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

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published 15 October 2015

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?

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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."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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