Let’s not be too cynical. It is a touching thought that Beau Biden’s dying wish was that his father Joe, the Vice President, should have another tilt at the White House. We learn this nugget of intimate information thanks to the New York Times. The story is suspiciously well-timed to propel a Joe Biden run, coming as it does at precisely the moment when his rival Hillary Clinton looks weakest. Don’t be a cynic, I tell you. Stop it!
But if you think Hillary will be rattled by the possibility of an emotionally charged challenge from Joe Biden, think again. She should be licking her lips. He may be more trusted than her, according to the polls, as Tim Montgomerie suggests in the London Times today. Yet Joe Biden is arguably the most gaffe-prone public figure in the world. American websites like to compile lists of his top howlers, and they always make for fun reading.
Biden’s time as Vice President has at certain moments made Julia Dreyfus’s fictional disaster-leadership in the comedy Veep seem almost sober and serious in comparison. As Rudy Giuliani once put it, ‘I’ve never seen a vice president that has made as many mistakes, said as many stupid things. I mean, there’s a real fear if, God forbid, he ever had to be entrusted with the presidency.’
The last time Biden tried to become president, in 2008, was a disaster: he came fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering less than one per cent of the state delegates. In the same year, it so happens, he suggested Hillary Clinton would make a better vice-president than him. Why does he now think he would make a better president than her?
It says something odd about American politics, that in a nation of 320 million, the people vying for the top job are so obviously flawed. The Republican contenders are if anything worse: the rich joke Donald Trump is still dominating their nomination race. A Trump vs Biden election would be not only be hilariously bad; it might also suggest that American democracy is close to death.
That won’t happen, of course. Things aren’t quite so silly — yet. As it stands, Joe Biden’s re-emergence in the Democratic nomination process might be the first bit of good news that Hillary Clinton has had in a while.
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