I am as big a fan of Joe Biden as the next person, as long as the next people do not work for Tiger Beat On The Potomac, which apparently has decided as an institution to believe anything mumbled into the autumn breezes on the subject of a Biden presidential campaign. The other day, we had Mike (Payola) Allen, wandering amid the shades of anonymous sources, like Odysseus in the underworld, and coming out the other side with…well, what exactly?
Several people who have visited Biden recently said he seems to be leaning "yes." "Nothing he has heard in the past couple of months has deterred him," said one Democrat close to the process. A former Senate colleague of Biden's said, after visiting the vice president, "He loves what he does, and he has a great deal of confidence that he could contribute in a meaningful way. He's willing to face, ultimately, having his final political expedition be a defeat."
Biden could run. Then again, he could not run. Some of his friends say he will. Some of his friends say he won't. Some of his friends should shut the hell up for a while and, in any event, Allen would have done better consulting a Magic 8-Ball. ("Outlook Cloudy") Today's scooplet is even more evanescent.
Aug. 1, to be exact—the day renowned Hillary Clinton-critic Maureen Dowd published a column that marked a turning point in the presidential speculation. According to multiple sources, it was Biden himself who talked to her, painting a tragic portrait of a dying son, Beau's face partially paralyzed, sitting his father down and trying to make him promise to run for president because "the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values." It was no coincidence that the preliminary pieces around a prospective campaign started moving right after that column. People read Dowd and started reaching out, those around the vice president would say by way of defensive explanation. He was just answering the phone and listening.
First of all, who gives a damn? Second, I don't believe that quote as far as I can throw the National Press Building. Beau Biden is dying of brain cancer and, on his deathbed, he talks to his father like they're both on Hardball? Please to be pulling the other one now. But, the non-story about the non-campaign gets even better.
At the end of August, while friends were still worrying aloud that he was in the worst mental state possible to be making this decision, he invited Elizabeth Warren for an unannounced Saturday lunch at the Naval Observatory. According to sources connected with Warren, he raised Clinton's scheduled appearance at the House Benghazi Committee hearing at the end of October, even hinting that there might be a running-mate opening for the Massachusetts senator.
"Connected with Warren," how, exactly? These are two people who engaged in open warfare over that horrid 2005 bankruptcy bill, the one that's going to be tied around Biden's ankles the minute he gets in the race. Biden thought Senator Professor Warren was going to be the person to go out there and shill for the ticket? What could she say when somebody brings up that bankruptcy bill that wouldn't undermine almost her entire public career?
"Sen. Biden was on one side of that fight and I was on the other," Warren said. "And you better believe I didn't hold back." Warren said she and Biden are still on opposite sides when it comes to financial reform. Biden and Warren met at the vice president's residence in August, where they discussed "a whole range of policy issues," Warren told Tapper. "How we're going to build America's middle class, about how we're going to create opportunities for working families, how we're going to create opportunities for poor families," Warren said. "Both of us see this as a principal role of government. It's about the investments we need to make and the investments we need to make together. And look, I'll be straight on, we also talked about the need for a cop on the beat on Wall Street. We talked about support for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And it was a good conversation."
My god, what a terrible idea this would be. It would be terrible for the Senator Professor if they lost. It would be even worse for Massachusetts and the Senate – to say nothing of the country – if they won. And, no, I'm not buying the Biden-for-One-Term-Warren-For-Two fantasy, either.
The whole Biden shadow play is getting very, very old. The inclusion of him in current polling models is one very small step short of ratfcking Hillary Clinton's numbers, and it does a real disservice to the other candidates as well. (Why not put Mitt Romney or Michael Bloomberg in the Republican field?) What we seem to have is a bunch of generally nervous Democrats, and some Biden loyalists who like to talk to reporters, and who still dream of that West Wing office that was denied them the other two times Joe Biden ran for president and got crushed. Oh, and there are some political reporters who find this whole thing a lot easier than working for a living.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
