young teenager.
"It's really great to see that someone like me has become vice-president" (Barack Obama), continued little Brayden. He said he had benefited from the reading advice of the Democratic candidate, who recommended a book of poems by Irish playwright William Butler Yeats.
"Joe Biden made me more confident in myself," he said.
"He showed me how he makes marks on his speeches to make it easier to deliver them with a loud voice, so I did the same today," he continued, reading a text with application. In the background was visible a wall - probably from his bedroom - decorated with an election poster "Biden".
Joe Biden chose to pay this tribute to the daily struggle of children who stutter just minutes from the most important speech of his political life, when he accepted from his home town of Wilmington the nomination of the Democratic Party to face Donald Trump at the election of November 3.
- Without a hitch -
In a speech of just over 20 minutes, direct and spirited, he passed the obstacle without a hitch, a relief for his supporters.
The former vice-president of Barack Obama continues to suffer sometimes from short moments of stuttering and does not hide that this language disorder has poisoned his youth.
He has got into the habit of giving advice to people who stutter, to whom he says he is happy to give his personal phone number.
Mr Biden, 77, made his stuttering and his fight to help stutterers a double campaign argument. He even mentioned it during one of the televised debates of the Democratic primary.
According to those close to him, these two facets illustrate both a stainless will and his empathy.
His opponents on the contrary unfold on social networks multiple video sequences showing Biden with a slightly shaky speech, questioning his state of health and in particular his mental agility, he who is nicknamed "Sleepy Joe" by Donald Trump.
Two weeks ago, the Democratic candidate strongly rejected the idea of taking a cognitive test to assess his mental form, in the face of calls from his rival Donald Trump who urges him to do, like him, this assessment.
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