Subject: Talk of Biden bid grows louder among Iowa liberals
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>, "Alexander S. Mackler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2015 10:48:46 -0400

Talk of Biden bid grows louder among Iowa liberals

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/08/07/joe-biden-potential-presidential-run/31305453/

Talk of Biden bid grows louder among Iowa liberals

Bruce Hunter, one of Joe Biden's most loyal allies in Iowa, won't say
whether he thinks it's wise for the vice president to get in for 2016.

"It's not an easy decision. He's picking out a tombstone right now" for his
son, Hunter said.

Bryon Houlgrave/The Register

Vice President Joe Biden stopped for a cup of coffee and to chat with
Iowans at Smokey Row Coffee Shop in Des Moines in February, following his
speech at Drake University.

But chatter about Biden on the liberal grapevine in Iowa is getting louder
in the wake of news reports that Biden's older son Beau, before his death
in late May
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/31/beau-biden-death-iowa-remembrances/28269213/>
after a relapse of brain cancer, urged his father to seek the presidency.

"I'm with him for sure if he runs," said Hunter, a Democratic state
lawmaker from Des Moines who has been friends with Biden since the Hunter
family spent countless hours with him on the campaign trail in 2008.

Biden faces significant hurdles in Iowa if he decides to run. Some of his
old Iowa corps have held out for him, but certainly not all, according to
those in Biden's inner circle who keep in touch with his extended Iowa
network.

But it would be very difficult to pry away activists and operatives who
have already pledged to frontrunner Hillary Clinton, some of those who have
already scattered say.

And Biden is nearing the point where it's too late to organize an Iowa
caucus campaign, which requires a statewide army of campaign workers and
volunteers to ensure supporters turn out at a specific time on a cold
winter night. Politics watchers peg that point as around late September.
Campaigns usually need to be full strength by the Jefferson Jackson dinner
in late October. And the Democratic debate in Iowa follows quickly, on Nov.
14.

Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has laid claim on the far left to Iowa's
insurgency, high-energy wing. He has 11 offices and more than 40 staffers
doing the strenuous work teasing out commitments to attend Iowa's
first-in-the-nation presidential vote on Feb. 1. Clinton, a former U.S.
secretary of state with an even more forceful juggernaut campaign in Iowa,
has the center-left and establishment wing of the party. What does that
leave?

Biden, as a sitting vice president who has cultivated support in Iowa for
more than a quarter century, would immediately enter the presidential race
at 20 percent, Iowa insiders predicted.

"If the vice president enters the race, it would be a game changer, and the
dynamics would be dramatically different," said Jim Mowrer, a former
congressional candidate from Boone who became close with Beau Biden when
they both were in the military and has stayed close with the family. "I
wouldn't be surprised to see shifting endorsements and alliances based on
his long history and friendships in Iowa."

*MORE: *Full Iowa Caucus Coverage
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<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/12/coming-week-iowa-caucuses-app/21675179>
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<http://data.desmoinesregister.com/iowa-caucus/candidate-tracker/index.php>

*Iowans view Biden favorably, polls show*

Joe Biden hasn't topped 9 percent support in three Iowa Polls since
October, Des Moines Register records show. Clinton has consistently been
above 50 percent, even as Sanders has gained on her.

But an Iowa Poll conducted May 25-29,
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/06/01/iowa-poll-democrats-hillary-clinton-controversies/28279617/>
just days before Beau Biden's death on May 30, underscores Biden's
popularity here. He was viewed favorably by 76 percent of likely Democratic
caucusgoers.

Clinton had an 86 percent favorability rating. However, polls also show
vulnerabilities for Clinton. Some respondents characterize her as
untrustworthy and fear baggage from her long career in the public
limelight, such as questions over her use of a private email server as
secretary of state.

Dan Prymek of the Laborers' International Union of North America told the
Register that Biden is "a very good choice for folks who don't feel like
they're hearing what they want to hear from our current candidates. We hear
that from our members."

The union laborers want details on how to pay for infrastructure, said
Prymek, who lives in Waukee. They favor the Keystone XL pipeline expansion,
which Sanders and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley oppose, and which Clinton
refuses to weigh in on.

"She just hasn't given us an answer. She won't tell us," Prymek said.

Biden was "everybody's favorite second choice" in the 2008 caucuses, Prymek
said. It's possible he could become the first choice in 2016, he said.

Biden drew big crowds in Iowa in 2007, but never rose above single digits
in the Register's Iowa Polls of likely Democratic caucusgoers. He finished
in fifth place in a star-studded crowd, with only 0.9 percent of the caucus
votes.

The low total was partly because the Democratic caucuses require each
candidate to attract at least 15 percent to remain viable. When Biden fell
shy in caucus precincts, his supporters moved to another candidate. The
order of finish ahead of him: Barack Obama, John Edwards, Clinton and Bill
Richardson.

*Biden keeps in touch with Iowa backers*

A long-brewing reservoir of Iowa affection for Biden dates to his ill-fated
first presidential bid, said state Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids. As a
University of Iowa student in 1987, Hogg hopped a bus with 60 other
students to come to the Savery Hotel in Des Moines to see Biden announce
his campaign. Hogg endorsed Clinton in the 2008 race and is staying neutral
in the caucuses in 2016.

Good will doesn't necessarily translate into electoral commitment. But
Biden has never stopped working Iowans. He had disproportionately heavy
backing from the Iowa Legislature in 2008, and has telephoned those
lawmakers regularly over the years to check in on their families or to
bounce ideas off them, they said. When Des Moines Democrat Brian Meyer won
a special election to the Iowa House in 2013, Biden pinged him on his
cellphone to congratulate him.

Betty and Bruce Hunter have entertained the entire Biden family in their
home. They've dined together at Baratta's and Johnny's. Each time the
Hunters are in D.C., they swing by the White House "and he always takes
time to talk with you," Bruce Hunter said.

Biden likes to borrow Bruce's cellphone to call a 96-year-old Des Moines
activist whom he's particularly fond of. The Hunters have ridden in the
vice presidential limo ("Where are you heading? Why don't you just hop in
with me — I'm going that way"). And they've been aboard Air Force Two.

"Once you make friends with Joe, you're always friends with Joe," Bruce
Hunter said.

Loyalty means a great deal to Biden. Just one example: His short-lived 1987
campaign for the Iowa caucuses was marred by the resurfacing of plagiarism
accusations that occurred in the 1960s in his first year of law school at
Syracuse University. Biden tells a story about how much it means to him
that the university has long stood by him. He graduated in 1968, and has
been invited back four times to give commencement addresses.

If Biden runs, and if his Iowa allies were to defect to other presidential
camps, he would feel it deeply, friends said.

"I would hope that most everybody supporting him in the past will support
him in the future," Hunter said. "But it's a timing thing. People are going
to wait only so long."

*Past support won't carry over for some*

Abby Finkenauer, a state representative from Dubuque, campaigned for Biden
in 2007. But in June, she threw her weight behind Clinton — and was
featured in Elle magazine.

"(Clinton) has done amazing things (since) she was first lady, obviously,"
Finkenauer told Elle
<http://www.elle.com/culture/interviews/a28853/state-representative-abby-finkenauer-politics-run-for-office/>.
"And when it came down to this caucus decision, there really was no other
choice for me. It's not that she's a woman. It's that she's an advocate for
women."

George "Lynn" Pickard of Ankeny caucused for Biden in 2008.

"I like the guy, but he's tied to the Obama regime. How would he come out
with his own agenda and what would it look like?" said Pickard, an
independent voter who thinks Obamacare hasn't been such a healthy idea and
is displeased that Obama is more friendly to community colleges than other
educational options.

"But I'd listen to him," Pickard said of Biden.

John Campbell, 59, who works at the Bridgestone-Firestone tire
manufacturing plant in Des Moines, caucused for Edwards in 2008 because
that's who his union endorsed. But Campbell's personal affinity was always
for Biden. He remembers Biden traveling through a nasty ice storm to make
it to the Iowa Brown and Black Presidential Forum in 2007, then speaking so
frankly about race matters that Campbell told him afterward: "You're
insane! You told the American people the truth."

Campbell aches for Biden, who endured the loss of his first wife, Neilia,
and their 1-year-old daughter, Naomi, in a car accident in 1972, shortly
after Biden was first elected to the U.S. Senate. His young sons, Beau and
Hunter, were badly hurt. Biden took his oath of office at their bedside.

"The pain of the tragic loss he has suffered doesn't go away, but you do
survive, and for him, to achieve the things he's achieved — it's amazing,"
Campbell said.

But Campbell stopped short of saying he'd commit to Biden if he runs.

"I'm going to have to talk to him," he said. "I like what Bernie Sanders
has to say."

*Biden a frequent visitor to Iowa*

Joe Biden's friends have long known his interest in the Oval Office, noting
he never resists a chance to come to the presidential testing grounds of
Iowa.

*WELL-TRAVELED:* As a sitting vice president before the 2012 general
election, Biden stumped all over Iowa — Davenport, Dubuque, Clinton, Iowa
City, Burlington, Ottumwa, Grinnell, Muscatine, Waterloo, Ames, Fort Dodge,
Sioux City and Council Bluffs. When headlines popped up for a faux pas here
or there, Iowa Democrats laughed it off with comments like, "Oh, that's
just Uncle Joe."

*TELLING SLIP?* Iowans remember what they describe as the mischievous
Freudian slip Biden made in January 2013 when they gathered in D.C. for
Obama's inaugural ball.

"I am proud to be president of the United States," Biden told them. Beau
Biden interrupted the roar of laughter and cheers from the Iowans to say
his father had misspoken. Joe Biden, grinning, amended his comment to say
he was proud to be vice president, and even prouder to be Obama's vice
president.

*DROP-INS SINCE 2012:* Biden has flown to Iowa four times since the last
general election.

On Sept. 14, 2013, Biden spoke at the Harkin Steak Fry. Days earlier, on
Aug. 20, Beau Biden, then 44, had a procedure at a Texas cancer hospital,
then flew home to Delaware with his father aboard Air Force Two. At that
point, Iowa Democrats were speculating excitedly about the idea of Beau
Biden carrying on his father's legacy with a 2016 presidential bid.

*MOST RECENT VISIT: *In February this year, before any Democrats had
formally announced 2016 bids, Biden returned to Iowa. Officially, he was
traveling on government business. He used the half-day trip to reconnect
with some Iowans whose political strategy advice he trusts, but strictly
avoided touching on campaign politics.

He massaged a shoulder or two, hugged and pushed for details about their
well-being. He also clocked a very long speech about the accomplishments he
and Obama had logged, characterizing himself as a successful No. 2 who
helped take a country in shambles to "the precipice of a significant
resurgence" and had traveled the world as an almost duplicate secretary of
state.

"I have literally met every world leader in the past 35 to 40 years, for
real," he said.

When reporters grilled him about his 2016 intentions, Biden answered:
"That's a family personal decision that I'm going to make sometime at the
end of the summer."

Eric D. Schwerin
[email-masked]

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