Impatient for Beau
Beau Biden is enjoying his time home with his family, and tackling the AG’s office after a year away. Personally, I believe he will run and I believe the race, once underway, will not be close. But our 24 hour 7 days a week national media wanted their instant gratification yesterday.
Hotline On Call, the blog version of the National Journal, post the following with the headline “Where’s Beau Biden?”
DE AG Beau Biden may be the only chance Dems have to hang on to a Senate seat this year, and his silence on whether he will enter the race has become deafening.
Let me school Mr. Reid Wilson, the author of this post, on something. Delaware cares not about the schedule of political writers at the National Journal. I can tell you where Beau Biden is, he is home. With his family. He will announce sometime in January or February, after the holidays are over. I suspect he will wait until after the State of the Union, as Democrats will be riding a good news story in the press by them with the SOTU and the Healthcare Reform bill signing. Until then, of course there is silence. What else can he say except “No Comment.” For if he comments further on his intentions, that would be an announcement. And you want to save those kind of announcements until you got crowds surrounding you and a band behind you.
Indeed, look at the pained comments of staffers for various Democratic organizations. They know he is running but they can’t say it:
“He’s seriously thinking about it and hasn’t made a decision,” said Jason Miller, a spokesperson for the AG’s office. DE Dem spokesperson Katie Ellis added little to that vagueness: “What he’s said is pretty much what we know at this point,” she said.
“We fully hope and expect him to run,” says Eric Schultz, the DSCC’s communications director. He refused to discuss any recent conversations the DSCC has had with Biden or his allies.
The next part of the article deals with what Delaware Democrats would do if Biden sits this one out, painting it as an insurmountable task to defeat Castle without the last name Biden. Please. Matt Denn and Chris Coons can easily make this race just as Biden will, and they will do it by focusing on Castle’s right wing voting record. Given the tone of the article, you have to assume that someone at the DSCC is getting impatient, and off the record told Reid to write this story up to spur on Beau Biden.
Relax Beltway insiders. You will just have to wait.
Tags: Obama
well said!
“Mel Slawik, a Democratic county executive in the 1970s, was one who did go on to serve another term elsewhere, but it came from the sentence of a judge to a federal pen.”
http://www.delawaregrapevine.com/12-09A-G.asp
Doesn’t Beau at least have to be a community organizer or something first?
You may be right on both counts, but not even close will be our way when Christine runs away with the change vote.
I’m leaning toward betting that Beau will sit it out this time, calculating that Castle has at best one term left in him.
But I agree w/ you that Denn could give Castle a good race. I don’t think Coons could do well against Castle, though. All those NCC tax hikes would haunt him politically, however necessary they were notwithstanding.
I agree with Dana. The more you think about it, Obama has let the door wide open for Castle. The 2010 slogan for the Dem base is going to be “Why bother?” If Beau begs off I doubt you’ll see a Matt Denn or Chris Coons caliber challenger. The Delaware way rolls on.