When he thought about making this race, his third for the big office, Joe Biden likely counted on one thing. It’s something that was owed him. Something he had earned and desperately wanted.
But he made a big mistake. He counted on another politician to do something that wasn’t in their interest. He counted on Barack Obama to endorse him. With that nod, donors and other endorsements would have flowed like milk and honey.
However, his former boss sold Biden out to the political ambitions of another, future, candidate: Michelle Obama. The Obamas will need all the help they can acquire to get Michelle to the Senate and then to the Oval Office. Taking sides in a hard fought primary season is not a smart way to get that help. So, Joe loses out on the endorsement and with it any chance at the presidency.
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Biden should have known this would happen and planned accordingly. After all, he worked next to Obama for eight years and saw how duplicitous and hypocritical the man was and is.
Anyway, Biden has been around long enough to know the rules of the game. Especially the one made famous by Harry Truman: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.
It didn’t even help that he was Obama’s dog for two terms. The weak loyalty that engendered to him from his former master gave Biden a bad finish in Iowa and a disastrous finish in New Hampshire. Now it gives him a political death watch.
Donors and media pals are leaving the building. The support of black leaders, that counts so much in Democratic southern primaries, is evaporating. They see the other campaign trains picking up stream and Biden’s stalling on the tracks. They do not want to left holding worthless tickets and are climbing aboard other locomotives before Super Tuesday. Maybe even before the South Carolina primary on the 29th of this month.
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It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Other veeps like Nixon, Johnson, and Bush the Elder had ascended to the throne. Why not him? Timing.
The other men ran right after they were veep and leveraged that to their eventual advantage. True, Biden ran only four years after he was veep. But the party had gone so far left in that short time it negated his elevated status.
And then Barack Obama sold him out.
And now it’s over.
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