The Providence Journal (R.I.), Oct. 24:
Vice President Joe Biden finally made a long-awaited announcement regarding his presidential ambitions on Wednesday. After months of deliberations, the 72- year-old decided to forgo seeking the Democratic nomination for president.
The vice president made the right decision, one that will spare him a lot of wasted energy and anguish, particularly in the wake of the death of his son Beau from cancer. While the vice president was doing quite well in polls of likely Democratic voters – hovering somewhere between 10 and 20 percent – he was surely helped by the fact that he was not running.
Because he was not a formal candidate, Mr. Biden was not being subjected to the media scrutiny that would have inevitably weakened his run. And the truth is, Mr. Biden’s two prior presidential candidacies were disasters.
In 1988, then-Senator Biden’s candidacy died even before the Iowa caucuses, after it was revealed that that parts of his speeches had been plagiarized from a British politician. His support collapsed mere months into the campaign, and he dropped out.
In 2008, the American people were again offered a Biden presidency, and they overwhelmingly declined. Suffering anemic national polling and prone to embarrassing gaffes, he drew less than 1 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses and dropped out shortly thereafter. While Mr. Biden has improved his standing as vice president, a job in which it is easier to avoid the spotlight, and while questions of character surrounding the private email and Clinton Foundation scandals have dogged Hillary Clinton’s campaign, it seems doubtful the American people would be eager to elevate him to the top job. Had he chosen to run this time around, he almost certainly would have gone down to defeat.
Thanks to her fierce determination, her excellence on the debate stage and the profound weaknesses of her challengers, Ms. Clinton appears to have an easy path to the Democratic nomination. Should she avoid indictment over her email issues (a matter the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to probe), we can expect her to be the Democratic nominee for president. Who the Republican candidate will be, of course, remains anybody’s guess.
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