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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-09/biden-hugs-deals-way-back-to-white-house-contention.html

[image: Joe Biden 2016]

Illustration by Jason Polan
Loyal Joe Biden Is a Presidential Contender
By Ezra Klein <http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/ezra-klein/> Jan 9, 2013
6:30 PM ET

For a 70-year-old man, U.S. Vice President Joe
Biden<http://topics.bloomberg.com/joe-biden/> sure
spends an awful lot of time winning the Internet. No other living
politician has quite the same ratio of words spoken to memes inspired. Last
week’s contribution<http://theweek.com/article/index/238396/watch-joe-bidens-wackiest-one-liners-from-swearing-in-the-113th-congress>
was
the patter of joyously weird, occasionally creepy, one-liners he threw off
while swearing in the 113th Senate.

“Spread your legs!” He told Senator Heidi Heitkamp’s husband. “You’re gonna
be frisked!”

“Mom, I’ll see you in a little bit,” he winked to SenatorBob
Casey<http://topics.bloomberg.com/bob-casey/>’s
mother (he called all the mothers “mom”). “I hope I’ll sneak over and see
you.”

Senator Tim Scott <http://topics.bloomberg.com/tim-scott/>’s brother, a
former football player, got this instant classic: “Need any help on your
pecs, man, give me a call.” Senator Orrin
Hatch<http://topics.bloomberg.com/orrin-hatch/>’s
granddaughter was advised: “No serious guys until you’re 30.” To the
brunette alongside Senator Robert
Menendez<http://topics.bloomberg.com/robert-menendez/>,
it was: “You are so pretty. God love you. Holy mackerel.” At one point,
Biden turned to the crowd in the gallery above. “Anybody else want to be
sworn in as a senator today?”

You could no more imagine President Barack
Obama<http://topics.bloomberg.com/barack-obama/>delivering
these lines -- save maybe the “pecs” one -- than imagine him eating pork
rinds while watching “Two and a Half Men” enfolded in a Snuggie. Obama
doesn’t do backslapping bonhomie. But people love watching Biden do it.
(Have you seen the
gif<http://wonklife.tumblr.com/post/39797439482/buzzfeed-gifhound-this-is-how-joe-biden>,
“This Is How Joe Biden Greets Babies”? Amazing.) That’s why the White House
website is featuring a
petition<https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/authorize-production-recurring-television-program-featuring-vice-president-joe-biden/jpRs7Fcp?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl>
to
let Biden star in his own reality show. It’s a good idea, I think. Why
don’t we call it the 2016 presidential campaign?
Zany, Ambitious

In the continuing drama that is the Obama presidency, Biden often appears
as comic relief. He’s the zany neighbor, the adorable uncle. As a result,
his presidential ambitions, whichburn
brightly<http://www.tnr.com/article/magazine/politics/106491/joe-biden-still-wants-presidency-2016>
even
today, have mostly been laughed off. Somehow, the sitting vice president of
the United States <http://topics.bloomberg.com/united-states/>, the former
chairman of both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate
Judiciary Committee, a man who’s on a nickname basis with many of the
world’s most powerful leaders, is seen in many quarters as lacking the
gravitas to be president.

Yet just a few days before he was giving dating advice on C-SPAN2, Biden
again proved himself perhaps the most effective member of the Obama
administration. He reprised his role as the White House closer, the guy who
can cut a deal with the Republicans after everyone else has failed. In the
end, Biden got Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell<http://topics.bloomberg.com/mitch-mcconnell/> to
strike a deal that the White House was happy with. That’s something neither
Obama nor Treasury Secretary Tim
Geithner<http://topics.bloomberg.com/tim-geithner/> had
achieved. And it wasn’t the first time. Biden also helped close the 2011
deal that lifted the debt ceiling and the 2010 deal that extended the Bush
tax cuts in return for fresh stimulus.

Biden’s skills as a campaigner are also considerable. According to Nielsen,
his speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention won better television
ratings<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/joe-biden-mitt-romney-president-obama-bill-clinton-clint-eastwood-watched-convention-speaker-landslide-article-1.1164169>
than
the addresses of either Bill
Clinton<http://topics.bloomberg.com/bill-clinton/> or
Obama (or Republicans Mitt Romney
<http://topics.bloomberg.com/mitt-romney/> and
Representative Paul Ryan <http://topics.bloomberg.com/paul-ryan/>, for that
matter). His debate performance against Ryan bucked up anxious Democrats
and arguably stanched the bleeding from Obama’s hapless initial appearance
against Romney.

As a policy maker, Biden’s reputation is more mixed. Those who’ve worked
closely with him describe a dedicated workhorse eager to master details.
Unlike Obama, however, who grasps policy minutia instantly, Biden doesn’t
naturally think in charts and tables. At times, Biden goes with his gut
rather than the evidence, a tendency that can lead him to embrace bad
policy that sounds good. On the other hand, he is also known for choosing
some of the best and most substantive staff members in
Washington<http://topics.bloomberg.com/washington/>.
A politician allergic to policy doesn’t surround himself with the wonky
likes of Ted Kaufman, Ron Klain <http://topics.bloomberg.com/ron-klain/>, Jared
Bernstein <http://topics.bloomberg.com/jared-bernstein/>and Bruce Reed.
Top Cop

Biden has also proved himself an effective and trusted manager in the Obama
administration. He was named top cop on the stimulus -- “Nobody messes with
Joe,” Obama grinned when appointing him -- and the funds were spent on time
and shockingly free of graft and fraud. Subsequently, Obama put him in
charge of other crucial tasks, including the current push for a viable
package of gun-control policies, in which Biden just succeeded in bringing
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to the table.

If Biden can’t quite match Obama’s policy chops, he has an ease with other
politicians that the president hasn’t mastered. In negotiations, Obama’s
policy-centric approach is arguably a hindrance, leading him to spend much
of his time lecturing Republicans about the myriad ways in which they’re
wrong. That Obama is often right on the policy merits doesn’t diminish
Republican feelings that a trip to the Oval Office is a date with
condescension.

Biden produces different results. His success in negotiating with McConnell
might be partly attributable to the Republican
Party<http://topics.bloomberg.com/republican-party/>’s
loathing of Obama -- repeatedly bypassing Obama in favor of his vice
president is, after all, a kind of insult to the president -- but it’s also
attributable to the fact that Republicans like Biden and feel he treats
them fairly. “Does anyone down there know how to make a deal?” McConnell
drawled when he called Biden to resolve the fiscal cliff. It was a
rhetorical question, to which both men knew the answer: “Biden.”

A bit over four years ago, Obama was elected on a promise to change
Washington. He and his team argued that what politics needed was something
new -- a post-partisan, post-boomer, post- racial president who could help
the country move past old antagonisms and into a more united future. The
Obama administration has had many successes, but ratcheting down
partisanship isn’t one.

The irony, of course, is that the one bright spot in the White House’s
dealings with Republicans has been Biden’s old- school, back-slapping,
Senate-steeped, Washington-lifer approach. Turns out that sometimes an old
dog knows the right tricks.

So don’t laugh when you hear that Biden wants to run for president. Biden
is one of the most successful vice presidents in history, and one of the
most successful politicians of a very difficult era. He may sometimes make
himself a punch line, but he has the record of a heavyweight