It’s not all about money though, especially in this cycle.
Thus my point in mentioning her appearance on Fallon. Not guarded at all and verrrrry public yet, she seemed much more at ease than I expected.
I think it’s rather arrogant for an of us to say whether he should run or not. It’s his decision. He is eminently qualified*, he obviously loves politics, so if he has the passion to do it, good for him.
*And I don’t mean that he’s “a natural born citizen over the age of 35”. I mean that he has a resume that gives him the experience necessary to do a good job.
Yes he should run. His favorability is +7 versus her -12. Some of that is a transient sympathy factor for his son’s death but I don’t think that can account for a 19 point gap. Hillary is simply not that talented a candidate whereas Biden comes across as a genuine and likable person which is something voters respond to.
And the moment he declared, his favorability would start dropping. (Remember what a great favorability rating Hillary had just a few years back? Shit happens when you become a target.) People would start doing the negative stories on him that they haven’t been bothering with. He’d be in trouble right away with Dem activists over the 2006 bankruptcy law - that’s just background chatter right now, because no reason to attack him if he isn’t actually running, but it would be front and center about two seconds after he jumped in.
His tendency to get overly friendly with women has been noted on these boards, and I suspect that would get used against him pretty quick, even if there’s really no ‘there’ there. (If there’s smoke but no fire, the Washington press corps’ mantra is to report the controversy, rather than the presence or absence of flames.)
And who knows what else would be thrown at him that there’s no need to now. If he jumps into the race in the next few weeks (and he can hardly wait much longer), he will regret it until his dying day.
On the whole, I like the guy (despite his role in the bankruptcy law), and I hope and pray that he decides to let his eight years as Obama’s veep be the capstone of his career. We will all fondly remember his sotto voce comment to Obama (but not sotto enough to keep the mics from picking it up! :)) that signing the ACA was a “big fucking deal.” That’s how I’d like to remember Joe Biden.
You’ve had a great career, Joe. Leave it like it is.
The choice between Hilary and Sanders is, for me, an easy one. I want Sanders.
The choice between Biden and Sanders is more difficult for me, so I don’t want him to run because I will be extremely torn.
With Fiorina rising I want Biden more than ever. I cannot vote for Fiorina, and I’d prefer not to vote for Clinton. Biden I can support without reservation. I need Biden in case I hate the GOP nominee.
His net favorability will indeed drop if he announces but by how much? Will it drop 20 points to the same level as Hillary? I doubt it. Hillary is now well below Biden’s worst ever rating. Even if Biden drops 10 points he will still be in a much stronger position to fight the general.
Hillary is perceived as dishonest and the e-mail issue, which she has handled terribly, has worsened the problem. That is always a bad problem to have but this year when voters on both sides seem to be especially frustrated with political dissembling and searching for “authenticity” ,Hillary seems especially out of place. A politician who is perceived as honest if occasionally gaffe-prone will be stronger than one who voters think will say anything to get elected.
Eh, a bunch of faux-scandals will come out of the woodwork for Biden if he announces as well. And given his history, I doubt he’ll handle them any better than Hillary.
More generally, I don’t think there’s anything he really brings to the table that Hillary doesn’t in anycase.
But the conversation is kind of silly anyways. Its not like the 2016 election is somehow catching Biden unawares. If he wanted to run, he would be running. By now the donors and endorsements and staff have all gone to Hillary, and its too late to start, as Biden himself knows. To the extent that noise about him running is coming from the man himself as opposed to a bored media, its just to get his name out there a little for a last ego-boost, and to up his brand a little before he leaves his current job and tries to find some sinecure at a thinktank or charity.
Biden has repeatedly indicated that he’s simply not in the right head-space to launch a campaign so soon after his son’s death. The only reason he’s leaving any wiggle room at all is that he feels duty-bound to step up if Bernie Sanders drops dead and the blind-squirrel diggers somehow stumble upon an actual Hillary Clinton scandal.
Yes, because unlike absolutely every single “scandal” plaguing Clinton the plagiarism thing was actually real. I saw Biden on Colbert, that is a man with very few fucks to give. He deserves his rest, i hope he doesn’t run.
Sorry, but that doesn’t sound like a scandal to me, especially with 32 years of scandal free service since then.
You don’t know your own party very well, do you? It doesn’t matter how many years it has been, it’d be hot news again within 2 days of Biden’s announcement.
Of course it would be. What matters is whether it would work. I think Clinton’s ethical lapses are far more serious. She got rich off her public service. Biden never did.
The Republicans are expert at the politics of personal destruction. Oh, it would work.
Which doesn’t change the fact that Clinton is still the much more target rich environment.
Biden has run twice as VP. If the Republicans had anything serious against him they would have used it by now. The decades old plagiarism charge is a complete non-issue at this point.
I think the support for Biden would dry up quickly if he actually did get in and I don’t see any evidence that he’s putting together a team. The backup quarterback or backup goalie is often popular until he actually comes into the game. . If you take Biden out of the polls, then Clinton still leads over Sanders, especially if you look at the polls among Democrats and not include the independent, but lean Democratic voters.
Yes…
Just imagine if he runs and gets the nomination, and Trump gets the GOP nomination…
who knows what will be said in the debates
Wasn’t the “plagiarism” thing largely manufactured to? As I understand it, he had source that quote on numerous occasions but slipped up that one time and there was tape.