If Hillary Crashes, Will Joe Biden Join the Race?

By Kyle Kondik, CP Op-Ed Contributor Saturday, August 22, 2015

Responding to another Biden flub last year — Biden told a group of girls learning computer programming and coding that they were "as smart as any guy" — the sharp conservative commentator Noah Rothman summed up what he saw as Biden's frequent free passes from the media: "What frustrates conservatives is that a small but influential community that occupies itself with daily outrages over trivialities just can't seem to find it in themselves to express dissatisfaction over these comments."

But it's possible that Biden has paid a deeper price for his years of verbal missteps and indecorous behavior. The public and the media may excuse or ignore his behavior because they just don't view him as a truly serious presidential candidate.

It's an uncomfortable thing to discuss Biden's vulnerabilities, given his recent personal tragedy: His beloved elder son Beau died in May of a brain tumor. Supplementing this is that, for many, Joe Biden is impossible to dislike.

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But if Biden runs for president, the personal behavior outlined here will come up. Certainly Biden's rivals would try to argue that he's unfit for the presidency, and they will have plenty of examples to cite as they try to make that point.

We'll just have to wait and see, and if the Donald Trump surge has taught us anything, it's that primary polls can move on a dime. Perhaps all the previous polls on Biden are meaningless and he'll get a giant surge in support if he runs. But just because we can imagine something happening doesn't mean we expect it.

One other note about Biden: There are a couple of rumors surrounding his potential candidacy that merit comment.

The first is that Biden could make a one-term pledge as an acknowledgement of his advanced age (74 at the time of the 2017 inauguration). He could promise to protect President Obama's legacy and spend his four years in office trying to govern without worrying about reelection. He also could pick a running mate with the idea of grooming that person to be the nominee in the 2020 election and make a contrast with Clinton, who is also an older candidate (Biden is currently 72, Clinton is 67).

This is probably a non-starter and it wouldn't go over well with the base, which not only wants to win the White House but keep it for eight more years. He would also be a lame duck as soon as he was elected. Republican presidential nominees Bob Dole (1996) and John McCain (2008) considered this strategy, and the fact that both underdog nominees decided against it means they ultimately did not believe it would be very effective. We suspect Biden might discover the same thing.

The other rumor is that Clinton could potentially cut a deal with Biden in order to keep him out, promising to make him her running mate instead.

There would be some precedent for a vice president serving under two different presidents, though it's ancient. George Clinton served as vice president during President Thomas Jefferson's second term and President James Madison's first, and John C. Calhoun held the position under both Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson (during his first term).

Frankly, if Clinton sees Biden as such a threat to her that she has to keep him on as her running mate, then she has more problems than we think. And more broadly, the Democrats don't have much of a national bench right now. At least from a purely political standpoint, the running mate slot would be better used on a promising, younger politician who could either try to retain the White House after a President Hillary Clinton retires or win it back if the Republicans triumph in 2016. Biden would also add little or nothing from an Electoral College standpoint, whereas someone like Sen. Tim Kaine (VA) could help Clinton squeeze a few extra votes out of a swing state, which could be the difference in the election.

With that, Table 1 features our most recent ratings of the Democratic presidential field. The order of the candidates is unchanged. Given the uncertainty surrounding Biden, we're keeping him just as a wild card. If he runs, we'll probably put him above Sanders but behind Clinton. The other three candidates — O'Malley, former Sen. Jim Webb (VA), and former Gov. Lincoln Chafee (RI) — have largely failed to make much of an impression. Of these candidates, O'Malley has the best chance to have a moment, as he's working Iowa hard and has an ideological profile generally in line with the Democratic electorate.

Harvard law Prof. Lawrence Lessig is considering running for the Democratic nomination as a referendum president. If elected, he says, he would stay in office only until he oversaw the passage of a package of political and ethical reforms, after which he would resign the presidency, allowing his liberal vice president — someone like Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) — to take over. His candidacy is a pipe dream, but so too are many of the other campaigns this year. If he announces and indicates he is running an actual campaign, we'll add him — to the very bottom of our list.

Table 1: Crystal Ball rankings of 2016 Democratic presidential primary field