Well, we finally know that Hillary Clinton is running for President. Now we need to find out if Beau Biden is running for Governor. It is the central question in Delaware politics, and really, no one knows the exact answer to it, just like no one really knows what medical condition the former Attorney General suffered back in August 2013. But we finally got some Beau Biden news on Friday that may shed some light on some answers. From the News Journal:
[Biden is] expanding his role at Grant & Eisenhofer, the Wilmington law firm he joined in January. […] Grant & Eisenhofer said that Biden will expand his work on behalf of whistleblowers represented by the firm. Stuart Grant, a prominent Biden donor and political ally, is the firm’s co-founder and managing director.
“We’re really excited for Beau to grow his work in the whistleblower group,” Grant said by email. “It’s a natural continuation of what he did as attorney general, and is something he’s already been working on since he joined the firm in January.”
Grant said the new work “doesn’t change anything for him politically. He will make an excellent governor.”
A Biden spokesman did not respond as to whether that assertion was true. Stuart Grant has every reason to sugar coat the truth. Indeed, as soon as Biden announces that he is not running, a certain amount of ‘cache’ will depart both Biden and the firm of Grant and Eisenhofer. And that assertion doesn’t sit right. The election is in 18 months. Any campaign by Biden will have to officially soon. It will be an open race that may possibly involve a primary. Our last open race with a primary had Jack Markell officially announcing his candidacy in June of 2007. That would be analogous to Biden launching his campaign in June of this year, or in less than two months.
And yet, we get an official signal that he is increasing his workload in the private sector rather than decreasing it so as to begin focusing on staffing and organizing a campaign for the top job in the state. Yeah, that doesn’t feel right. Especially when it appears that Biden hasn’t taken any steps to prepare for a campaign. He has not held any public events. And especially when you read the last three paragraphs of Jonathan Starkey’s piece:
New Castle County Executive Tom Gordon, another political ally of the Bidens, spoke with Beau Biden by phone as recently as last month, he said. Gordon said he urged the former attorney general to speak publicly about his campaign plans, and has asked to be a member of a formal campaign committee. “I said, ‘You need to get out and let people know you’re still running,'” recounted Gordon, who is expected to seek the governor’s office if Biden does not run.
“I’ve talked to his close friends who will be running the campaign and they say they’re getting ready for him to run,” Gordon said. “At some point they’ve got to start announcing where they’re going with the campaign.”
That is Gordon speaking out of turn to the press, and when have you seen that happen before with respect to the Bidens? Sounds like Gordon is getting quite impatient, probably because he knows he needs to be fundraising right now and Biden’s inaction freezes the field, and the money.
The Gordon quotes are the biggest piece of evidence we have to date that Beau Biden is not running. If Biden was going to run, and Gordon knew it, I think all Gordon would say to Starkey is that ‘Beau has plenty of time to form a campaign.’