Well, that’s that. Joe Biden is not running for president, which means we won’t be treated to SNL skits about his tendency to lecherously gaze (and occasionally paw) at women. We won’t hear cute stories about how he once had a dog named “Senator.” We won’t be treated to highlight reels of his strange verbal gaffes.
Most importantly, it means that the race for the Democratic nomination is now a two-person contest, and there won’t be any weird surprises for Hillary and Bernie. It might have been helpful for a loose cannon like Biden to shake the candidates up from time to time, but oh well.
With Joe taking a dignified bow and preparing to step off of the stage (which he was never really on in the first place), now might be a good time to take a look at what a Biden presidency would have meant. And also to review some of those gaffes of his, because oh boy are they weird.
MSNBC did us the favor of compiling some of Biden’s most awkward moments, such as the time he encouraged a man in a wheelchair to stand up, or the time he identified “jobs” as a three-letter word, or the time he introduced Barack Obama as “Barack America.”
Setting all that aside, a Biden campaign would probably have been a miserable disaster, so it’s nice that he spared us the discomfort of having to watch it. And it all comes down to money, or the lack thereof: Biden hasn’t done any fundraising, and at this point there’s no way he could buy his way into the White House like Hillary or Bernie can. For now, most of the party leadership is already committed one way or another, and defections are unlikely.
Of course, his explanation is that the decision was personal, which is certainly reasonable. (His son just died, for crying out loud, give the guy a break.)
This is bad news for pundits like John Cassidy, who posted a lengthy treatise on a hypothetical Biden campaign just hours before the announcement, and for Peter St. Onge, who posted an op-ed about how Biden sounds like he’s going to run and then had to update his headline with the word “nevermind.” But it’s mostly bad news for Bernie. With Biden out, most of the voters who were waiting for him to make a decision will likely back Hillary, according to polls.
Unfortunately, this also leaves Democrats vulnerable: If something catastrophic happens with Hillary and her campaign implodes, her supporters will only have Bernie as a Plan B. Will they be willing to back him? Ehhh, maybe. Begrudgingly. If they have to. Let’s hope there are no unpleasant surprises hiding in those emails of hers.
