Shortly after Joe Biden boarded a recent flight from
Washington to New York, a string of passengers began stopping at his seat in
coach to deliver some version of the same message: Run, Joe, run. "We're
with you," one said, according a Democratic strategist who happened to be
on the plane and witnessed the scene. "You've got to do this," said
another.
Biden himself is more conflicted — but he is listening
keenly to the supporters pushing him to run for the White House in 2020. Biden
is convinced he can beat President Donald Trump, friends and advisers say, and
he has given himself until January to deliberate and size up potential
competition for the Democratic nomination, according to people who have spoken to
the former vice president about his decision making.
In the meantime, Biden diligently maintains a network of
supporters in key states, a group 30 years in the making, while some of those
competitors are still making introductions.
As he makes each careful step, Biden faces the same dilemma.
For an elder statesman in a leaderless party, one who long envisioned himself
in the top job, the pull toward another presidential bid is strong. But the
75-year-old former vice president must weigh the realities of jumping into a
crowded primary full of up-and-comers eager to debate the future of the party.
"He is not someone who needs to run to cement his place
in history. He's not someone who needs to run to feel he's making a significant
contribution to the public discourse and the Democratic Party," said Anita
Dunn, a former adviser to President Barack Obama. "But he is someone who,
at the end of the day, feels a great deal of responsibility to listen to those
people who are urging him to run."
Biden would likely cast a long shadow, but a candidate Biden
is not expected to clear what will be a crowded field of aspiring presidents in
2020. He would have competition for the support of the Democratic
establishment. And he would almost certainly face tough challenges from the
left — the source of much of the party's energy at the moment — possibly from
liberal firebrands Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth
Warren.
Biden would likely cast himself as a more centrist Democrat
with working-class appeal, bipartisan credentials and grounding in a more civil
political culture that has faded in the Trump era, said Jim Margolis, a top
adviser to Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns.
"He would carry the imprimatur of the Obama administration
in addition to occupying a space in the middle that isn't as crowded as others
who are more actively running," said Margolis.
He hit those themes gently at a memorial service for his
late Senate colleague, Republican John McCain, last week.
"I always thought of John as a brother," Biden
said. "We had a hell of a lot of family fights."
Biden has eyed the presidency for more than 30 years, waging
a failed campaign for the party nomination in 1988 and another 2008, before
Barack Obama named him his running mate. He passed on running again in 2016 as
he dealt with his older son Beau's battle with brain cancer. The younger Biden
died in March 2015, as the Democratic campaign was taking shape.
Since leaving the vice president's office he has emerged as
among the party's most popular national figures, and one of its most willing
Trump adversaries.
Biden is in regular talks with a small team of longtime
friends and advisers. He also talks to potential donors and longtime staff
about the possibility of another campaign. However, he has also signaled to
them they are free to ally with other prospective candidates, as he eyes a
January timeframe for deciding on whether to run, according to three people
familiar with Biden's thinking who spoke to The Associated Press about his
plans on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss
private conversations.
That leaves Biden for the next two months as one of his
party's most sought-after 2018 campaign headliners. He plans to make multiple
campaign stops a week this fall for Democratic candidates, according to people
familiar with the plans.
"As the vice president has said many times himself, he
is focused on electing as many Democrats as possible all across the country and
on encouraging people to get out and vote this fall," Biden adviser Kate
Bedingfield said. "That's the focus of his energy right now."
Biden's choices so far have shown off his deep ties to key
early states. He has campaigned for a young former aide now running for Congress
in northeastern Iowa, a part of the state with enduring personal loyalty to
Biden but that swung toward Trump in 2016.
He recently penned an op-ed in The Des Moines Register
eulogizing the late Rep. Leonard Boswell, an act that was not political but at
the family's request, according to aides.
In South Carolina, Biden endorsed the Democratic nominee for
governor, as well as longtime friend and former South Carolina Democratic Party
Chairman Dick Harpootlian, a state Senate candidate.
"If he wants, the day he says he wants to be running
for president, he would have a built-in network here," Harpootlian said.
"He's got friends here going back 30 years."
Not all early-state party activists are clamoring for Biden
Part III.
What's left of his New Hampshire network, for instance, is
fragmented, aging and undecided heading into 2020, said John Broderick, state
chairman of Biden's first campaign. Though Broderick, now 70, said his own
family would gladly support Biden again, many in Biden's New Hampshire support
network "are getting longer in the tooth like I am."
Likewise, Iowa Democrat Mary Maloney, a leading campaign
activist for both of Biden's campaigns, said she would support him, but
wondered if younger voters would roll their eyes at yet another Baby Boomer
candidate. "I don't know if a lot of young people get Joe Biden,"
said Maloney, who is 63.
For that reason, Biden certainly wouldn't block younger
prospects from stepping forward, New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray
Buckley said.
"There's a lot of young talent within the party that
would like to run themselves," he said.
All that aside, Margolis, who is in touch with Biden's team,
said "I'm pretty confident that he and his closest advisers legitimately
believe he has a real shot at this."
Aboard the same New York shuttle in July, Margolis,
witnessed the unscripted reaction Biden received.
"Just watching on the plane, one after another coming
up to him," Margolis said. "Joe Biden was the happiest guy in the world."
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