As a result he's been able to smooth the daunting edges off an expensive, ambitious and transformative agenda, selling it with everyday language as something logical and reasonable.
He has a knack of making lofty goals seem achievable. Decarbonising the planet is distilled through work, building improvements and transport. Republican Senator Ted Cruz summed up Biden's speech to Congress last week with: "Boring but radical."
Biden's programme is, in essence, about redefining the role of government in the US and reversing the dominant economic approach of several decades, including spending and taxation priorities.
The US$1.9 trillion Covid-19 stimulus relief law was the Administration's first major success, and distributing 237 million vaccine doses is another. An estimated 55 per cent of the population has had at least one dose.
Next up is about US$4t for jobs creation, infrastructure and to help families. These policies would be funded in part by tax increases on wealthy households.
The Democrats have hit something of a sweet spot with a set of domestic reforms and the right person to articulate them. Still, activists on the left and a few conservative Democrats in the Senate have opposed Biden's approach in some areas. And important non-economic priorities may not get through.
Republicans have struggled to find an opening so far as the Democrats concentrate on popular policies they can pass. At present people are getting support, vaccines, and the economy is bouncing back.
Republicans may eventually benefit from a backlash against interventionist government - once the pandemic is in the rear-view mirror. The huge sums being spent, deficit and immigration could prove fruitful for the party over time.
Biden basically has until the Midterm elections in November next year to get his key laws passed while his party controls Congress. When there's a party trifecta, presidents usually lose one or both houses halfway through their term.
Foreign policy has been a mixed bag. The US has been slow to help other countries with vaccines and is only inching towards an easing of its crisis with Iran. Tensions with China have ramped up.
Biden's stated aims are to improve America's competitiveness in the world and present a better governing example than China does.
His key message to Congress was: "We're going to reward work, not just wealth. Trickle-down economics has never worked. It's time to grow the economy from the bottom and the middle out."
Bill Clinton was the last Democratic president able to cut through to people from all walks of life on economic issues. Biden represents his party's best hope of bringing back at least some of the working-class voters it has lost in the past two decades.
Whether Biden can produce a longer-term economic model that improves the lot of the many is unknown. But a system that's more stable and secure for people who have taken a heavy blow during the pandemic would be better for the country's democracy.
