Beau Biden Doesn’t Want to Run for Senate? — UPDATED x2
That is the teaser headline in an article in today’s NJ — VP Biden: Beau doesn’t want to run.
Vice President Biden sat down for an interview with Harry Themal (ed. fixed spelling) and at then end, Themal reports this exchange:
Our conversation ended with a surprising request from the vice president as he hurried off to a national security meeting. Spontaneously, he turned to the possible Delaware senatorial campaign of his son Beau.
Biden: “If you run into Beau, talk him into running; he respects you.”
Me: “I don’t think he wants to run, though.”
Biden: “I don’t think he does either. I know he doesn’t want to. … I’m so proud of the job he’s done [as attorney general].”
Me: “Would you campaign for him [against Republican Mike Castle]?”
Biden: “Hell, yes. I told him I’d give him my sixth-born grandchild.”
Biden’s recent campaign finance report doesn’t show alot of activity, certainly not of the level needed to run a Senatorial race. And here we have his dad asking a NJ editor to talk to Beau. This definitely seems to comport with the read alot of people have made of Beau’s status — he still hasn’t gotten totally behind being in the family business, even though alot of people have been pushing him in that direction.
And frankly, if his heart isn’t in it, he shouldn’t run.
So you read the tea leaves — what do you think is going on here?
UPDATED to include this link that commenter newsjournalsucks provides below to a piece by Chris Cilizza at the WaPo — where Biden’s office says that Themal misreported the exchange above. They claim that it was about getting Themal to convince Ted Kaufmann to run. Which the Vice President would not do if he was really certain that Beau would run, right?
UPDATE2 — again, thanks to commenter newsjournalsucks below. Politico also reports on the transcript provided from the VP’s office of the Themal interview. Then, the News Journal changes the on-line title of their article to — VP Biden on the Senate’s “lamentable atmosphere” and lists this correction with the article:
An earlier version of Harry Themal’s column incorrectly said Vice President Biden said his son, Attorney General Beau Biden, did not want to run for the U.S. Senate. Vice President Biden was referring to Sen. Ted Kaufman, who currently holds the seat and has said he will not run for the seat in the November election.
They also deleted the text above supposedly quoting VP Biden.
Tags: 2010 Election, DE-Sen
Too bad, with David Plouffe back on the case at the White House it looked like Beau would be able to take a shot. It probably still looks like too much work to Junior.
BTW – Raise your hand if you think that exchange with Thermal was unplanned.
Mike Castle’s New Campaign Theme: “I am running on my years of experience as a moderate, not because my Daddy told me to.”
Do you think David Plouffe is the savior? I hope so, but if he’s only going to put lipstick on a pig then we’re still screwed.
No shit Sherlock. Lipstick on pigs is notoriously ineffective, but PLouffe ran a great campaign and I read the kos diary that UI linked to. The Plouffe move is reason to stop renting your garments for five minutes.
Putting Howard Dean back in at the DNC would make it time to hang up the comical woe for a week.
So far, the “great campaign” was a house of cards built on a foundation of lies.
Look at me! I’m the most liberalest BOY IN THE WOOOOOOORLD!!!!
Do you want Beau to run, Jason?
Does it really matter, when we’d better off with John McCain in the White House instead of the Kenyan man who sits on a THRONE OF LIES!!????!!!!
Since you love McCain so much, did you ever see his birth certificate? Or Sarah Palin’s certificate of manufacture?
“Beau” sounds suspiciously French to me, anyway.
So. The Biden Braintrust suckers Aunt Bea into naming a placeholder for the seat instead of John Carney so that the Beaudhisattva can run in 2010. Now, the Beaudhisattva doesn’t want to run. Needs more time under the Beau Tree (gratuitous Buddhist/French reference) apparently.
Thanks, Joe. Oh, and thanks for letting this thing play out for so long so that it’s gonna be tough to mount a credible challenge before the seat flips.
BTW, it’s Harry THEMAL, not Harry Thermal, although it’s a pretty funny faux pas (gratuitous French reference…).
I think Beau’s not running either, but I sure wish he’d make up his mind. I think the Bradley case is probably the kind of case where politicians make (or break) their reputations. I don’t know why Beau is taking so long to decide though, he’s screwing Democrats out of the opportunity to run for the seat.
Fixed the spelling of Harry Themal’s name — apologies to him.
So if Aunt Bea had picked Carney to fill the Senate seat, who would run for the House now? And let’s remember that this is the same Carney who won’t commit to not joining the Blue Dogs. Perhaps it is true that getting a more progressive candidate to win here is a pipe dream, but you have the choice of Aunt Bea anointing Carney to the Senate as a second place prize or you have someone sitting it out for Biden to win. Neither is a path to a more progressive candidate.
I think Joe is just as happy to have his BFF Mikey in there for 4 years. I doubt he would have run without getting a green light from Joe.
IMHO, I think that the Bradley case is just too horrific to politicize, and I wish people on both sides would stop trying to frame it as a political advantage or not for Beau. Let’s all hope that he prosecutes it successfully for the sake of the children involved.
I am officially off the Beau Bandwagon. Last thing we need is someone who’s not going to campaign hard.
Me too X. The fix was in from the get go or Beau has no balls. Either way this is some week ass shit.
I’m with you X and Jason. If he’s scared to run, that means he’s scared to fight.
looks like we have gone from: Will Beau run for Senate?, to Will he stand for relection as AG? or announce he is leaving politics to spend more time with his family…
time for a new poll question
turns out old man themal got it wrong (shocker). VP’s office apparently taped the convo and is circulating it, saying the VP was talking about Ted Kaufman. Think about it. Why would the VP offer Beau his own child? He must have been saying he’d offer Kaufman his next grandchild. See:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/vice-president-says-son-doesnt.html?wprss=thefix
Talk about egg on the news journal’s face.
“I think Joe is just as happy to have his BFF Mikey in there for 4 years.”
Another comment that’s dumber than dirt. Sorry to respond to this know-nothing troll, but Castle’s election to the Senate would only aggravate the Obama-Biden administration’s job in trying to accomplish economic, financial or other reforms.
Cassandra-We’d know by now just what kind of senator Carney would be. If he parroted Carper, we’d know. And, if he took Kauffman’s path, we’d know. A senate seat is much more valuable than a House seat, better than 4-1, just on the basis of math. And who’s to say that Castle would have anted up for two more years in the House if that’s what faced him? He wouldn’t have taken on Carney one-on-one.
And, to newsjournalsucks, I read the WaPo piece and the general inference is real clear–Beaudhisattva doesn’t want to run.
Any way you look at it, the Bidens bought themselves two years of time at, as it likely turns out, the expense of the Democrats and Biden’s own President. Same old bleep.
We’d know by now just what kind of senator Carney would be.
And so what? You could have taken a pretty good guess at what kind of Senator Carney would be then since you just saw him endlessly on the campaign trail. And we all know he isn’t going to be a Kaufmann — even Kaufmann admits that not asking for the job gives him alot of freedom. And another Tom Carper is just not on. But then, getting someone who isn’t a product of the Delaware Way is something of its own magic pony. Whether or not Castle saddled up for a run wasn’t all that material to me — a good, voter oriented Senator is. And I’ve not yet seen that on offer.
Thanks newsjournalsucks, for that link. Here is the relevant part, where Biden is supposed to be talking about convincing Ted Kaufmann to run:
Which, as Chris Cilizza notes, still shows Biden unsure that his son will run — with Kaufmann as a Plan B. So one way or another, he Vice President told the world that Beau is pretty far from a sure thing.
Thanks for that link, newsjournalsucks.
Hey Joe, there’s this thing called the internet… Post the recording and we will listen for ourselves.
Man oh man the news journal needs to clean house. What a bunch of fuck ups.
Politico has the rest of the transcript, which makes plain that Biden was talking about Kaufman (pasted below):
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31918.html
But from the transcript there is nothing to indicate that Biden was referring to his son, Beau, as is in brackets.
And when Themal then asks Biden if he’d campaign for “him,” the vice-president responds in a way that makes clear he was talking about Kaufman not his son.
“Hell, yes, I told him I’d give him my sixth-born grandchild,” Biden says.
As the vice-president’s office notes, Biden would not jokingly offer his next grandchild to his own son, who, along with brother Hunter, is the father of those children.
In the transcript, Biden makes it even clearer that he’s referring to Kaufman when he characterizes the 70-year-old senator’s response to his entreaty: “He said ‘I have enough of those.’
Beau Biden, 40, doesn’t have any grandchildren.
The vice-president’s office said they’re working with the News Journal, the largest daily in Biden’s home state, to obtain a correction.
I can’t believe that Themal’s editors didn’t question him more closely on what should have been a piece of groundbreaking news. Not that there are any more editors LEFT over there …
Also on the NJWatch, their New Castle County reporter has departed for a job as the New Castle county spokesperson.
The Sunday Dead Tree Edition looks as thin as a Tuesday paper. Theyllbe down to just running AP puckups soon enough.
I find it difficult to believe that Joe would push Beau to run. The Biden family is much too smart to run a risky campaign against Castle; even if the coming election wasn’t looking to be unfavorable to Democrats across the board, a Beau vs. Mike match-up would still be a considerable gamble on Beau’s part. If Beau wants to get into national level politics, the pragmatic thing to do is run for (and easily win) Castle’s House seat, rather than make a risky run for his father’s old Senate seat.
News Journal now admits monumental error:
“An earlier version of Harry Themal’s column incorrectly said Vice President Biden said his son, Attorney General Beau Biden, did not want to run for the U.S. Senate. Vice President Biden was referring to Sen. Ted Kaufman, who currently holds the seat and has said he will not run for the seat in the November election.”
Joe would know Beau was running for sure if he was running. In the meantime, why wouldn’t he say something nice about Ted?
Harry should do more than issue a retraction. He should retire. To Florida.
When I read the original article I thought the part about offering Beau his own son was very weird.
Weird indeed, but still does not answer the question about why VP Biden would want a columnist to convince Kaufmann to run if he already knew Beau was.
And many thanks to newsjournalsucks for keeping this updated.
heh, I just read about this on Open Left which linked to The Hill with “likely won’t run” And I saw a Burris post on the blognetnews site saying he won’t run as an affirmative. At least you guys had a question mark.
I glanced at the Themal quotes and figured that it might have been yet another Biden gaffe but then, Themal has had some doozies himself in the last year.
Chris Slavens you are a pitiful, arching pile of whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Castle won’t be able to beat Beau Biden and we certainly don’t want more from the party of no to suck up that Senate air. Nothing will get done in Washington that is good for average Americans if we don’t keep putting DEMs into the majorities in DC.
The Del Dems, with Tom and Joe as its leaders, have NEVER groomed or supported a serious challenger to Mikey.
Del Dems have NEVER groomed or supported a serious challenger to Mikey.
Dumber than squirt. Democratic Party has a deeper bench than UConn.
Hey, John, who was the last challenger to Castle that had serious support by the Delaware Democratic party, including Biden and Craper?
JM: A deep bench does not equate to challenging Mike Castle.
They may have a long list of future contenders in Carney, Denn, Coons and Schwartzkopf. But none of them will dare come forward with a real challenge to Tom Carper’s BFF. The fix is in.
1980: Lt. Governor vs. Tom Sharp. 59 percent
1984: Governor vs. William Quillen. 55 percent
1988: Governor vs. Jake Kreshtool. 71 percent
1992: Congress v. S.B. Woo. 55 percent
1994: Congress v. Cari DeSantis. 71 percent
1998: Congress v. Dennis Williams. 70 percent
2000: Congress v. Dennis Williams. 66 percent
2002: Congress v. Mike Miller. 68 percent
2004: Congress v. Mike Miller. 72 percent
2006: Congress v. Paul Donnelly. 69 percent
2008: Congress v. Dennis Spivack. 57 percent
2008: Congress v. Karen Hartley-Nagle. 61 percent
So the closest the Democrats have EVER gotten to a real challenger was nearly 20 years ago. They twice nominated Mike Miller, a guy who can’t even win a seat on his local school board.
Look up “sacrificial candidate” in the dictionary. You’ll be directed to entries for Kreshtool, Jake; DeSantis, Cari; Williams, Dennis; Miller, Micheal; and Hartley-Nagle, Karen.
anon, you did JM’s homework for him. How’s he supposed to learn anything new besides his taunting? 🙂
Castle is 12-0 statewide, which was not the point. A1 claimed that the Delaware Democratic party has not groomed a serious challenger. That’s wrong, of course. The Democratic Party groomed a very deep bench, none of whose members [Markell, Carney, Denn, Coons, Biden] was madcap enough to take on a multi-term congressman. Carney passed in 2006 and Markell in 2008, both aiming instead for Woodburn.
And in fact, this cycle, Carney announced for Congress when Castle was still a-sitting there, in essence daring him to move out or lose.
If Beau doesn’t run, the Democrats will field a capable, well-financed candidate, though I don’t know his or her name.
And $5 says that the News Journal just runs a tiny correction tomorrow inside the A section, saying Joe was misquoted, and that there’s never another word written about the screw-up, except, maybe, a short, three-paragraph apology by Themal next week tacked on to the end of his column. Forget about an explanation by a top editor about how the heck a mistake that bad could have made it into print. The grand glorious days of Public Editor John Sweeney writing columns critiquing the paper and explaining how it works to its readers is long gone.
The place is held together with chewing gum and paper clips, with seat-of-their-pants editing and decision-making, and they don’t want anyone to see that. Remember when Ron Williams wrote two columns a week full of juicy political gossip and his complaints about Verizon? Nowadays, with the layoffs and furloughs, readers are lucky to get one.
Ralph Moyed and Norman Lockman are spinning in their graves.
“If Beau doesn’t run, the Democrats will field a capable, well-financed candidate, though I don’t know his or her name.”
Polly Adams Mervine for U.S. Senate!!!!
Let’s turn and run Jan Ting. 😀
Brilliant idea. If he reads this blog, he just might file up.
For those of you interested, here’s a piece from The Community News about NCCo hiring News Journal reporter Angie Basiouny as Coon’s new communications director (at a nice little salary of $70,000):
http://www.communitypub.com/county_news/x1689196335/Former-reporter-to-take-over-as-NCCo-spokeswoman
Jan Ting still has the best line from any of the heavily recruited sacrificial lambs. “If someone tells you that you’d make a great candidate, say ‘Show me the money.'”
I think the NJ will have to address the mistake since this mistake went nationwide in the media.
“was madcap enough to take on a multi-term congressman.”
You mean like madcap Carper taking on a multi-term Senator Roth?
Face it, John. Carper and Biden would not let the Dems mount a serious challenger to their BFF Castle, despite the Dems being a blue state since ’92.
and losing yet another senate seat. It will just LOOK bad for dems… a republican taking the VP’s old seat!. doesnt matter who it is Fox News will paint Castle as a proud teabagger to advance their agenda
You mean like madcap Carper taking on a multi-term Senator Roth?
No, nitwit. Roth was generally reelected with about 55 percent. Castle sauntered in the 70 percent stratosphere until recently. This prevented any ambitious Democrat from wasting his life with a challenge to Castle. Guys like Markell, Carney, Coons and Denn took on more realistic targets – none easy – like Rzewnicki, Rochford, Freebery and Ennis. None would, or should, have spilled their blood in a loss to Castle.
Roth was personally well-liked by Democrats from Mike Mansfield to Joe Biden himself, yet always got a big-time Democratic challenger.
Senior Democrats preventing a challenge to Castle? This whacko theory is of a piece with your loopy HCR diatribes.
So what’s your point? That they shouldn’t even try? And if they didn’t try in 2008, why do you think they’re going to try this time around? Just because it’s Joe’s old seat? Give me a break.
When Beau decides not to run, they’ll find some ambitious young telegenic NCCo lawyer, maybe an up-and-coming deputy attorney general, who’s willing to be a sacrificial lamb. He’ll get a couple hundred thousand bucks in his kitty from the Bidenites – not nearly enough to compete with Castle – and maybe Obama will come to visit the state once to campaign for him, and he’ll go down in flames with 40 percent of the vote, just like usual. Two years after, he’ll pop up and win a seat in the GA for being a team player.
As much as I love Joe, he runs his mouth too much and this Themal quote with Ted seems to be a classic example. I wouldn’t read too much into it – it’s actually pretty ho-hum. It’s also a tremendous gaffe for the News Journal. That’s journalistic malpractice, really.
There’s a lot of theories in this post, and most of them seem a bit silly. I think Carney is probably the most well-positioned politician in the state. I have to think he’s happy about his career prospects.
As for Beau, who knows if he’s going to run. Everyone you talk to has some sort of “inside info” or “feeling” – it sounds like mostly bullshit. It really doesn’t matter. Either Beau will run and win, or Chris Coons will run and win, or some other Democrat will run and win. I don’t think it will be an “easy” race, but I don’t think it will be all that difficult either.
The Delaware GOP is probably the most inept group of people ever assembled. I mean look at their “leaders”, both official and unofficial. It’s a real joke. If the Republican ballot was so strong, they would call themselves Republicans. They don’t. They hide behind cover organizations like the Caesar Rodney Institute, “Leadership Training” scams, and any number of bizarre “social media” entities. (All of these things, btw, should really have the covers blown right off of them.) I, for one, am not scared of the Republicans. Mike Castle is only as strong as the people behind him, and if anyone has ever met real, live Republicans in Delaware, you’d know they aren’t exactly worth worrying about.
Silly, John. Biden and Carper forfeited every year so they wouldn’t upset their little Congressional ménege a trois with their repub BFF Castle. Castle has been beatable any year for at least the last 5 cycles. The “70 percent stratosphere” is largely due to the quality of his opponents and the failure of the Del Dems including Biden and Carper to even try.
And they still aren’t trying. Have Biden or Carper ever said a negative thing publicly about Castle? Have they ever campaigned against him or helped his opponent with anything more than a token appearance someplace?
It is people with defeatist attitudes like yours that said Dean’s 50 state strategy was a loser. It wasn’t.
You might ask Biden about whether or not “unbeatable” opponents can beaten in Delaware.
Like a global-warming denier, A1 invents hypotheses w/o bothering to cite facts. What candidacies did party leaders suppress? Carper recruited and raised funds for Cari DeSantis in ’94 against Castle. No one in his right mind [except Spivak in ’06] wasted his time against Castle since – until Carney this cycle. Did Biden or Carper suppress the candidacy of Carney, their former staffer?
A1: “Have Biden or Carper ever said a negative thing publicly about Castle? Have they ever campaigned against him or helped his opponent with anything more than a token appearance someplace?”
Has Markell?
The question isn’t “What candidacies did party leaders suppress?”, the question is what candidacies did they support or groom to run in the last 5 cycles? How about ZERO. Spivak ran a lousy campaign and came close – how much support did he get from Carper and Biden?
Of course, Biden and Carper didn’t suppress Carney – he – like Castle – is one of their BFFs. They even gave him party money in the primary against Markell. Everybody knew Castle was going to either retire or run for the Senate this year, so Carney didn’t upset the apple cart by his House run, although he would have if he went for the Senate seat (which is why he didn’t.)
This whole is “Beau going to run or not” is just more of a strategic move by Biden to make sure Old Man Castle gets his 4 years of glory as a Senator before Beau runs in 2014.
I haven’t heard a peep from Biden or Carper or Kaufman saying why Castle shouldn’t be elected to the Senate, have you? Of course not.
Not that I am aware of, JTF.
Oh, I see, they didn’t “groom” anyone — except Carney, Markell, Denn, Coons, etc. [The void of facts continues.]
A1’s upset that Biden and Carper get along with their Congressional colleagues. That’s part of being a playa.
A1: You are about one step away from being a LaRouche guy with all this talk about the secret Illuminati. I don’t think things are as conspiratorial as you seem to think.
John, I was quite specific – we’re talking about the Congressional Seat held by Castle and how the Delaware Dems led by Biden and Carper have utterly failed to try to challenge him. “Carney, Markell, Denn, Coons” never ran against Castle, did they? And none of them probably will this year, either.
Keep shilling for the incumbent protection racket, of which Carper and Biden are “Exhibit A” in Delaware when it comes to protecting Mike Castle.