I don't think ideology is a good framework though which to understand politicians like Joe Biden. At heart, he is someone who believes in the status quo and in politics centered around managing the status quo. I guess that would make him a "conservative" by some definition, but certainly not by the modern American definition.
Yes, more or less this.
Centrist politicians like Joe Biden are defined less by ideology than by the lack of ideology. This isn't to say they don't have "issues" they feel strongly about, but there is no cohesive framework through which they view things. There are some centrists who are genuinely neoliberal ideologues, but in politics I don't think you'd find too many - mainly people willing to go along with whatever the status quo is, whether for lack of vision or simply because it makes them good money to go along with it.
