Joseph Biden the United States Vice President has harbored dreams for years of being the president. He has run twice previously, clearly loves political life and has not yet ruled out his third attempt, even though Hillary Clinton is dominating the fundraising and the polls for Democrats.
Following the death of his son on May 30, talk of running for president took a back seat, but recently speculation of his possible run has begun to soar.
Jon Cooper a businessman in New York and a former fundraising bundler for Obama is working on an effort to get the VP into the presidential race and said that he puts the odds at 80% that Biden will run.
Cooper has sounded out possible donors and said he already had commitments from five contributors of Obama. On Thursday, he agreed to be national finance chair for an effort named Draft Biden 2016.
The independent effort launched this past March is based in Chicago and has collected over 100,000 signatures. It now has people on the ground in the first nominating states such as Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire.
The group also hired a national firm that specializes in fundraising.
Biden could find some encouragement from a new national poll that on Wednesday indicated that even without doing any campaigning the VP is second amongst Democrats with 16%.
He is far behind Clinton at 57%, but is tied with Bernie Sanders who has campaigned hard for quite some time.
Even more important is that Biden is the second choice amongst national Democrats with 35% saying he would be their second pick with 14% choosing Sanders. If Clinton faltered, the second choice for the Democrats would be the big beneficiary.
Earlier in the week, another report quoted friends of Biden by name saying that prior to his son’s death; he had encouraged his father to run as has Hunter his younger son.
