On Wednesday, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign pushed back against Politico’s report that Biden only wants to serve one term in office if elected in 2020.
“Lots of chatter out there on this so just want to be crystal clear: this is not a conversation our campaign is having and not something VP Biden is thinking about,” tweeted Kate Bedingfield, the campaign’s deputy manager and communications director.
According to Politico, Biden has been privately signaling to his aides that he likely will not seek a second term if he beats President Donald Trump. However, he and his campaign reportedly want to keep the plan under wraps to avoid a lame duck presidency vulnerable to attacks from political rivals.
Four anonymous sources said that Biden running for reelection at his age would be “virtually inconceivable,” in Politico’s words.
“If Biden is elected, he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection,” an unnamed campaign adviser said.
“He’s going into this thinking, ‘I want to find a running mate I can turn things over to after four years but if that’s not possible or doesn’t happen then I’ll run for reelection,'” another adviser told Politico.
I think this is the dumbest thing, just the dumbest. Biden is 77 years old. He clearly is not the sharpest tool in the box at this point. His pitch is “we gotta beat Trump, gotta right the ship” with a little change thrown in.
If he would just admit that he does not crave the job, did not run in 2016, only doing so out of duty, would only serve one term, and wants to elevate the future generate of leaders, he would remove some of the angst against his candidacy.
yeh, I know the “lame duck” argument, but his entire argument to vote for him is “I can win this” not “I will do x, y, z big plans”, so his focus ought to be on winning.
And who started this rumor, exactly?
It was in the hill. They will print anything. Could-a-bin Trump or any one of Biden’s primary opponents. Could been someone at the Hill going for click-bate.
This said, this is NOT a point to equivocate over, so rumor and then denial is not a good look for Biden.
I don’t think I could handle hearing “malarkey” every day for eight years nor would I like to be addressed as one of the “folks” he’d be representing. P.S. It’s no secret BHO wasn’t crazy about him in 2008, no one will speak of it now, (according to current Atlantic reporting Biden originally came into the Obama fold as a matter of transactional politics, picked to balance the 2008 ticket and BHO had Deval Patrick on his mind) but we’ll definitely get “a noun, a verb and barackobama” for the duration.
Do we really want to elect a lame duck?
Amy Klobuchar looks better all the time.