Posted on 10/06/2015 7:37:01 AM PDT by conservativejoy
Man, I get to say a big, fat ‘I told you so’ on this one. I’ve written on Joe Biden getting into the race quite a bit. I contend he will and that Elizabeth Warren will be his VP pick. He has shamelessly used his dead son and his wife to launch his presidential bid. That says a lot about someone who claims to be a staunch Catholic. Calculating doesn’t quite cover it. He’s standing on his dead son’s body to get sympathy and using it as a weapon to walk into the White House. Now, that’s impressively manipulative and egotistical, even for a Marxist. I watched Biden pressing the flesh at union rallies… coveting the communist vote. All the while looking appropriately sorrowful over his son’s tragic death and claiming his wife had to give him permission to run – he leaked his son’s dying wish himself. What a bunch of sickening bull crap. It’s ralph-tastic.
The vice president is mourning. He’s also calculating.
Joe Biden has been making his 2016 deliberations all about his late son since August.
Aug. 1, to be exact — the day renowned Hillary Clinton-critic Maureen Dowd published a column that marked a turning point in the presidential speculation.
According to multiple sources, it was Biden himself who talked to her, painting a tragic portrait of a dying son, Beau’s face partially paralyzed, sitting his father down and trying to make him promise to run for president because “the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.”
It was no coincidence that the preliminary pieces around a prospective campaign started moving right after that column. People read Dowd and started reaching out, those around the vice president would say by way of defensive explanation. He was just answering the phone and listening.
But in truth, Biden had effectively placed an ad in The New York Times, asking them to call.
Before that moment and since, Biden has told the Beau story to others. Sometimes details change — the setting, the exact words. The version he gave Dowd delivered the strongest punch to the gut, making the clearest swipe at Clinton by enshrining the idea of a campaign against her in the words of a son so beloved nationally that his advice is now beyond politics. This campaign wouldn’t be about her or her email controversy, the story suggests, but connected to righteousness on some higher plane.
Biden has portrayed his decision about a 2016 run as purely emotional, a question of whether he and has family have the strength. That’s a big part of it. But it’s not all of it.
By every account of those surrounding Biden, Beau is constantly on his father’s mind. But so are Clinton’s poll numbers — and his own, as the vice president notes in private details, such as the crosstab data that show him drawing more support from Clinton than Bernie Sanders. So is the prospect of what it would mean to run against a candidate who would make history as the first female nominee, and potentially first female president. So is knowing that the filing deadlines are quickly closing in and that he almost certainly has to decide in roughly the next week to make even a seat-of-the-pants campaign possible.
“Calculation sort of sounds crass, but I guess that’s what it is,” said one person who’s recently spoken to Biden about the prospect of running. “The head is further down the road than the heart is.”
And that’s how it’s been for a while.
At the end of August, while friends were still worrying aloud that he was in the worst mental state possible to be making this decision, he invited Elizabeth Warren for an unannounced Saturday lunch at the Naval Observatory. According to sources connected with Warren, he raised Clinton’s scheduled appearance at the House Benghazi Committee hearing at the end of October, even hinting that there might be a running-mate opening for the Massachusetts senator.
Biden and Warren were alone that afternoon, and those around them have been particularly secretive about the meeting. Warren’s spokesperson didn’t return requests for comment.
“His bet is that disaffection with Hillary will allow him to peel away some of her donors and operatives,” former Obama adviser David Axelrod, who’s spoken about the race with the vice president, told The Associated Press last week, trying to sum up the approach.
A month later, NBC News had sources saying Jill Biden, who’s been struggling with the decision and had been reported to be torn or even opposed, now wouldn’t stand in the way. Several Biden loyalists said they felt as though she’d been used by the people who’ve been working with the vice president’s overall blessing to add fuel to the speculation.
All of this maneuvering aside, people who are close to the process are surprised at how undetailed and improvisational the planning remains more than two months after Biden trial-ballooned this campaign via Dowd — a known Clinton antagonist, but who also has a history with Biden dating back to her time as one of the most aggressive reporters chasing the plagiarism scandal that ran him out of the 1988 race. (Dowd didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
Despite the data and the numerous conversations, Biden’s still not drilling down. Sources close to him agree that he is allowing the passing time to make the decision for him, but they disagree on whether the calendar is driving him to a yes or making it easier to say no.
But parts of the timing have always been clear: Biden was never going to Las Vegas for the first Democratic debate next Tuesday, according to people familiar with the plans. Better to force Clinton to enter the first contest of the primary season with Biden’s potential challenge looming. And if he’s going to run, the second debate’s only a month later — and that one’s in Iowa.
I have always, always wondered why guys from the beltway say that Uncle Joe is such a nice, great guy. Everyone loves him. Really? He didn’t even wait for his son’s body to cool before he used it as a prop on the campaign trail. I can hear the screams now that he hasn’t declared. In which reality? You mean because he hasn’t signed a piece of paper or said the magic words? He has blatantly used his wife during this and I guess she’s cool with that. But ask yourself this… if he’ll be this self-serving and dishonest before he even declares his candidacy, what do you think he’ll do as president? I figured he would only secure the moron vote – evidently there are a lot of morons that are in his camp. Biden is rumored to be already ahead of everyone running on both sides out there – probably more Marxist propaganda. But he’s sure to beat Hillary and probably Sanders. It’s a Marxist twofer with Biden and Warren. Just cringeworthy.
Hmmmm, who would be easier to crush, Hildabeast or crazy Uncle Joe.
* Not having read the article...
I can’t see Biden picking Warren if he were to get the nomination. What would she gain him? She’s a liberal, so is he. She’s from the northeast, so is he. There would be nothing to gain.
Hildabeast...way easier.
Biden and Warren running the show is a future too horrific to contemplate.
As previously noted on FR-Obama will support Biden under two conditions: 1. Biden runs for only one term. 2. Obama selects Biden’s VP. I suspect Warren is acceptable to Obama.
How much mileage can Idiot Joe get out of his dead son?
Two nuts in the same shell.
Democrats are such scum.
The ‘dead son’ story is nauseating. But Democrats are mainly LIVs who lap up sentiment. I am sorry for Biden that his son died, but to use his son to further his own political ambitions is sooooo Leftist. Not surprising.
Liberals are shameless.
I have been at the bedside of several family and friends as they took their last breaths and in the time leading up to it nothing even remotely similar to politics came into discussion. Facing your mortality has a way of cleansing your thoughts for most people.
Biden is a nasty, nasty, mean shameless loser. Forget the “Uncle Joe” bullshit he is a ruthless politician and this article only proves that.
Maybe, but Biden is infamous for the stupid things he says sooooo he’s always capable of self destructing.
Personally, I think Biden/Warren has a great chance in the election. An evil clown and a communist fake indian squaw. That sums up the Democrat Party pretty well.
Reluctantly, I agree with you. That could be a winning ticket.
He’s a disgusting, groping Perv who not only gropes women and young girls, but gets a thrill out of swimming naked in front of his Secret Service detail.
Deval Patrick as VP.
Yeah and Kevin McCarthy effectively says: “Look, she either lied about the video or she is dumb as a box of rocks and believed it, either way we are holding her to account...” and even the right bludgeons him.
I prefer Caffee and if this takes him out, I’m fine with it however.
Person on deathbed: "My Final Wish (gasp)......last wish (wheeze)...is that (choke) Elizabeth Warren be the Vice President of these United States!" (ack, flatline).
Please. Gimme a break.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.