The Times report that Vice-President Joe Biden is seriously considering entering the 2016 Presidential race isn’t exactly news. He's been mulling such a move for at least a couple of years. “It’s as likely I run as I don’t run,” Biden said on the talk show “The View” in February, 2014. In an interview with Politico's Glenn Thrush that month, he laid out the sort of campaign he could conduct, focussing on rising inequality and the wage squeeze. "It’s either going to be me or someone else who is going to make this argument in the Democratic Party.” As I wrote at the time, "He’s still full of energy, he’s served President Obama loyally, he loves the game, and he thinks—pundits and pollsters be damned—that this might be the moment for an old-school, shit-kicking, hand-grasping, mouth-running, stick-up-for-the-working-stiff pol like himself."
During the year and a half after those stories appeared, Hillary Clinton cemented her position as a prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination, and most pundits assumed Biden was out. That was premature. In January of this year, he told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that he still hadn't made up his mind, noting, "There’s plenty of time." Now, however, the clock is ticking. In recent weeks, as Amy Chozick, of the _Times, _reported on Saturday, some of Biden's aides have been meeting with potential donors and campaign staffers who have not yet committed to Clinton. The report said that confidants of Biden expect him to make a final decision one way or the other by early September.
Two things appear to have prompted Biden to get serious. The first was the death, in May, of his forty-six-year-old son Beau, who had urged his father to take a third and final tilt at the Presidency. (Biden's previous campaigns were in 1988 and 2008.) The other factor was the growing perception among political professionals that Clinton could be vulnerable in a general election, which is partly based on polling data showing that many voters distrust her. “The No. 1 thing voters want is a candidate who is honest and trustworthy, and the veep is leading in those polls,” William Pierce, the executive director of the Draft Biden 2016 super PAC, told Chozick.
The poll that Pierce was referring to was carried out by Quinnipiac University and released late last week. It found that just thirty-seven per cent of likely voters find Clinton "honest and trustworthy," and that fifty-seven per cent don't. For Biden, the figures were reversed. Fifty-eight per cent of the respondents said that they found him honest and trustworthy; thirty-four per cent said they didn't. The Vice-President also led the former Secretary of State on the issue of empathy. Asked whether he "cares about the needs and problems of people like you or not," fifty-seven per cent said yes, and thirty-five per cent said no. When the pollsters asked the same question about Clinton, forty-five per cent of people said yes, and fifty-two per cent said no.
This was just one poll, and its results didn't all come out in Biden's favor. Fifty-eight per cent of respondents said that Clinton had "strong leadership qualities," compared to fifty-two per cent for Biden. Still, the survey found that in head-to-head contests with the Republican candidates, Biden did at least as well as Clinton. In a matchup with Jeb Bush, Clinton trailed by one percentage point, and Biden led by one point; in a matchup with Donald Trump, they both led by twelve percentage points.
If these figures are taken at face value, they suggest that Biden could be a viable candidate in the general election. But in order to get there, he would have to overcome Clinton's enormous lead in money, organization, and electoral support. The Clinton campaign has already raised well over fifty million dollars, and it is aiming to raise a hundred million by the end of the year. (That doesn't count all the money that will be raised by super PACs and other organizations allied with Hillary.) Clinton already has big political operations in the early voting states. And, according to the Huffington Post's poll average, she is leading Bernie Sanders by 56.9 per cent to 18.9 per cent among likely Democratic voters.
Although he's not currently a candidate, Biden is in third place, with twelve per cent of the vote. If he were to enter the race, that figure would almost certainly rise, at least for a while. But he would still be a long-shot candidate. Positioning himself to the left of Clinton, he would be competing with Bernie Sanders for the votes of progressive Democrats, some of whom wouldn't welcome his late entry. He would also need to pick up support from moderates who have doubts about the Clintons.
At seventy-two, Biden potentially faces an age issue. (Clinton is five years his junior; Sanders is a year older.) A bigger challenge, however, might be demonstrating that he has what it takes to be President. Despite his long history as a senator and Vice-President, many members of the political and media establishment have long seen him as lacking the necessary gravitas and depth for the highest office. Doubts about Biden’s seriousness date back to his 1988 Presidential bid, which was derailed by allegations that he had exaggerated his college record and plagiarized part of a speech.
Nineteen eighty-eight is a long time ago, and Biden has achieved a lot since then, including serving as Vice-President for the past six and a half years. An eminently decent and likable man, he has never had the stench of corruption that attaches itself to many people who stay in Washington for a long time. About the worst that you hear said about him is that he is a blowhard who occasionally blurts out embarrassing things.
In an era of scripted politicians and carefully orchestrated campaigns, some Democrats may see Biden's spontaneity as a plus. And the issues of the moment play to his strengths. As long ago as 1988, he was talking about increasing social mobility, defending the middle class, and challenging the notion that you can't buck the market. "For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community," he said in his first announcement speech. "For too long as a nation, we have been lulled by the anthem of self-interest. . . . We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference."
Back then, Biden was a youngish Roman Catholic pol on the up, and, doubtless, the echoes of John F. Kennedy in his speech were deliberate. Today, he is older and more grizzled (as are many of the rest of us). Taking on the Clintons and the Republicans is a task that would give anyone pause, let alone a seventy-two-year-old who has just lost his son. Even after the latest round of speculation, it is perfectly possible, indeed likely, that he will stay out of the race. But if he decides to give it a go, he might surprise a few people.
