Joe Biden’s Camp Confirms He’ll Be a No-Show at Tuesday’s Debate

The only reason he’s seriously entertaining a bid is because of Clinton’s falling poll numbers, reflected in the surprising popularity of Bernie Sanders, the left-wing senator from Vermont. “He and President Obama understood the challenges facing American families because of the struggles their own families had faced earlier in their lives”. It’s in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. Bernie Sanders. Still the front runner by a wide margin, Clinton’s numbers have dipped to 42 percent of Democratic voters.

Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist in Florida with Draft Biden, a political action committee established to lay the groundwork for a Biden run, said more voters would be likely to support Biden once he has officially launched a campaign.

Clinton has considerable command of the issues and thinks well on her feet. She has done very well in debates. She’s an able counter-puncher when she needs to be.

“If Clinton has nothing more to hide, you’ve got everything to lose by challenging her”, counsels National Journal columnist Ron Fournier. She’s going to be careful. Does the controversy over her e-mail server come up?

The former secretary of state has been practicing for days, poring over briefing books and staging mock debates with aides standing in for Sanders and O’Malley.

Biden will have to be content in his legacy as vice president.

Sanders is particularly weak among minority Democrats.

He supports the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee will fill out the rest of the stage. “It allows people to lay down their markers and define who they are before somebody else does it. But it’s going to be forgotten three weeks after it’s over”, said journalist Nick Acocella.

“These debates are make and break for every campaign”, O’Malley said. He will nearly certainly go after Clinton as overly political and cautious to draw a contrast with what he will deem his principled liberal leadership during his eight years as the governor of Maryland. I’m looking for Biden to make his decision about 48 to 72 hours after tonight’s discourse.

For O’Malley, though, the reward is probably worth the risk.

So if Biden isn’t interested in running, why doesn’t he give a hard-and-fast no? But the price is constant, debilitating warfare with a conservative lunatic fringe, warfare that drove the long-suffering John Boehner from the Speakership and has just forced Boehner’s preferred successor to withdraw his candidacy.