The "Who is running?" tea leaves thread (Part 2)

[RogueBeaver]

Biden "much more likely than not" to run, possibly announcing in early October. He's invited major donors for a Naval Observatory meeting in a couple of weeks.

[RogueBeaver]

Somehow I thought she had already endorsed Hillary. Hopefully she'll endorse Sanders.

She signed the female senators' 2013 letter encouraging Hillary to run.

[The Other Castro]

[Simfan34]

[Maxwell]

Endorsed. I'm Team Biden atm.

[Likely Voter]

Somehow I thought she had already endorsed Hillary. Hopefully she'll endorse Sanders.

I think Warren wont endorse anyone. Her heart may be with Bernie but her head knows that Hillary is the most likely nominee and potential President. Which means she doesn't want to get on Hillary's bad side when it comes to speaking at the DNC and (more importantly) working with the future Clinton admin on her agenda in the Senate.

[SteveRogers]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/us/politics/joe-biden-isnt-sure-family-is-ready-for-run.html?_r=0

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[Mr. Morden]

Clinton campaign trying to downplay Biden talk:

http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-quietly-trying-discourage-biden-2016-bid-071306799--election.html

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[Crumpets]

89% of Politico's "Iowa Democratic insiders" say Biden won't run, and 80% of their New Hampshire insiders say he wont. Basically, according to the article, there's not enough available campaign infrastructure or donors.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/joe-biden-president-2016-decision-213103

[Mr. Morden]

Biden’s speaking tour:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/bidens-fla-address-sounds-like-stump-speech-213280

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[Mr. Morden]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/04/us-usa-election-biden-run-idUSKCN0R404420150904

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[Simfan34]

That doesn't sound like a yes at all.

[Tender Branson]

Lessig said he'll jump in if he can raise 1 Mio. $ by Labor Day.

This is in 3 days and he now has 860.000 $, according to the clock on his website ...

[Mr. Morden]

Biden decision may not come until "well into the fall":

http://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-decision-on-a-presidential-bid-could-take-a-while-1441396800

[Torie]

Is Biden waiting until he has a better idea of the likelihood of Hillary being indicted?  O'Reilly had a former attorney general on, Mukasi (sp), and he said if it is ever found that government related emails were wiped off the computer, that is a felony. Improper storage of confidential emails is a misdemeanor, which is what tanked Petraeus. Maybe a condition precedent of Biden running is the development of real panic of Hillary's legal status in Dem circles. As it is, there is deep concern about it.

[Mr. Morden]

Is Biden waiting until he has a better idea of the likelihood of Hillary being indicted?

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-20/joe-biden-s-perpetual-trial-balloon

[Mr. Morden]

Does Jill want Joe to run or not?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/biden-jill-joe-2016-elections-213428

[Mr. Morden]

NYT on Democratic Party elders weighing “Plan B”…Kerry 2016?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/us/politics/big-name-plan-bs-for-democrats-concerned-about-hillary-clinton.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

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[Mr. Morden]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/10/in-emotional-talk-with-colbert-biden-expresses-uncertainty-about-white-house-bid/

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[Tender Branson]

Doesn't really sound like he'll be in ...

[Mr. Morden]

Biden meets with a top Obama bundler during New York City trip:

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-09-14/biden-secretly-met-with-top-obama-bundler-during-new-york-swing

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[The Other Castro]

The article also notes that Bidenworld is considering a new late-October/early-November timetable for announcing.

[Likely Voter]

I think team Biden wants him to come in as a savior, which means they need to come in after a complete collapse of establishment support for Hillary. They want it to be something like when the GOP establishment panicked over Romney and tried to get Christie in the race four years ago.  The problem is that the Dem establishment may be nervous about Hillary but they arent yet in a full panic. So Biden is waiting for his moment, but that moment may never come. And as pointed out by First Read today, the longer they wait the harder it becomes due to the huge amount of money required to campaign as vice president (the campaign has to pay for Air Force Two to fly around for example).

[Simfan34]

Actually, the use of Air Force planes for campaigning represents a well-known perk for incumbents. They have to reimburse the government for them, yes, but they pay based on the going price of a first-class airplane ticket, which means the total payment is substantially less than what the trip actually cost (Air Force One costs around $200,000 an hour to operate, IIRC--around what it would cost to fly 100 people transcontinental round-trip in business class).

Furthermore, campaigns only have to pay for specified campaign members (and not, say, the Secret Service). Alternatively, they could append a nominal token official event that they could claim was the primary purpose of their trip (and avoiding having to pay any kind of reimbursement at all) which means there's a lot of grey area as to who or what exactly counts as part of the campaign, which the incumbents' campaigns are able to take advantage of.

But if Obama wanted it to make it harder for Biden to run, he could decide to enforce more rigorous restrictions on official plane usage.

EDIT: The flipside of this is, though, if incumbents were compelled to fully reimburse the government for their travel expenses, the perk would turn into a prohibitive burden on campaigning, as every campaign stop would now cost several million dollars. Keep in mind the cost of the Secret Service, the limousine, and the cost of flying a C-47 Globemaster carrying the limousine, and you can see how it'd become utterly impossible for any incumbent to campaign at all. Telling an incumbent to charter a jet and rent a car is not plausible, either-- no one is going to consider "he was campaigning" a satisfactory answer as to why the President was hurt in an attack or incommunicado during a crisis.

[Likely Voter]

The rules changed regarding incumbent campaign travel

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/politics/presidential-vs-political-trips-a-blurry-line-for-obama.html

One of the reasons today NBC First Read noted:

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http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read-what-has-changed-heading-second-gop-debate-n426856