WSJ: The Biden-Obama Axis -- 'The Obama Network Wants Control of the Party They Won From the Clintons'

The Biden-Obama Axis

The Obama network wants control of the party they won from the Clintons.


By Daniel Henninger
Sept. 2, 2015
The Wall Street Journal


Here’s the short reason for the boomlet to get Joe Biden into the race: Hillary’s just not fun anymore.

Set aside whether she ever was. Let’s divide humanity into two groups: normal people and politicians. What makes the political class flutter about Joe Biden is a little different than what excites the rest of us.

On Labor Day weekend, more than 99% of the American population will unwind with family and friends, picnics, the beach and baseball. Not the politicians. Every elected politician in America, from Podunk town mayors to super PAC-backed candidates for the presidency will be pressing flesh with strangers. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is going to spend Friday afternoon with his new best friends in Contoocook, N.H.

Why do they do it? Because they love it. Politicking is the only thing they do. And standing nearby in politicking’s upper divisions this weekend will be aides, abandoning normal life for the same reason. They love it.

Where in this great political parade is Joe Biden? Vice President Biden has become the “Where’s Waldo?” of U.S. politics. Is he in the picture or isn’t he?

The case for Joe Biden disembarking permanently from the campaign train is strong. He’s not sure he has “the emotional fuel” for another presidential run, and no one can gainsay that for a father who has lost a son. Mr. Biden’s legacy is in decent shape; it wouldn’t be written that he went 0 for 3 chasing the presidency. Some 45 years after winning his first election to the county council of New Castle, Del., the Scranton Scrapper has earned a return to normal life.

Except . . . he’s a politician, and the Game beckons.

The Game is an elevated state of being, an addictive rush that keeps politicians running until the voters throw them out. Getting ego massages from the public keeps politicians, like pro athletes, in the Game past their time, but they also hang on for the competition and camaraderie, and never more so than in a campaign to get a shot at the presidency. What makes a George Pataki or Jim Gilmore get in? This is it.

Mr. Biden has been coy about running, and Joe Biden doesn’t do coy. The most suggestive take on whether Mr. Biden is in or out appeared in the Washington Post last week.

It was a piece about the network of Obama fundraisers—the “bundlers”—who are idling like top-fuel dragsters for a green light from Mr. Biden. By the Post’s analysis, some 770 people bundled donations for the Obama 2012 campaign. Guess how many have signed on as “Hillblazers” for Hillary? About 52.

The conventional explanation for the Biden boomlet is discomfort over Hillary’s email mess. Democrats want a hedge in case the ice splits beneath her. That’s part of it. A more compelling explanation is that a lot of the Obama network wants to take back control of the Game they won eight years ago.

The 2008 presidential primaries reorganized power in the Democratic Party. In early 2007, when freshman Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and household-name Hillary Clinton announced for the presidency, the Clinton political machine owned the Democratic Party. Barack Obama was a virtual nobody.

During those primaries and the Obama campaign that defeated Sen. John McCain, a new Democratic galaxy emerged—donors, operatives, volunteers, wealthy people who outrigged new progressive media sites. This Democratic generation disdained the Clinton machine. When Barack Obama won, they won.

Now it’s as if all that ideology, innovation and effort has rolled down the mountain. They’re defaulting to the same Clinton machine they thought they’d defeated. Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, John Podesta, Sidney Blumenthal, Lanny Davis—some of these people have been around since the Travelgate scandal at the dawn of the Clinton presidency. For the people who’ve been running the Democratic Party the past seven years, it’s 1993 all over again.

People commit to politics for reasons of ideology and even principle. But they also join the life because the Game is so much fun. The big thrill. With the Clinton wagons recircling, hundreds of skilled people who came to political and operational maturity with Barack Obama are being reduced to gofers or mere check-writers.

The Obama network now has three choices: Amuse themselves with Bernie Sanders, watch the presidential campaign on TV and mail in a loyalty vote, or . . . get Joe Biden to run.

It could be worse. Even from the sidelines, they can draw comfort in the Republican spectacle. Legendary Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis spoke for politicians everywhere when he said, “Just win, baby.” Right now, any Democrat might. The Republicans are carving a path to defeat no matter how grim the Clinton campaign gets.

What was turning into an intriguing, hard-fought contest between the Bush, Rubio, Kasich, Christie, Carson, Fiorina and other campaigns has become a weirded-out psychodrama between Donald Trump and his supporters. It’s great fun, too, but so, they say, is Russian roulette.


Article Link to the Wall Street Journal:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-obama-axis-1441234548

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