Anonymous friend of Joe Biden reportedly claims the vice president is only courting presidential run for the limelight, praise

If Joe Biden's flirtations with a presidential run are giving you déjà vu, you're not alone. During the 2004 race, Biden was rumored to be a late-in-the-game competitor against Democrat John Kerry, but after months of dragging his feet, he finally declared, "You just can't parachute into a presidential campaign."

You can, however, mull a presidential campaign for attention. According to a friend of the vice president who wrote anonymously to Politico, Biden might have been "waiting" on purpose in 2004 — but never actually intended to run. "He enjoyed the limelight and attention (no surprise there, and certainly nothing unique to him), and waited as long as he reasonably could play the game, only to wisely declare that it simply was too late," Politico's source suggests. Is this year any different?

On the other hand, some believe that it was Hillary Clinton's performance at Tuesday's Democratic debate that has unofficially edged Biden out.

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"Biden's candidacy only works on the theory that Clinton is hemorrhaging support, or that her status as frontrunner is shaky, or that she seems unable to articulate a message capable of defeating an emboldened, excited Republican Party in the general election," Marc Ambinder wrote here at The Week. "On Tuesday, her preparation and experience, set against a rather underwhelming cohort of debaters, shows that none of these three conditions is operative."