While President Barack Obama's time in the White House is winding down, his VP, Joe Biden, may be looking to prolong his White House residency a bit longer, as The New York Times reports Biden is considering a 2016 run.
The paper reported Saturday that Biden and his advisers are beginning to test the waters on a challenge to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and other Democratic candidates in the 2016 presidential race. Part of this preparation includes reaching out to leaders within the party who have yet to commit to Clinton.
Speculation over Biden's run has been simmering for most of the second term of the Obama/Biden pairing, as outlined in a CBS This Morning interview (below) from April 2014.
The difference now, though, is reportedly why Biden is considering a run. Much of the inspiration, the Times reports, comes from Biden's son Beau, who passed away in May. Boston attorney Michael Thornton told the Times that he wasn't sure if Biden, left "heartbroken" by Beau's death, would run, adding, “But I’ve had indications that maybe he does want to — and ‘that’s what Beau would have wanted me to do.’”
.@NYTimesDowd - Before he died, Joe Biden's son pushed his dad to run for president: http://t.co/N7zFb9JFBj pic.twitter.com/rvLr1hWhQF— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) August 2, 2015
In her weekend column, which is front-loaded with criticism of the Clintons, Times columnist Maureen Dowd touches on the inspiration Beau reportedly gave to his father to run for the Oval Office.
“Dad, I know you don’t give a damn about money,” Beau told him, dismissing the idea that his father would take some sort of cushy job after the vice presidency to cash in.
Beau was losing his nouns and the right side of his face was partially paralyzed. But he had a mission: He tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.
While there's little concrete evidence to back any talk of a Biden 2016 bid at this point, the Times report is not the first time the prospects of Biden's running have hit the headlines. In June, in the wake of Beau's death, the Wall Street Journal reported that Biden was already considering a 2016 run due to encouragement from his family.
Pick up a book and read it. Every kid deserves a lifetime of learning. #ReadWhereYouAre pic.twitter.com/39c0ZepEfJ— Vice President Biden (@VP) July 29, 2015
Both the Times and WSJ stories mention the independent SuperPAC Draft Biden, which has been busy building a presence in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first states to hold primary contests, and South Carolina. The group has not yet responded to a request for comment from Mashable.
Biden has made two previous attempts at the White House, both of which ended with some controversy. In 1988, he ended his campaign after reports of plagiarism that stretched to his law school days. And in 2008, though he ultimately came to be Obama's VP pick, Biden earned less than one percent of the vote in Iowa and was haunted by a 2007 incident in which he called Obama, "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”