JOE BIDEN, DON'T RUN
The non-candidate’s allure tends to disappear once you enter the race
If only he would run.”
How many times have we heard that line? There is never a shortage of candidates for any particular office, especially for president. But there’s always that one person, man or woman, who would be the perfect candidate, the sure winner.
Right now the focus of that attention is on Joe Biden. The vice president is wrestling with a decision over whether to enter the 2016 contest for the White House. He wants to be president. He ran in 1988 and 2008.
Those calling for his candidacy say his integrity and honesty compare favorably with the party’s front runner, Hillary Clinton. He doesn’t have a closet full of scandals and question marks that she does. If only he would run!
We forget why he didn’t win in 1988 or 2008. He wasn’t an especially good candidate. His flubs and gaffes made as many headlines as his policy proposals. He had a tendency to talk for interminable lengths. (The best part of Biden’s speech, the old line went, were the first three hours.) KENNEDY, THOMPSON, ETC. Has Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate quelled the fervor? The latest word is that if, as some have suggested, Clinton dispelled many of the questions surrounding her, maybe there would be no need for Biden to run. That could be the thing that saves his legacy. Otherwise, he could get in the race and all the intrigue and excitement could disappear in a flash. He would become like everyone else. We’ve seen it before. If only he’d run, supporters said of Sen. Edward Kennedy. They said it in 1968, after the assassination of his brother Bobby. They said it again in 1972 and in 1976. In 1979, when the country was a mess and President Carter’s popularity was sinking, the pressure on Kennedy was at its apex. So Kennedy got in the race. And almost immediately his numbers plummeted. Questions about the Chappaquiddick car crash were revived. The moment non-candidate Kennedy became would-be president Kennedy is when the aura of greatness vanished.
Remember Fred Thompson? The Watergate counsel-turnedactor-turned-senator was the subject of similar pleas in mid-2007. If only the Reaganesque Thompson would run! Well, he did, and he immediately jumped to the top of the polls. But then he failed to offer anything more than platitudes, never stood out in a debate, got 1% of the vote in New Hampshire and was out by late January.
There was also Gen. Wesley Clark. Here was a guy who had the chops to stand up to President Bush on foreign policy, especially the war in Iraq. It’s not every day that Democrats draft a military man to run for president, but that’s what happened in 2003. He announced his candidacy. And, like Thompson, jumped to the lead. A Gallup Poll that October had him in first place. Then the complaints started to come in. We learned that in a May 2001 speech, Clark praised Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others as a “great team.” Clark had voted twice for Ronald Reagan. He couldn’t give a clear answer on whether he’d have voted for the Iraq War. He was vague in the debates. Not surprisingly, he was gone by February of 2004. THE ESTABLISHMENT A similar amount of pressure is now being placed on Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. After the right wing of the party forced the resignation of Speaker John Boehner and torpedoed the hoped-for ascendancy of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, GOP leaders quickly went to Ryan. If only he’d run for speaker. Only he can save the party from further embarrassment.
Ryan knows what would happen if he acquiesced. The Repub- lican nominee for vice president in 2012, Ryan would like to be president one day. But he knows as well as anyone the mindless cannibalism going on in the House. Ryan already is under assault for working across party lines to arrive at a budget deal with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and trying to come up with an agreement on immigration. The moment Ryan becomes speaker is the moment he becomes the establishment. And we know how well the establishment is viewed these days, especially among Republicans.
Perhaps Mario Cuomo had it right. The New York governor was acclaimed for his wit, intelligence and style. If only he’d run, many Democrats said. But he hemmed and hawed for weeks about making a decision. There was even a plane waiting to fly him to New Hampshire to file for the 1992 primary. But, at the last second, the “Hamlet on the Hudson” didn’t pull the trigger.
No, Cuomo never ran for president. He never got to show us what he could do on a national stage. At the same time, he was spared the inevitable criticism that comes along with being a candidate. In that sense, Cuomo’s legacy was saved. He didn’t become like everyone else.