Will Joe Biden Run for President?

By JOE RONCA
Staff Writer

Rumors have abounded in recent months that Vice President Joe Biden might enter the Democratic race for the presidency, challenging Hillary Clinton for a nomination that a few months ago seemed all but won.
Of course a lot has changed over the summer, as Clinton has increasingly lost supporters due to the scandal over her private email server, and democratic socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has built a campaign exclusively at the grassroots level.
Instead of having secured the Democratic nomination, as she was expected to do, Clinton has been hemorrhaging support in the past few weeks. In the past three months, top Democratic strategists have been increasingly clamoring for Vice President Biden to jump into the race in order to provide an alternative to the scandal-plagued Clinton and the socialist Sanders.
Many Democrats have gotten to the point where they now feel that neither Clinton nor Sanders could secure victory in a general election. That’s why many top Democrats are urging Biden to hop into the race, even forming a Super PAC called “Draft Biden” in order to coax the Vice President into running again after failed White House bids in 1988 and 2008. All this talk brings up two important questions: Will Biden run? And if he does, what impact will he have on the race?
First, the question of whether or not Biden will run is a seemingly simple one to answer.
It is extremely likely that Biden will run for the Presidency. Biden’s going to run for a few reasons.
First, many Democrats feel that Secretary Clinton is a bad potential nominee who only serves to turn away voters. Among independent voters in a recent poll, the word’s that first come to mind about Clinton are “liar” and “untrustworthy.” This doesn’t bode well for Secretary Clinton’s campaign, or the Democratic Party’s electoral chances for that matter.
Clinton’s poll numbers have been declining fairly consistently since April, where she polled at 70 percent in a CNN nationwide poll, to now, where she is only polling 33 percent in a Bloomberg poll.
So far, most of the opposition to Clinton has come from Bernie Sanders, the uber-liberal senator who is drawing huge crowds across the nation. Sanders, while extremely popular in some quarters, is still seen by many as a fringe candidate who is incapable of winning a general election.
For many Democratic Party strategists, the situation they find themselves in today is a nightmare scenario. They are immensely scared by the possibility that a year from now, they’ll find their party without a viable nominee two months from the election.
This is where Biden comes in. To many Democrats, Biden is a viable alternative to both Hillary and Bernie, due to the fact that he is not plagued by scandals and he is moderate enough to attract the average independent voter.
To many Democrats, Biden is essentially the best of a bad lot of candidates. Also, in May, Biden’s eldest son Beau died of brain cancer.
It is widely believed that on his deathbed, Beau encouraged his father to run for the Presidency. If the rumors about Beau Biden’s last wish are true, then it would be very difficult for the Vice President to justify staying out of the race to himself. I doubt that Biden, who was notoriously close with his son, will be able to resist joining the race for the White House. Another major indicator that Biden is beginning to plan for a Presidential bid.
Since early August, Biden has met with several high-level Democratic donors, most recently Robert Wolf, who was a major player in both of President Obama’s successful presidential campaigns. Most notably, on Aug. 23, Biden met with progressive Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren at his home in Washington. Many have speculated that the two may launch an unprecedented joint bid for the White House and govern as essentially “co-Presidents.”
Together, all these factors indicate to me at least that Biden is almost certainly planning on entering the race for President.
Now, the second and more important question is what impact Biden’s entry would have on the Democratic nomination race.
Right now, the specifics of how a Biden entry would impact the race are not known. However, it can be safely assumed that the race will change overnight if he enters it. Most polls have shown that if Biden enters, Clinton will lose points in the polls, while Sanders won’t go down in the standings at all.
Clinton would still lead nationally, but Sanders would widen his lead over the former Secretary of State in the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. If Clinton loses those two early contests to Sanders, the momentum could very well carry the socialist senator from Vermont to the nomination.
Overall, I don’t think Biden could win the nomination if he runs alone, unless Clinton drops out, but he may be able to swing enough Clinton supporters into his camp to hand the election to Sanders.
Biden can’t win on his own, because he is not enough different in opinion from Secretary Clinton to make his mark on voters, and he is also prone to erratic behavior.
For example, Biden reportedly skinny dips in front of female Secret Service agents. In 2006, he made offensive comments about Indians working at 7-Eleven stores while speaking to an Indian-American constituent. He also referred to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as “big f-ing deal” at a live press conference.
I once read a description of Biden in a book that said he was “a nice guy, who’s like everybody’s creepy uncle.” That’s not a trait that would make Biden popular with most voters. Also, if elected Biden would be the oldest President to ever be elected at 72 years old.
These all sound like issues that could be fatal flaws for the Biden campaign. However, there is one possibility in which he could secure the Democratic nomination. That would be if he ran with liberal hero Elizabeth Warren as his running mate in a sort of “co-presidency.”
It has been rumored recently that discussions on carrying out this sort of joint campaign have been ongoing between the two camps.
If Biden were to run with Warren and agree to step down and let her take over after one term, then it is likely that he could secure the Democratic nomination.
The addition of Warren to a Biden campaign would distinguish him from Clinton, likely attracting moderate Sanders supporters in the process.
Also, Warren is significantly younger than Biden, being only 67 at the time of the inauguration in 2017. Thus, Biden’s best chance of victory is if he runs with Elizabeth Warren, otherwise he would probably just hand the Democratic nomination to Bernie Sanders, thereby handing the presidency to the Republicans.
It appears at this point that nothing will stop Biden from running, but if he wants to win he won’t do it without the progressive icon that is Elizabeth Warren at his side.