Joe Biden may announce presidential run within 48 hours

Biden’s closest advisers continue to reach out to top donors and potential supporters in advance of a possible run. At left is Greek Ambassador to the U.S. Christos Panagopoulos. Biden is reportedly close to a decision. But it nearly certainly will come before Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nod, comes to Capitol Hill on Thursday to testify before the House select committee on Benghazi.

“At this point, we are calling volunteers, building support, and waiting for the vice president to decide”, a Draft Biden source told NewsOne on Friday. “We know him here very well”, said Johnston. Because he’s run twice before – 1988 and 2008 – and the best indicator of running for president in the future is having run for president in the past. In the words of the late Tennessee Sen.

The Afghanistan shift was a personal setback for Biden, the most influential voice in the administration pushing for hard timelines for the removal of USA troops from the country. Biden also resisted arming rebel groups in Syria.

Republicans, meanwhile, have been pining for a Biden campaign, in hopes that a more combative Democratic primary would weaken Clinton. Is that the career coda he wants? An IAFF endorsement would be a big boost out of the gate for Biden should he jump into the race. He has been open about his grief over son Beau’s death earlier this year, and the Biden clan has warmed to the idea of fulfilling one of Beau’s final wishes: that Joe Biden make one more stab at winning the Presidency. Now there is no next Biden in line; it’s Joe.

That timetable could test the patience of a few Democrats who have been pressing Biden to make a decision either way, especially in the wake of frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s strong performance in last Tuesday’s first Democratic debate, as well as her announcement that her campaign has $33 million in the bank.

If Biden did get into the race, he would have the potential of scrambling what has thus far been a virtual one-on-one primary race between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. The eventual nominee, John McCain, had been a thorn in the side of the White House for years, but Obama still had no problem painting Mr. McCain as the four-more-years-of-Bush candidate.

Strategy or not, Biden’s hesitation could come at a cost. Over the summer the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, The New York Times’ Nate Cohn, and FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten all threw cold water on the prospects of the Biden 2016 run, saying the the VP lacks a base of support, Democratic leaders aren’t panicking yet, and the notion that Biden doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

Biden spent the weekend in Wilmington, Delaware, with his family. If there is popularity to be transferred from Obama to anyone, Biden believes it’s him.

The scuttlebutt in Washington is that Vice President Joe Biden is going to throw his hat into the presidential race, which means there is at least a 50 percent chance that he will. I mean, when is the Beltway scuttlebutt ever wrong?

Julie Hirshfeld Davis of The New York Times shared reporting on how the President and his team view the 2016 stakes and the question of when he should and shouldn’t speak up.

Plus, whether Joe Biden can count on the union label, and a shiny new gift for the next president – assuming he or she can win a second term.