Will Joe Give It a Go? I Say No

Filed in Delaware, National by on November 13, 2017

A lot of people think Joe Biden is going to gird his loins for presidential battle one last time in 2020. He’s out peddling his new memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose,” and dropping lots of hints that he wishes he had run in 2016.

As I noted this morning, that’s a smart way to talk on the book-flogging circuit. People formed a positive opinion of Joe as Veep, and an awful lot of them wish they had been given Biden as an alternative to Trump (to be fair, they also wish they had been given, say, Gary Busey as an alternative to Trump). It gives interviewers an obvious question, and Biden a chance to play coy.

Of course, most people in Delaware crave another Biden run, if only for the glory he reflects back on the First State. I’m sure many people in town are telling him he’ll always wonder if he doesn’t try one more time. Maybe all that talk will work, but I tend to doubt it, because another run would open his family’s life to a new round of scrutiny he might not want.

This isn’t entirely hypothetical. In his memoir he says he was warned by Hillary Clinton’s people that opposition research would not stop with his political positions. He never says so in the book, according to the Daily Mail, but he clearly was referring to son Hunter’s bitter divorce, which produced charges of drugs, prostitutes and profligate spending.

The divorce complaint went public in March, but it got little notice amid the Trumpocalypse, which was in full bloom by that point. Eyebrows were raised about Hunter taking up with Beau’s widow, but people quickly moved on. In short, the Biden image escaped pretty much unscathed.

Suffice it to say that if Joe runs again, it will be scathed. Reporters might start to wonder where Hunter got the kind of money his ex says he blew through. She might start to tell. It’s not a scenario that’s going to appeal to a guy who tends his image like a tender tropical orchid.

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  1. Rusty Dils says:

    Please run Joe

  2. Scuttlebutt302 says:

    ummmm, Biden is only trying to sell books. And stay relevant and interesting to …. wait for it … sell books. That beach house won’t pay for itself.

    Who cares? Why run, when he can win 100% of his hypothetical races? yawn.