Minneapolis — Democratic National Committee (DNC) member Pete Gertonson had just stepped off a plane from Idaho when he got the call. On the other end of the line was a representative of the Draft Biden super PAC, urging him to attend a secretive meeting on the 23rd floor of Minneapolis’s Hilton hotel.
“Their message was, ‘Hey, don’t make up your mind, keep your options open,’” says Gertonson, who attended one of four shadowy confabs Draft Biden held far from the prying eyes of the Democratic masses attending the DNC’s summer meeting here. He says about 25 other delegates attended the same meeting.
Unlike many of the committee members at the DNC conference, Gertonson hasn’t yet decided on a presidential candidate. But though he was impressed by their “Ridin’ with Biden” chocolate bars, the nascent Biden campaign’s sales pitch left him underwhelmed.
“When I got here, and got off the plane and got that invitation, I went, ‘Ok, maybe there’s something more to this rumor,’” Gertonson says. “I came out of the room thinking, ‘It’s still a rumor.’ So I’m a little disappointed.”
“If they could’ve said ‘he’s going to announce one way or the other in a week, [so] stay tuned,’ if they could’ve said that to us, I’d be more excited,” he says.
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After weeks of breathless reports detailing the vice president’s meetings with key donors and advisers, the buzz around a Biden run going into the DNC’s Minneapolis conference was almost palpable. Reeling from weeks of bad news on her e-mail scandal and fending off reports of nervous Democrats feeling out alternatives to her damaged campaign, Hillary Clinton went into the meeting determined to smother the Biden speculation in its crib.
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She succeeded. During the meeting’s key Friday session, when four of the five declared candidates addressed the assembled DNC delegates, Biden was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley — whose own campaign is polling in the low single digits — stole the show with a fiery speech denouncing the DNC’s “rigged” debate schedule, turning press attention away from the Biden talk. Most DNC delegates weren’t even aware of Draft Biden’s presence at the meeting.
‘He needs to crap or get off the pot. The longer he stretches this thing out without announcing, the worse off he’s going to be. If he’s in it, go for it.’
The letdown was doubtless due in part to Biden’s conspicuous absence from the proceedings. But it also illustrated just how thoroughly Clinton’s camp has already locked up the Democratic establishment’s support. Her partisans were a proud, highly visible force throughout the three-day conference. And if the Draft Biden team was trying to sow seeds of doubt among the delegates, few seemed to notice.
“I wasn’t even aware of it,” says Virginia delegate Sandra Brandt of the Biden presence at the meeting. “He’s kind of behind the eight ball at this point, trying to raise money. . . . He’ll have to pick up a lot of folks. Most people have already committed.” Brandt, who is supporting Clinton, suggests that Biden probably won’t run — particularly if he heeds the lackluster reception his candidacy received here in Minneapolis.
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“I’m committed to Hillary at this juncture,” says George Wallace, another Virginia delegate and the mayor of Hampton, Va. He was also unaware that the Biden campaign was attempting to woo disaffected Clinton supporters, but was unmoved by the news. “It’s difficult to peel anybody off if you’re not committed,” he says.
Even delegates trying to remain scrupulously neutral seemed to gently nudge Biden away from a run. “He and his family have given so much to politics, and so much to the party, and so much to the American people for so long,” says Kerry Gooch, executive director of the Kansas Democratic party. “You couldn’t fault the guy for wanting to just take a step back and be done for a while.”
#related#Biden, still mourning the loss of his son, Beau, to brain cancer in May, has suggested he may postpone the final decision on a White House run for months — maybe until after the first debate in October or even the Iowa caucus in January. Though far behind Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in Democratic polls, Biden currently fares better than either in hypothetical general-election matchups against top Republicans.
Even so, Democratic delegates wishing for a viable alternative to derail Clinton’s coronation want an answer from the vice president sooner rather than later. “He needs to crap or get off the pot,” says Gertonson. “The longer he stretches this thing out without announcing, the worse off he’s going to be. If he’s in it, go for it.”
— Brendan Bordelon is a political reporter for National Review.