2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMost Of The Biden Speculation Is Malarkey
10:52 AM AUG 28, 2015 A FIVETHIRTYEIGHT CHAT
Another day, another batch of mostly redundant and anonymously sourced stories about whether Vice President Joe Biden will run for president. Some of those stories, however, are getting ridiculous. So FiveThirtyEights politics writers met in Slack to pick over the latest Biden coverage, our own assumptions and the state of the 2016 Democratic primary. This is an edited transcript of the conversation.
micah (Micah Cohen, senior editor): So, the will he/wont he speculation about Joe Biden hasnt slowed down, but do either of you buy the argument that a Biden run could actually help Hillary Clinton?
hjenten-heynawl (Harry Enten, senior political writer): I dont think it would be particularly helpful to Clinton. Forget about all the BS about whether Clinton runs better when shes in trouble. Personally, I never got that. If she were so good at running when she was in trouble, then why did she lose in 2008?
Rather, why would Biden run? Sure, hes in his 70s and this is his last shot, but he also has a family to take care of. Hed likely only run if he concludes he has a better than nominal chance of winning. And that conclusion would be quite different from what the current metrics, such as endorsements, suggest. Biden may have an insight on the invisible primary that isnt visible to the rest of us.
natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): The irony is that the media has exaggerated all sorts of threats to Clinton, who remains in good shape for the nomination. But then you have the one thing that would be a tangibly bad sign for her campaign the vice president of the United States running for the nomination against her! and there are lots of smart takes about how it could help Clinton.
hjenten-heynawl: What weve argued this entire time is that Sen. Bernie Sanders has a weakness among the party actors (i.e., he doesnt have any endorsements), and that he has no longtime connections to the Democratic Party (remember, hes not a Democrat). Biden, on the other hand, has been in major federal office in Washington since 1973. Hes someone who could conceivably reach out to all members of the party. Hes already polling better among African-Americans than Sanders, for instance.
micah: Lets break this down a little: Both of you seem to think Biden entering the race is inherently bad for Clinton hed be the most serious competition for the nomination shes faced. But would there be a couple side benefits, like that by giving the media a horse race to cover, there would be less focus on Clintons scandals?
natesilver: Well, first of all, its not just that Biden would be a more formidable competitor to Clinton than Sanders. I dont know that Biden would be all that great a candidate, in fact. But Biden running would signal that concern about Clinton among Democratic Party elites had gone from the bedwetting stage to something more serious.
more
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/most-of-the-speculation-about-a-joe-biden-presidential-run-is-malarkey/?ex_cid=newsletter-fivethirtyeight
![](du4img/smicon-reply-new.gif)
reddread
(6,896 posts)stop talking about Bernie!
SonderWoman
(1,169 posts)They are most definitely firmly in Hillary camp: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/hillary-clinton-2016-democratic-elite-213148
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)forget polls are not votes. Those will be cast 6 to 14 months from....today.
disndat
(1,887 posts)The latest H.C. question, maybe more, or potentially more, damaging than her evasions on her
emails as S.O.S. is Huma Abedin's "pay to play" role while still in H.C.'s employ and also working for a private company.