If Biden runs and Obama endorses him — and both now appear likely — then all bets are off. Hillary will soon be dethroned as the front runner.
While Hillary holds a comfortable lead over Biden and Sanders in most current national polls (although Sanders leads in New Hampshire), once the Vice President is officially in the race and once Obama joins as his corner man, he will surge in the polls.
African-Americans will start to leave Hillary in a rush with Latinos following. With white radicals and labor types already largely backing Sanders. Hillary’s base will dwindle.
President Obama’s Press Secretary Josh Earnest strongly hinted that the president might endorse Joe Biden if he ran.
While taking care not to take sides in the looming Hillary/Biden/Sanders primary, he said that he “wouldn’t rule out the possibility of an endorsement in the Democratic primary.”
He then went on to shower praise on Biden, while offering only the most boiler plate and perfunctory words about Hillary.
He said Biden:
• That Obama has said that naming him as VP was “the smartest decision he’d ever made in politics.
• That naming Biden as VP was even better than appointing Hillary Secretary of State
• That “you could make the case that there is probably no one in American politics today who has a better understanding of exactly what is required to mount a successful national presidential campaign.
Of Hillary, Earnest only noted Obama’s “appreciation, respect and admiration for the job” Hillary did as Secretary of State.
Faint praise indeed.
Earnest’s statement is a clear and public hint from Obama to Biden that says: Get in the race, build up your standing and then I will back you.
Obama cannot simply endorse Biden. He has to point out how his VP would be better than his former Secretary of State. He will have to note her greater fidelity to his programs and policies and warn of her tendency to follow the polls to the center as her husband did in the 90s. Or he will have to call attention to her electability problems in the wake of her e-mail scandal.
Either approach would be deadly for Mrs. Clinton. While a recent Suffolk University poll, taken on Aug 20-24, shows Hillary with a commanding 54% vote share in Iowa, with Sanders and Biden following at 20% and 11% respectively, the internals show how damaging the email scandal will be among Democrats to Hillary.
Asked if they personally were “bothered” by the scandal, potential Democratic caucus-goers said no by 70-26. But asked if the scandal would hurt Hillary’s chances of winning, they said yes by 52-36. If Obama and Biden underscore this concern, it will take away the victory from Mrs. Clinton.
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