Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived in the White House Wednesday thanks to two unappreciated assets: He is 78 years old, and he has been a politician for more than 50 years. Those qualifications may be his hidden superpowers.

Decades as a Washington insider aren’t something politicians normally boast about these days, but Biden has turned that logic on its head.

After four years of a presidency that made many Americans yearn for a respite from chaos, the Democrat promised a return to normality. He made “boring” sound beautiful.

He’s not the most talented politician to reach the Oval Office. He doesn’t have the show business talent of Ronald Reagan, the cunning of Bill Clinton or the intellectual firepower of Barack Obama. To borrow a line from another of his predecessors, he’s a Ford, not a Lincoln.

But that may be what the country needs.

Thanks to more than a half-century in politics — he won a seat on a county council in Delaware in 1970 — he may be the most experienced president ever elected.

He has never managed anything bigger than a Senate staff, but he has served the longest presidential apprenticeship in modern history.

As presidential transitions go, it has been a model of efficiency. So many of his appointees are White House veterans that his administration can fairly be described as Obama 3.0.

If there has been a surprise, it is this: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden agenda has become far more ambitious than when he began his campaign in 2019.

His proposal for an economic rescue plan adds up to $1.9 trillion, and it includes not only relief checks and unemployment insurance, but a $15 minimum wage, housing reform and a plan to cut child poverty in half.

Chief of Staff Ronald Klain has said that decision reflects a lesson his team learned then: When you head into negotiations with Congress, aim high.

For Biden’s presidency to succeed, he needs to accomplish three things: End the pandemic. Revive the economy. Hold his fractious party together.

It won’t be easy. Republicans are already resisting his $1.9 trillion price tag, let alone the equally large proposal that will follow. An impeachment trial in the Senate with Trump as its defendant will push both sides toward their partisan corners.

Still, improbable as it sounds, this politician of modest talents and limited eloquence may have exactly the gifts he needs to succeed. If his transition is any sign, he has already made a good start.

Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.