Joseph Biden is hoping his second campaign rollout goes a little better than his first. The Delaware Senator's second presidential bid got off to a rocky start in February when unfortunate comments he made to the New York Observer about his Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama overshadowed his official announcement. His description of Obama as "clean" and "articulate" drew many raised eyebrows and reinforced the common perception that the talkative Biden's foot is never very far from his mouth.
This week, Biden is taking a mulligan as he embarks on a media blitz to coincide with the release of his new autobiography "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics."
"I'm kind of looking at the publication of the book as the announcement cycle that we never had," said Biden's communications director Larry Rasky . The book tour will make Biden's face a fixture on television this week as he plows through the standard gauntlet of morning news, cable talk, and late night comedy. It will also make him a conspicuous absence from this weekend's Yearly Kos convention in Chicago. As his campaign manager makes clear in a post on the Daily Kos website, however, he will be the only Democratic candidate not attending because of the commitment to the publicity tour, not out of any objection to the Daily Kos community, as asserted by Bill O'Reilly.
The increased visibility comes at a crucial time for Biden. His plan to partition Iraq has been garnering praise, even from Bush administration officials who say the proposal to create three semi-autonomous states could wind up being close to the strategy the U.S. settles on. Furthermore, he received accolades for his performance in last Monday's debate continuing the run of glowing reviews he has gotten for his showings in the debates. If Biden is going to remain relevant in the campaign, this week would appear to be make or break.
The question is, however, why Biden finds himself in such a precarious position. If his position on the campaign's number one issue and his head-to-head comparisons with fellow candidates have been so strong, why does Biden continue to languish at 3% in the latest national polls, running dead even with Dennis Kucinich?
Biden's anemic fundraising is a dominant reason. He also has the overwhelming task of competing against several other strong candidates for the scraps of money and airtime not being swallowed up by the juggernaut campaigns of Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton. What does it say about the presidential process, however, when the campaign of a man who is the chair of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations during a time of intense international uncertainty can not get taken seriously?
Biden's hometown Wilmington News Journal highlights this frustration and illustrates the difficulties facing less prominent candidates in a campaign cycle fueled by an unprecedented amount of money:
"While courting potential donors for Sen. Joe Biden's presidential campaign, New York lawyer Jim Kreindler hears people call the Delaware Democrat a 'great guy' and say he'd make a 'great president.' Then comes the 'but' -- a small word that casts a big chill on Biden's fundraising efforts. Some say, 'I'm committed to Hillary, Obama or Edwards,' Kreindler said. Or they're more direct and simply say Biden can't win the Democratic nomination."
The perception that Biden "simply ... can't win the nomination" reinforces itself in media coverage like this; he can't win because he can't fundraise and he can't fundraise because he can't win. Chris Cillizza furthers this self-fulfilling logic in trying to decide who should be considered the fifth strongest candidate in the Democratic field:
"[Chris Dodd] is still very much a longshot for the nomination, but it's hard to make a convincing argument about who should replace him in the fifth spot. Sen. Joe Biden (Del.) has the most compelling case thanks to his strong debate performances, but his fundraising woes are public knowledge and it's hard to imagine him running a deep voter contact program in Iowa or New Hampshire."
Dodd is another long-serving and high-ranking Senator who must be frustrated by the ongoing debate about the "experience" of relative newcomers Obama and Clinton. In discussing last week's debates, Marc Ambinder highlights this frustration and has a telling quote about the discrepancy between the view of Biden the candidate and Biden the campaign:
"Chris Dodd and Joe Biden were heavyweights. It's frustrating to them and their advisers that they don't get more credit for the good nights they had. As one Edwards supporter put it in an e-mail: "Ok, so why is it every time I watch one of these, it takes me an hour to remember why Joe Biden wouldn't be a good president?"
One problem for Biden might be that even when praising the Senator, the media speculates that Biden is only in the race to put himself in a position to be selected for the next president's Cabinet. A piece on the proposed Iraq partition from the New York Times Week in Review that is decidedly pro-Biden nevertheless undercuts his campaign with this type of thinking before making a strong case for it:
"Is Joe Biden auditioning to be the next secretary of state? For the record, he says no. Actually, he said, 'Hell, no,' during an interview last week. But the thought isn't as far-fetched as it might seem, even though his poll numbers remain in the cellar among the Democratic presidential hopefuls. What he does have, that the other Democratic candidates don't, is a coherent proposal for dealing with the debacle in Iraq that is increasingly picking up steam. Foreign policy analysts, Capitol Hill politicians and even officials in the Bush administration have started sounding positive notes."
Writing in Time, Joe Klein writes a similarly postive piece that also dismisses Biden's chances, as well as harps on his long-winded nature, a trait that is endlessly stressed in his coverage:
"When the stubborn voters of Iowa and New Hampshire get around to picking and choosing, my guess is they won't choose Biden, because of a matter of style and a matter of substance. The matter of style is obvious: he talks too much, and often imprudently ... [Favoring continued war funding], sadly, is Biden's substantive liability. Democrats want to hear only one sentence about Iraq: I'll get out as soon as possible ... But Biden's message--that foreign policy is complicated, that Iraq and its consequences can't just be wished away, that a supple alternative to Republican overseas bullying must be found--is the most important of 2008. And it is the reason Joe Biden still adds real value to this campaign."