Biden time, or what?
by Tom Sullivan
Speculation in the press about a Biden run for president caught fire after Vice President Joe Biden met with Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Saturday. But Politico reports that Biden will not attend this week’s Democratic National Committee meeting in Minneapolis. That should dampen the speculation unless Biden turns up by surprise. All the major Democratic contenders are expected.
If Biden decides to run, writes Michael Tomasky, the Warren meeting was brilliant press. But things could get ugly fast. The Obama-Clinton primary fight of 2008 was ugly enough. In the end, Tomasky believes, “Obama had the larger and more morally urgent historical claim to make in the minds of most Democrats and liberals. The woman would have to wait, as women so often do.” Making women wait again while yet another white guy takes the White House could be a gut punch to women who believe it’s now Clinton’s turn. Whatever their policy differences with Clinton, too many of the male persuasion on the left don’t seem to appreciate that. Remember the PUMAs?
The Washington Post offers several more reasons why a Biden run would be risky for his legacy. Also, as pretty much everyone observes, it is pretty late in the game for Biden to get in, unless he is positioning himself, as Tomasky suggests, to be the contingency candidate should Clinton succumb to some new “scandal,” as she never has before.
There is a wide-open city council race where I live, in a town where Democrats dominate. The question I ask myself about every candidate is: What does this lefty bring to city council that we don’t already have? As the panel last night on All In with Chris Hayes noted, that’s really the question to answer about a Joe Biden race for president. There’s really nowhere for Biden to go in this field. Where’s his opening?
But the speculation about a Biden-Warren ticket seems outlandish. Warren has already declined a draft movement herself and seems convinced that she will have more clout over a longer term right where she stays in the Senate. Being President of the Senate would take Warren out of the main action. And as NPR reminds us, Biden’s past support for the credit card and banking industries might not make Biden her first choice to champion her issues. Bernie Sanders is already doing a good job of moving the needle on those, even if mostly with the progressive base so far.