Move over, Donald Trump, the man of the hour is now Joe Biden according to the media. Several outlets are gleefully cheering the possibility of a Biden run to make the Democratic primary see somewhat interesting and they’re using every possible metric to entice the current Vice President into the race. NBC News is even going so far as to label Biden the “most popular candidate,” if he chooses to enter the race, of course.
Report from NBC News:
According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 40 percent of Americans have a positive impression of Biden, while 28 percent have a negative impression (+12).
That’s compared to fellow Democrats Bernie Sanders (+10) and Hillary Clinton (-8), and to top-tier GOP candidates Ben Carson (+8), Carly Fiorina (+7) and Donald Trump (-33).
Biden would also out-perform Clinton in hypothetical head-to-head general election matchups against top Republican presidential hopefuls.
If the 2016 election was held today, voters overall say they’d back Clinton over Trump by 10 points (49 percent to 39 percent), but the former secretary of state would be statistically tied with Fiorina (45 percent for Fiorina, compared to 44 percent for Clinton), Carson (46 percent for Carson, compared to 45 percent for Clinton), and former Florida governor Jeb Bush (44 percent for Bush, compared to 45 percent for Clinton).
But Biden would fare better, besting Bush by eight points (48 percent to 40 percent), Fiorina by six points (47 percent to 41 percent), Carson by eight points (49 percent to 41 percent), and Trump by 19 points (56 percent to 35 percent).
The polling makes it sound like Joe Biden’s popularity is in the stratosphere and if he wants the nomination, followed by the presidency, it’s there waiting for him. The one big issue, of course, is that Joe Biden is not presently a candidate. For some reason, voters seem to give positive marks to politicians before said politician decides to run for higher office. As soon as they announce, their popularity dips back to earth.
CNN has been one of the biggest offenders pushing the Biden-as-a-candidate agenda hoping to entice the Vice President to join the debate stage on October 13. This would be a boon for CNN since it would provide a strong opponent to debate Hillary Clinton which means better ratings for the broadcast.
I’m just not convinced Biden wants to bother with the whole thing yet. Perhaps he’s just burning as much time as possible so that he avoids the constant daily barrage of news stories and press inquiries.
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