Stealing the thunder from the Republican Party’s first presidential debate this week is a flurry of speculation about a Democrat: Vice President Joseph R. Biden.
Chatter over whether Mr. Biden will challenge former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination has exploded as her stock continues to drop and Sen. Bernard Sanders’ insurgent campaign gains steam.
“It’s going to start sinking into Democrats that despite good speeches and despite lots of bravado, Hillary Clinton is a disaster,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “She’s a disaster because of corruption. She’s a disaster because of arrogance.”
While Mr. Biden has said nothing to indicate he’s running, behind the scenes the Biden camp has reportedly reached out to Democratic donors and sent out feelers in the media, prompting a renewed interest in the possibility of a bid.
Feeding the speculation was a Saturday op-ed by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd saying that Mr. Biden’s son Beau, who died May 30 at age 46 from brain cancer, wanted his father to run so that the White House “would not revert to the Clintons.”
No less a political figure than Republican front-runner Donald Trump said Sunday that Mr. Biden’s odds of wresting the Democratic presidential nomination from Mrs. Clinton are on the upswing.
SEE ALSO: Donald Trump: Joe Biden would ‘do very well’ in presidential race against Hillary Clinton
“I think that Biden would have a good chance of beating her now,” the billionaire businessman said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “I don’t think he could have beaten her six months ago or even three months ago.”
Analysts have pointed to her dipping poll numbers as the controversy surrounding her use of a private email server during her State Department tenure grows. Meanwhile, Mr. Sanders continues to draw huge crowds, including more than 100,000 at last week’s nationwide simulcast “house party.”
“I think the email scandal is going to be a devastating blow for Hillary, if you have an honorable prosecutor,” Mr. Trump said.
Biden officials told The Associated Press that the vice president is expected to make a decision on whether to run as soon as early September. So far the Clinton campaign is taking the possibility of a Biden campaign in stride — at least publicly.
“We’ll let him make his decision,” Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”
“However hard it is to secure the Democratic nomination is however hard it is,” Ms. Palmieri said. “We have no illusions — we never thought that this was going to be easy. There’s a lot of views in the Democratic Party, and we’ll be prepared to handle whatever comes our way.”
Despite the criticism over her tenure at the State Department, which includes the terrorist attack in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, Mrs. Clinton remains a formidable foe, thanks to her prodigious fundraising and the vaunted Clinton political machine.
“In the coverage, it gets lost: She has the most money, and she’s beating every Republican in most of the polls. So you can’t really ask for much more than that,” Ms. Palmieri said.
Mr. Biden also has his weaknesses, starting with the Obama administration’s tepid approval ratings. He spent 36 years as the U.S. senator from Delaware, but his last six years as vice president have bound him inextricably to President Obama and his record in office, for better or worse.
In the event of a Clinton implosion, however, Mr. Biden is seen as more electable than any of the other Democratic contenders, including Mr. Sanders, a self-described socialist whose base lies with the party’s progressive wing and whose appeal to moderate voters may be limited.
Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour compared the primary fight in 2016 to that of 1968, when left-wing Sen. Eugene McCarthy did enough damage to incumbent President Lyndon Johnson to push him out of the race.
“I think if Hillary Clinton doesn’t win the nomination, she’s going to lose it to somebody like Joe Biden or John Kerry, as opposed to losing to Bernie Sanders,” said Mr. Barbour, the former Republican National Committee chairman, on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“It reminds me of 1968, when you had Senator McCarthy kick Johnson out. But it was [then-Vice President] Hubert Humphrey who got the nomination; and it would have been Robert Kennedy” barring his assassination, Mr. Barbour said.
On the other hand, Mr. Sanders argued Sunday that he is better positioned to win the Democratic nomination than either Mr. Biden or Mrs. Clinton, who are both viewed as members of the party establishment.
“I’ve known Joe Biden for many years, and I’m very fond of Joe,” Mr. Sanders said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“But I think the American people — who are seeing the middle class of this country disappearing, massive levels of income and wealth inequality, a campaign finance system which is literally corrupt now, owned by billionaires as a result of this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision — want to go beyond conventional establishment politics.”
“I think that’s what’s going on in this country, and I’m not sure that conventional politics will do it anymore,” Mr. Sanders said.
Both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns would have a huge jump on Mr. Biden in terms of infrastructure — they both have 11 campaign offices in Iowa already — but analysts Sunday said they believe he still has time.
“I don’t think it’s too late for him or Kerry or Elizabeth Warren, for that matter,” said Mr. Barbour.
Former Obama White House special adviser Van Jones added on CNN, “Listen, he’s a sitting vice president. He can wait until December if people want to. I think people have heard of him in Iowa. So I think he can wait if he wants to.”
A “Draft Biden” petition has collected more than 190,000 signatures, but Mr. Jones said that the push for a Biden candidacy probably has more to do with Mrs. Clinton’s vulnerabilities than the strengths of Mr. Biden, who already has run two unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic presidential nod — in 1988 and 2008.
“I think this is more about the troubling signs from Hillary Clinton, possibly in October, imploding in front of a committee in Congress much more than it is a passion for Biden,” Mr. Jones said.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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