One of Vice President Joe Biden’s closest advisers is encouraging Biden’s former Senate, White House and campaign aides that they should not count him out of the 2016 White House race just yet.
“He believes we must win this election,” Kaufman said. “Everything he and the president have worked for — and care about — is at stake.”
The memo from Biden’s former chief of staff Ted Kaufman told “Biden alumni” that Biden has a plan for winning the nomination, and that the vice president’s team has been screening potential campaign staffers for months now.
“I am confident that the Vice President is aware of the practical demands of making a final decision soon,” Kaufman wrote in an email immediately after the Democratic debate. “If he decides to run, we will need each and every one of you — yesterday!”
The email, first obtained by the Associated Press, also laid out a rough draft of Biden’s platform, which Kaufman said would be aimed at boosting the middle class.
“If he runs, he will run because of his burning conviction that we need to fundamentally change the balance in our economy and the political structure to restore the ability of the middle class to get ahead,” Kaufman said. The core of Biden’s campaign platform would include middle-class issues such as “the welfare and support of family” focusing on “the values of the American people.”
“Everything he and the president have worked for — and care about — is at stake,” Kaufman said.
The memo was released after pundits said it might now be too late for Biden to enter the race, given Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s strong performance at the first debate Tuesday night. Close aids to both Clinton and Sanders, such as John Podesta and Tad Devine, said it was too late for Biden, and that entering the race so late in the game would prevent Biden from establishing a sufficient ground game in key primary states.
After six months of the Clinton campaign leading the polls and dominating the Democratic field, the vice president’s window to enter the race has become increasingly smaller. While the Draft Biden PAC has spent the past months fundraising for the vice president’s potential run and have also released two political cable ads campaigning for him, Biden had previously remained relatively quiet when asked about his future plans.
He’s also up against a more practical deadline of early November. If Biden were to enter the race, he would have to declare his intent by Nov. 6 in order to get on the primary ballot in all 50 states.
But as the Democratic Party suffers under the weight of Clinton’s email scandal and polls showing most Americans don’t trust her, Biden’s candidacy could potentially rescue the party from a scandal-ridden nominee.
According to FEC filings, Clinton’s campaign has $32 million on hand from the last quarter, and Sanders has $27 million on hand. The Draft Biden PAC has raised over $3 million for Biden so far, but the vice president has yet to hold any official campaign fundraisers. Voters look to Biden to enter the race to bring something different to the campaign, but he has delayed his decision repeatedly in the wake of the passing of his son Beau Biden.
Kaufman reminded supporters of this. “I think it’s fair to say, knowing him as we all do, that it won’t be a scripted affair — after all, it’s Joe.”
