It seems like everybody else has. So why not Vice President Joe Biden too? After all, it’s quite common for a vice president to try to follow the top guy when his time’s up. Gore followed Clinton; H.W. Bush followed Reagan. Ford followed Nixon who followed Eisenhower. Hubert Humphrey followed Johnson who followed Kennedy. And on and on back in time. So there’s certainly a precedent for it.
So will Joe Biden run? Most of the political pundits who were on the talk shows this past Sunday morning, seemed to think the odds were against a Biden run. Why?
There are many reasons Joe Biden may ultimately decide not to run. He’s run for president twice before and neither time did he do very well. In fact, he embarrassed himself pretty badly both times. In his 1988 run, he apparently couldn’t find anything positive to say about himself, so he lifted virtually word for word a campaign speech from British politician Neil Kinnock, and gave it as his own. This stumble was followed by allegations of law school plagiarism, and exaggeration of his academic record, and Biden withdrew from the race within a month’s time.
Then in Biden’s 2008 attempt to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, he stumbled again. In describing Barack Obama, a then-rival for the nomination, Biden offered “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate, and bright, and clean, and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” Shortly after making this bizarre comment, Biden issued an apology. Then after garnering less than 1% of the votes in the Iowa Caucus, he withdrew from the race altogether.
Why else would Biden not want to make another run at the presidency? Well, his age maybe. Ronald Reagan was the oldest president sworn into office at 69. Biden would be 5 years older – 74. And arguably, he’d be getting into the race late in the game. Hillary already has $47 million in campaign cash, and Jeb Bush has over $112 million. Biden hasn’t had time to put a campaign organization together (he’s been busy being vice president, whatever that entails.) And he and Hillary really have no policy differences to speak of. They’re both liberals – for big government, higher taxes, pro-abortion, you name it. (Of course he wouldn’t be the first woman president.)
Okay, enough about why he won’t run – what leads me to believe he just might do it?
There’s blood in the water in Hillaryland. The top three words used to describe Hillary Clinton in recent polling are “liar”, “dishonest”, and “untrustworthy”. An avowed socialist is beating Hillary in New Hampshire, and catching up to her in Iowa. And she might very well be criminally indicted for her email foibles. Biden might just want to be there to pick up the pieces if Hillary ultimately crashes and burns. Other than socialist Bernie, the other Democratic candidates in the race, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chafee, certainly don’t seem to be making any headway.
And there are several other factors which just might draw Biden into the race. His son Beau died about three months ago, and the rumor is that Beau urged his father to run. Joe Biden has had a long (and many Democrats would say distinguished) career, and attaining the presidency would be the logical conclusion to that career. And perhaps most likely of all to draw Biden into the race – this is his last shot. He’s wanted the job for decades now, tried twice before, and this is his last rodeo.
So will he do it? I don’t know. But if I were Joe, I would. We’ll know soon.
