There’s only one prominent Democratic contender who has traveled to all three early presidential primary states so far in 2015. It’s not Hillary Clinton. Nor is it Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or even Martin O’Malley.
It’s Joe Biden, who may be running the most under-the-radar White House campaign of any sitting vice president in modern times. Biden made stops in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina last month. The appearances were all ostensibly aimed at promoting President Obama’s agenda, but as the old axiom goes, no politician visits any of these states by accident, and certainly not in the calendar year before primary voters head to the polls.
The 72-year-old, generally regarded as the nation’s well-meaning but goofy (and occasionally creepy) grandpa, Biden has long been considered an afterthought in the 2016 sweepstakes. The assumption: He’s not crazy enough to think he could take on Hillary, his good friend and former Cabinet-mate…is he?
Given the current state of Her Madameship’s campaign, Biden may not have to take her on. He could very well waltz in to fill a void with no other selling point than the best name recognition of anyone on the Democrats’ toilet-paper-thin bench. The few Republicans who aren’t trying to lose 2016 in advance would salivate at the prospect of the Democrats being forced to turn to their only realistic candidate who is older, whiter and more masculine than Hillary Clinton.
This is all playing out rather well for the GOP so far, as long as the power players take my friend Rick Wilson’s advice and stay out of the way of Team Hillary’s implosion.
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