Biden visits New Hampshire with diminished expectations for 2016
“I need a hug, too,” exclaimed Sullivan, whose granddaughter works at the company.
Yet the diminished expectations he faces were impossible to ignore. As Obama attended high-profile, war-and-peace-level summits in Europe, Biden came to New Hampshire to talk about workforce training. In polls, the vast majority of voters say they back Hillary Rodham Clinton as the Democratic nominee, and a surprisingly large number say they would never consider Biden.
The lack of fanfare was underscored by Biden’s arrival on an unusually small jet, with none of the planes that usually serve the vice president available to bring him to this politically critical state.
“It’s a very strange situation that he’s not considered an immediate front-runner for the 2016 primary,” said Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.
Biden’s friends say he doesn’t begrudge his predicament. Rather, he believes that serving Obama as well as possible is his ticket to victory in 2016 — assuming, that is, he runs at all.
“He has said, ‘Whatever I want to do with my future is accomplished by being the best vice president I could be,’ ” said former senator Ted Kaufman of Delaware, a longtime friend and adviser. “People misread him to think he’s looking at all these things from the political side. The politics should take care of itself.”
Here in Nashua on Tuesday, Biden showcased his latest high-profile responsibility in the administration, touring a job-training center. He also raised money for Democratic Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Ann Kuster, and Gov. Maggie Hassan.
“The reason we’re here — notwithstanding what others might think — is the simple proposition: You run the best outfit in the country,” Biden told Hassan at the training center, which has received plaudits for steering unemployed workers into jobs. “No, I really mean it. We’re trying to replicate what you’re doing here so well.”
Earlier in the day, asked if he would rule out a presidential bid, he told reporters, “I’m here about jobs” — but, he added, “not mine.”
The job-training focus comes after Biden was responsible last year for coordinating the administration’s efforts to tighten gun regulations. He oversaw roughly two dozen executive actions but also the failure of background-check legislation in the Senate.
In the first term, he was best known for overseeing stimulus spending, for which he won high marks, and for shepherding the White House’s review of Iraq policy.
Aides say the new focus on workforce training reflects Biden’s interests — especially his longtime advocacy of measures to boost flagging U.S. manufacturing — as well as the assignment from the president. And they add that he has an unusual knack for coordinating efforts across a wide array of agencies.
“Like the VP has said, no one has ever won an election from a job-training program. Job training per se is not politically sexy,” a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal thinking about the job-training focus. “To him this is about good middle-class jobs in the new economy.”
Biden’s visit to a local manufacturing company and the job-training center was both a reminder of his endearing political style and a preview of the message he might deliver as the Obama presidency winds down.
“The president and I look at this now in two phases,” Biden said. “One is making sure all the people who lost jobs and are seeking jobs have access to get a good job. But it’s a little more than that. We’re looking at how do you widen the aperture to the middle class. The truth is access to the middle class has been shrinking for more than eight years before we took office.”
Biden combined that dire assessment with a dose of optimism. “I got elected, when I was a 29-year-old kid, to the Senate, and I was called an optimist. I’m more optimistic about America’s future today relative to the world than I have ever been in my life,” he said. “And the key is having the best-educated population in the world that is connected to the major new industries and needs this country can experience in the next year to the next decade.”
While Biden still attracts a decent crowd in the Granite State, early polling suggests that New Hampshire could be a problem if he runs for president.
The January 2014 WMUR Granite State Poll by the University of New Hampshire found that 74 percent of voters would support Clinton in the primary, vs. 10 percent who would back Biden. (New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia rounded out the rest with 2 percent and 1 percent, respectively.)
Worse for Biden, 16 percent of voters said they would not vote for him, compared with 5 percent who said they would not vote for Clinton.
“He’s got trouble,” said Andrew Smith, who runs the poll.
But Kathy Sullivan, a former chairwoman of the state Democratic Party and a Clinton supporter, said all hope is not lost.
“People are in a wait-and-see mode,” she said. “We don’t know if Hillary Clinton’s going to run.”
If Biden is interested, she added, “he’s certainly doing things that make sense, like coming up to New Hampshire. It keeps his options open. That’s the only thing anybody can do right now.”
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