Jencunas: Hoping Joe Biden Doesn’t Run for President

Monday, October 12, 2015

Brian Jencunas, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

I like Joe Biden but hope he doesn’t run for President. As a Republican, I should feel the opposite, since Biden’s campaign will weaken Hillary and increase the GOP’s chances of taking back the White House. But as an admirer of the Vice President, I hope he avoids a futile campaign.

I like Joe Biden because he stands out as a politician. Not because of his ideas, which are the standard positions for moderate Democrats, but because of who he is. Joe Biden hasn’t changed since 1972, when, at age 29, he waged a seemingly impossible campaign against the popular incumbent Senator Cale Boggs.

As the political reporter Richard Ben Cramer wrote about that campaign, “Biden was like the people. That’s what he had to show – that he wasn’t some millionaire’s [son] or a whiz kid from Harvard, come to straighten them out. No, he’d be their voice, he’d stand up for them.” Biden won that election, and thirty-nine years later he still has the enthusiasm and attitude that makes him seem like the rarest of all things – a genuine politician.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

When Biden speaks, you can hear the emotion in his voice. It’s this emotion that makes Biden seem genuine when he talks about his humble roots and the decline of the middle class, when he says things that, if other candidates said them would sound like poll-tested soundbites. No matter how many times he talks about his first wife’s death in a car wreck or his son Beau’s recent death from cancer, the emotion is so raw it feels like the first time he has opened up about the tragedy.

When Biden campaigns, it’s with a visceral, physical energy that’s so rare in an era when politicians are surrounded by an army of aides wherever they travel. During a recent appearance at a parade, he bounded from one side of the street to another, showering onlookers with handshakes, high-fives, and hugs. One potential voter even pinched his cheeks. In that one parade, he showed more passion than Hillary Clinton has shown in her entire campaign.

If Biden runs for President, he will run on the strength of his personality. He’ll mention his accomplishments, but the voters who support him won’t be driven by a bill he passed or a policy he fought for as Vice President. They’ll be drawn by the personality that made Biden a Senator and has sustained his whole career.

That won’t be enough to get him in the White House. In both of Biden’s earlier Presidential campaigns (in 1988 and 2008) he failed to win a single primary. This time, he will likely not only lose to Hillary Clinton but to Bernie Sanders. It might be different if every voter could meet the Vice President but modern campaigns are fought on television and with massive field organizations. Running for President requires message discipline, organization, and fundraising prowess – Biden lacks all three.

If I were advising Joe Biden, I’d suggest he skip Iowa and New Hampshire entirely and focus all his resources on South Carolina. If Sanders wins one, or both, of the first two states, Biden could pick up establishment Democrats who fear Clinton is unelectable but fear Sanders’ extremism. Combined with wedging away Clinton’s African-American support, a key voting bloc in the mostly Republican state, Biden could pull off a narrow win in South Carolina. Afterward, the money could pour in as Democratic grandees flee Clinton and fear Sanders.

While possible, this strategy is the political equivalent of drawing an inside straight in poker. It’s far more likely that Biden’s gaffes, the downside of his hyperactive authenticity, consume most of his media coverage and his campaign fails to raise enough money to compete with Clinton on television. Meaningful distinctions with Clinton will be hard for Biden, a moderate himself. He’ll likely drop out after a string of losses, and if Clinton loses in the general, he will be blamed for weakening her candidacy.

To quote Richard Ben Cramer again, “Imagination was the essence of his method, the first and most crucial step: Joe got the picture in his head, like he was already there and he knew how it was going to be. Joe was continually creating himself. This was how he made things happen.”

Imagination and force of personality can only go so far. They can make a young man a Senator, especially in a small state like Delaware where voters can be wooed in small settlings. But becoming Presidency requires much more, and Joe Biden doesn’t have the time or the inclination to assemble a winning campaign.

View Larger +