Vice President Joe Biden hasn’t said yet whether he’ll run for president, but plenty of journalists and commentators, unimpressed by Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and the ongoing controversy over her emails engulfing her campaign, are ready for him to give it a go.
Biden was in Florida on Wednesday for a public event promoting higher education, but ended up delivering a domestic policy speech that was a tribute to the American dream. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” the next day, co-host Mika Brzezinski said she wanted Biden to jump into the race.
“I hope he runs,” she said, adding, “From things I’ve heard, I think he might.”
In a recent interview with RealClearPolitics, editorial page editor of the Washington Post Charles Lane said Biden has high potential to best Clinton in the race.
“If he runs, I think Joe Biden could win it,” Lane said. “He’s a potentially unifying figure and Hillary has completely failed to light a fire under the grassroots of the party.”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, is currently Clinton’s closest rival for the Democratic nomination. But Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus has said Biden could also offer the party an alternative to Clinton.
Calling Biden “authentic, experienced [and] progressive,” Ruth wrote in late August that “if he has ideas for helping the middle class that are different from, or bolder than, Clinton’s, let’s hear them.”
As far back as March, a month before Clinton declared her own candidacy, Matt Bai of Yahoo News wrote that Biden’s long history in politics and that he has “nothing to lose” should move him toward a run.
“Biden’s a middle-class champion who makes the case for economic fairness with more conviction than Clinton and less vitriol than [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren,” Bai said at the time. “He’s a serious thinker on foreign policy who opposes rampant interventionism without sounding like a pacifist. He more than holds his own as a debater.”
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank argued in August that Biden should run, though not necessarily with the purpose of winning.
“This could turn the Democratic contest into a free-wheeling affair, and for the party there would be only upside,” Milbank wrote in an op-ed. “Either the more fragmented Democratic field would produce a better candidate than Clinton, or, more likely, it would sharpen Clinton on her way to the nomination.”
During his trip to Florida, several reporters shouted questions at him on whether he would run.
According to press reports, he ignored them.
