Earlier this week, former Vice President Joe Biden admitted that his "biggest regret in life" was not currently occupying the White House...the statement left us wondering whether he also regrets growing old, balding and not owning 75 Lambo's...perhaps we'll never know for sure.
But, of all of Joe's "regrets" in life, perhaps his missed opportunity at occupying the Oval Office is one that he may seek to rectify in the near future. As Politico reports, after months/years of waffling on the topic, Joe Biden has apparently "shifted in favor" of a new Presidential bid in 2020.
Joe Biden thinks it’s critical that Donald Trump not get a second term — and though it’s early, he doesn’t yet see anyone else who could stop that from happening.
So, he's been telling people privately, that might mean he’ll just have to run himself.
After beginning the year both teasing a 2020 bid and ruling one out — sometimes on the same day — Biden in recent months has shifted unmistakably in favor of running, say multiple people who’ve been in touch with the former vice president and his team.
For the first time in what would be the sixth presidential campaign that he’s either seriously flirted with or launched, Biden sees an argument for a candidacy for which he is the only answer: An elder statesman who can help repair the damage and divisions in the country and around the world, unite the competing wings of the Democratic Party, and appeal to traditional Democratic voters who fled last year for Trump.
Of course, in typical fashion for the political world, other Politico sources in the Biden realm denied rumors of a 2020 run, saying instead that he is "laser-focused on his book tour."
Next week, Biden will launch a tour for his new book, “Promise Me, Dad,” a memoir of his relationship with his son Beau, whose death in May 2015 triggered both the last-minute exploration by Biden of a 2016 run and the emotional devastation that ultimately caused him to pull the plug.
People familiar with the planning describe the tour as deliberately structured to avoid politics. Biden's staff is pushing off nearly every request to appear at fundraisers or other political events while he’s traveling for it.
But there’s another, more subtle purpose, some acknowledge: to test Biden’s emotional stamina, should he decide to throw himself fully into a presidential run.
“Right now, he’s pretty laser-focused on the book tour. Get through that and go see what we can do in ‘18, and see where things are then,” said a person in touch with Biden’s advisers, who have stayed in close communication since leaving their government jobs in January.
Meanwhile, in the end, the decision to run may not be left to Biden with many Democrats wary about pegging the future of the party on a candidate who will be 77 by 2020, the oldest potential candidate in the field other than Bernie Sanders. Though a clutch player in both Obama campaigns, he has proved to be bad at running for president himself, and would likely be facing a raucous and crowded primary full of candidates determined not to step aside and repeat the Hillary Clinton coronation.
Oh well, one can only hope for a little more of this...