Biden weighs joining field for president
Vice president’s camp quietly begins assessing his chances in a 3rd attempt for Democratic mantle
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his associates have begun to actively explore a possible presidential campaign, an entry that would upend the Democratic field and deliver a direct threat to Hillary Rodham Clinton, say several people who have spoken to Mr. Biden or his closest advisers.
Mr. Biden’s advisers have started to reach out to Democratic leaders and donors who have not yet committed to Ms. Clinton or who have grown concerned about what they see as her increasingly visible vulnerabilities as a candidate.
The conversations, often fielded by Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Steve Ricchetti, have taken place in hushed phone calls and over quiet lunches. In most cases they have grown out of an outpouring of sympathy for the vice president since the
death of his 46-year-old son, Beau, in May.
On Saturday, Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist, reported that Mr. Biden had been holding meetings at his residence, “talking to friends, family and donors about jumping in” to challenge Ms. Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two nominating states.
One longtime Biden supporter said the vice president has been deeply moved by his son’s desire for him to run.
“He was so close to Beau and it was so heartbreaking that, frankly, I thought initially he wouldn’t have the heart,” Michael Thornton, a Boston lawyer who is a Biden supporter, said in an interview. “But I’ve had indications that maybe he does want to — and ‘that’s what Beau would have wanted me to do.’ ”
Mr. Biden’s path, should he decide to run, would not be easy. Mrs. Clinton has enormous support among Democrats inspired by the idea of electing a woman as president and her campaign has already raised millions of dollars. Mr. Biden, who is 72, has in the past proven prone to embarrassing gaffes on the campaign trail, and he would also face the critical task of building a field operation.
One Democrat with direct knowledge of the conversations described the outreach as a heady combination of donors and friends of Mr. Biden’s wanting to prop up the vice president in his darkest hours, combined with recent polls showing Ms. Clinton’s support declining, suggesting there could be a path to the nomination for the vice president.
Ms. Dowd reported that as Beau Biden lay dying, he “tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.” Mr. Biden’s other son, Hunter, also encouraged him to run, she wrote.
The support Mr. Biden has garnered speaks to growing concerns among Democrats that Ms. Clinton could lose in Iowa and New Hampshire, as the populist message of one of her opponents, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, draws swelling crowds.
“The reality is it’s going to be a tough, even-Steven kind of race, and there’s that moment when a lot of party establishment would start exactly this kind of rumble: ‘Is there anybody else?’ ” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist.
At the same time, the slow trickle of news about Ms. Clinton’s use of private email when she was secretary of state and the coming Benghazi hearings may be distracting some voters from the core message of her campaign: the need to lift the middle class.
“It’s not that we dislike Hillary, it’s that we want to win the White House,” said Richard A. Harpootlian, a lawyer and Democratic donor in Columbia, S.C. who met with Mr. Ricchetti before Beau Biden died. “We have a better chance of doing that with somebody who is not going to have all the distractions of a Clinton campaign.”
A spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign declined to comment.
In a July 30 Quinnipiac poll, 57 percent of voters said Ms. Clinton was not honest and trustworthy and 52 percent said she did not care about their needs or problems. The same poll showed Mr. Biden with his highest favorability rating — 49 percent — in seven years, with 58 percent saying he is honest and trustworthy and 57 percent saying he cares about them. But Ms. Clinton’s numbers are still strong, especially among likely Democratic primary voters.
“The No. 1 thing voters want is a candidate who is honest and trustworthy, and the veep is leading in those polls,” said William Pierce, executive director of Draft Biden, a “super PAC” that is trying to build enthusiasm for his possible candidacy.
Mr. Biden could still decide not to run. Confidants say that he has not made up his mind, but that they expect him to make something official by the end of the summer or early September. Other than by not ruling out a run and by holding preliminary meetings, Mr. Biden has not openly fueled the speculation about his candidacy. As of Saturday he had no trips planned to Iowa or New Hampshire in the coming weeks. But an intermediary recruited by the vice president’s office has been in touch with potential staffers who have not yet signed on to the Clinton campaign.
Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for Mr. Biden, said, “As the Biden family continues to go through this difficult time, the vice president is focused on his family and immersed in his work.”
A 2016 campaign would be the third time Mr. Biden, a longtime senator from Delaware, has sought the presidency, which friends describe as his ultimate dream.
Mr. Biden’s first campaign in 1988 ended in heartbreak after news reports that he plagiarized parts of a speech and exaggerated his academic record forced him to drop out. In 2008, Mr. Biden received less than 1 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses and dropped out after making controversial comments about Barack Obama, then seeking his first term in the White House. Mr. Biden said he was “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.”
Mr. Obama later chose Mr. Biden as his running mate. In the early months of the 2016 campaign, the president has been careful not to undermine or wholeheartedly endorse either his former secretary of state or his vice president.
“The president has said that the best political decision he’s ever made in his career has been to ask Joe Biden to run as his vice president,” Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman said last week.
Friends described Mr. Biden’s relationship with Ms. Clinton in the Senate as cordial and warm. But Mr. Biden has in his long career in Democratic politics clashed with former President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Ricchetti, a former White House aide in the Clinton administration who is now Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, began talking to donors and supporters in the months before Beau Biden died.