Well, well, well.
This Edward-Isaac Devere piece in Politico is more of a shot across Joe Biden’s bow from the Clinton campaign than any of the actual reporting that is contained within the article.
Taken on its own, the piece seems like little more than clickbait, but the fact that it exists at all is probably not unrelated to the Clinton campaign’s nervousness about a potential challenge from the vice-president.
At this point, I hope Biden runs. We need some excitement on our side of the aisle, too.
Except this one time in quotes, I don’t think I will ever use “Biden” and “excitement” in the same sentence.
Biden and Clinton would occupy the same space, fighting for the same voters/donors, leaving Bernie Sanders and (to a lesser extent so far) Marty O’Malley with the progressive base. I’d welcome Biden into the fray for that purpose alone, but I’ve also sworn to join Team Biden if he jumps into the race purely based on his loyalty to Obama.
So, Go Joe! Go!
But I won’t be even a little bit disappointed when Bernie wins.
You know who else is excited by Biden? Just google “Joe Biden lap”.
Ha! Great picture.
I think there’s few things more exciting than a bloody, internecine primary struggle followed by a wounded candidate getting bushwhacked in the general by an opponent whom they otherwise would have buried.
Thank god there’s nothing serious at stake and we can worry about entertainment values such.
Lighten up, Francis.
Will it be as entertaining as 1972, what with the Muskie withdrawal, and the Miami convention, and the VP nominee swap?
That was entertainment.
Sounds like you might benefit from a trigger warning.
1972, eh? Is this a subtle “Sanders = McGovern”? That one sure never gets old.
Sgt. Hulka quote for the win!
One of my top 10 movies of all time (top 5 if I’m being honest).
Boo, your anti-Hillary bias is showing again.
Is this snark?
No.
THIS is SNARK!
Davis has convinced himself that any serious challenge whatsoever will destroy the Democratic Party and hand the Republicans the White House next November. And in keeping with this belief, he has been vigorously mocking Sanders supporters, and now Biden supporters (which is more defensible).
He’s decided that, well, he’s just right goddammit. Anyone who wants a contested primary and thinks a little competition would be good for Hillary and sharpen her skills is just a naive crypto-firebagger. Very sanctimonious and annoying in that way.
The last thing Team D needs is HRC coasting to inevitable victory, in which she is not tested, fails to articulate policy goals, and has no strength in her policy team. We need a sharp bruising primary battle. She needs to win, if she can, at that level first.
This.
You…you fire bagger! Why do you hate Hillary Clinton? You think you’re more progressive than me! You want Sanders to win the nomination just so he can get McGoverned! Let’s face it, you just want to heighten the contradictions!
Why should Hillary get a coronation? Let her fight for it.
C’mon Rikyrah!!! Live a little!
Who wouldn’t want to see Hillary in coronation clothes
When is the last time that we had a bloody, internecine primary struggle followed by a wounded candidate getting bushwhacked in the general by an opponent whom they otherwise would have buried?
Given the apparent realities, Ben and Joe/Joe and Bern either is about as much as I can hope for at this point, so I hope Joe jumps in.
Seems to me there is far more history, deals(?), and factions involved in this rather sudden “run Joe” noise that has emerged.
After beating Clinton and then rejecting her for VP, Obama has been totally accommodating to team Clinton over the past seven years. Gave her the SOS appointment (potentially much higher profile than what a losing presidential candidate and Senator can get) and ceding control of the DNC to team Clinton. He has never criticized her performance as SOS nor that of the DNC and its weak performance in the off-year elections (even in 2014 when the DNC preferred strategy for candidates was to distance themselves from Obama and run as faux Republicans).
Whether explicit or merely implied, a deal was made that for team Clintons’ support in 2008, team Obama would return the favor should Clinton choose to run again. Not overtly, as in I support Clinton, from Obama as that simply isn’t done by Presidents during the primary process, but covertly in helping to clear the decks of challengers. Biden is not supposed to run.
One thing happened and one thing appears to be happening that have changed the calculations.
While most VPs, and losing VP candidates, make a run for the top job, their name recognition and reputation are surprisingly not all that high before beginning their presidential campaigns. Same was true for Biden, until the recent death of his son that also led to many more people first learning of the tragedy of Biden’s first wife and baby daughter and his daily train commute to care for his two young sons.
Second, Jeb’s low polling numbers. His candidacy is what inoculates Clinton from the legacy or dynasty charge. If Jeb were leading in the GOP pack and Clinton polling ahead right where she currently is, doubt there would be any calls for Biden to jump in.
As of right now, the mood of the country is against the political establishment and elite insiders. More intensely on the GOP side. Nothing either party can do about that other than to wait for it to pass as it has always done in the past. Boneheaded was Clinton’s recent claim to be an ultimate outsider. That only makes her sound ridiculous and a bit panicked.
Whatever Obama may have promised the Clintons in 08-either implicitly or explicitly-I don’t expect him to blindly honor it.
Obama has become a very good president in his own right, better than Bill Clinton. Unlike in 2008 and even 2012, he doesn’t need the help of the Clinton Juggernaut anymore. He’s a big fucking deal, a Juggernaut in his own right. So he can give the middle finger to the Clintons if he wants to. Lord knows breaking promises is not foreign to Bill-he’s thrown plenty of people under the bus in his day (like most politicians who get to his level).
Will Obama throw the Clintons under the bus? Not gratuitously. People who say that Obama is loyal to his own VP, or owes the Clintons a favor, are missing the point.
Because first of all, Obama is nothing if not a pragmatist. He (at least I hope) wants to do what’s best for the party. And let’s face it, the man has a legacy to secure. He’s going to endorse and give his full-throated support to whomever has the best chance of winning in 16 and solidifying his legacy. Right now, that person is Hillary. It’ll probably remain Hillary. But if circumstances change, and that person somehow becomes Biden, or O’Malley, or Sanders, or even Jim Fucking Webb (lmao) he will support them over Hillary. You can take that to the fucking bank.
Totally perplexed as to how your comment is responsive to mine. First, I never said a word about what Obama would do during the 2016 general election. Nor doubt that he wouldn’t follow SOP for a President and support the Party’s nominee. I also didn’t speculate as to his current thoughts about the DEM primary. Officially, he’s hands off. Unofficially, he could also be hands off or all in with Clinton. Why I discount that he could be all in with Biden is that under that scenario, Joe would have been making concrete moves to run many months ago.
IMHO it’s a fool’s errand for a President to attempt to secure his legacy through a hand-picked successor. A President’s legacy is based on his record not what those that follow him do.
One can make a pragmatic decision (as I do think Obama’s decision on his first SOS was for many reasons), but there’s no such thing as a “pragmatist.” Not listening to the multiple voices beginning in the summer of 2009 reporting public dissatisfaction and that it spelled serious election difficulties for DEMs in 2010, wasn’t pragmatic. Nor was not objecting to Democrats running to the right and away from Obama in the 2014 election.
However, my original comment was only tangentially related to Obama. It was more about the Clintons and and insider Democratic Party elites. Perhaps colored a bit by my perception that the authentic relationship between the Clintons and Obama isn’t warm and fuzzy.
I was just using your comment as a jumping off point for my own thoughts, not disagreeing with you.
whatever the understanding was in 2008 plus, two double crosses emerged in the past year: Clinton not disclosing all foreign donors to Clinton foundation and the private email server when she was SOS. whatever, whatever, it renders her unfit to serve as prez, and in my understanding of Obama, not the kind of double cross he accepts
Wouldn’t go far as to say, not the kind of double cross he [Obama] accepts. Doesn’t appreciate, yes. Doesn’t appear to have engaged in anything similar himself, most definitely. And he’s generally a gracious winner.
The 2008 primary left him with no illusions about team Clinton and the lengths they would go to fulfill their personal ambitions. IMHO, appointing Clinton as SOS was at least in part to keep her in the tent and not risk having her challenge him in 2012. Apparently, the choice between Clinton and Obama for many wasn’t an easy decision, and some number of those that went with Obama, later opined that maybe Clinton would have been better.
In real time back in 1992, I discounted the “eight years of Bill and then eight years of Hill” chant as silly talk. Didn’t connect that with Bill appointing Hillary to lead a health care reform task force and didn’t have a clue that Gore had expected that appointment. Once that blew up (IMHO the effort was poorly managed, poorly constructed (too weak to sell itself), and poorly promoted.), public talk of Hillary as the first POTUS seemed to disappear. The impeachment of Bill put the kibosh one any notion of a direct succession from Bill to Hill. Enter Plan B and TBD as events and opportunities presented themselves.
And interesting factoid, through June 1999 Clinton polled far ahead of the expected NY GOP Senate nominee, Guiliani. Her poll numbers began to decline after entering the race with an “exploratory committee” in July.
What I’m getting at is that I’m reasonably certain that Bill has looked at every general election cycle from 2000 though 2008 on for an opening to get a third term by proxy, and 2012 wouldn’t have been an exception if Hillary wasn’t then SOS.
Well it would have been unnecessarily insulting to Hillary and her wing of the party to not name her to a high post, dividing the party again just as he’s about to take office. Obama was never stupid.
I also doubt he worried about a challenge from her in 2012. Once in office, barring a disastrous first term, he had to know he would face no serious challenge from his party.
As for HillaryCare — actually BillCare, as it was “my husband’s proposal” — I wasn’t aware Al Gore expected to head that task force. Do you have a cite? He did get the Reinventing Govt and Environment portfolios, as well as becoming the most influential VP in history to that time.
It was a flawed process, agreed, but the real reason it failed, once the plan got delayed until the latter half of 1993, was because the Repubs decided to get organized and mean and not play ball. They saw an opening to deny Bill a New Deal type of popular program that, along with reviving the economy, could guarantee his reelection and the election of similar-thinking Dems well into the future.
GWB didn’t hire McCain. There’s no tradition for a winning candidate to hire primary election competitors. Some do, but it’s usually not those that are in office. So, doesn’t seem to me that it would have been insulting to team Hillary not to hire her.
Challenging an incumbent of one’s own party to the nomination has such low odds to succeed, and may be zero, that perhaps it was off the table for Clinton and Obama never even considered such a possibility. Yet, we are speaking of the Clintons and Obama was handed such an enormous pile of crap from his predecessors that it wasn’t impossible that he could have become vulnerable. A few more Democrats obstructing and harping on him could have tipped the balance. What seemed clear to me after the 2010 mid-term losses is that several well heeled business sectors didn’t abandon him because they didn’t have a better option and the DEM base remained reasonably intact. Plus none of the GOP potential POTUS candidates had a chance.
Still, bringing Hillary into the fold was a bit of insurance that she wouldn’t be out there making any trouble for him.
wrt Gore and health care reform from Bernstein’s A Woman in Charge which is where I read it:
There had been numerous earlier reports that hinted at the same thing.
Of course, you’re joking. Running a bit of fool-faraw on email servers disqualifies HC for Prexy? Fooey. Everyone directly involved disagrees.
You a teabagger sora guy?
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