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E-mail rekindles speculation on Biden run

Confidant lays out vision, style of a possible presidential campaign

Vice President Joe Biden reacted on Wednesday as reporters asked if he had made a decision on whether to run for president.SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Don’t count Joe out.

That’s the word from the conclave gathered to help Vice President Joe Biden decide whether to mount a presidential bid. A key member sent up a wisp of smoke to let the masses know that the Democratic field might not be set.

“A lot of you are being asked, and have asked me, about the direction and timing of the vice president’s thinking about a run for president,” Ted Kaufman, one of Biden’s closest advisers, wrote in an e-mail to longtime Biden supporters on Thursday night. “I am confident that the vice president is aware of the practical demands of making a final decision soon.”

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He also laid out a vision for what a Biden campaign would look like, the most public description to date of what the vice president’s message might be.

“If he runs, he will run because of his burning conviction that we need to fundamentally change the balance in our economy and the political structure to restore the ability of the middle class to get ahead,” Kaufman wrote.

He also hinted at how Biden’s style would differ from Clinton’s cautious campaign.

“And I think it’s fair to say, knowing him as we all do, that it won’t be a scripted affair — after all, it’s Joe,” Kaufman wrote.

The e-mail set off another frenzied round of speculation about the vice president’s intentions.

It came after Clinton had a stellar debate performance Tuesday night in Las Vegas that seemed to calm the nerves of some Democrats. They had worried about her viability because of her persistent failure to connect with voters on the campaign trail and her inability to get past questions over her use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.

Kaufman has considerable credibility in Biden’s orbit. He’s among the handful of advisers who has been in constant contact with the vice president. He was Biden’s chief of staff and was appointed to take over Biden’s Delaware Senate seat when he became vice president.

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His note went out to an e-mail list of “Biden alums” — a roster last used to communicate funeral arrangements to Biden’s friends after his son died in May. It was first reported by the Associated Press.

Biden, who has twice sought the presidency, was focused on his dying son during the first half of the year and didn’t make plans for a third run. In August, Biden began to put out feelers for a presidential bid and signaled he would decide by the end of September. After that deadline passed, supporters believed a decision would come by the first Democratic debate.

The lengthy Hamlet act has begun to worry donors and uncommitted activists in early primary states.

“People are saying, ‘We understand the hesitancy, but we do wish you’d make a decision soon,’ ” said New Hampshire state Representative Steve Shurtleff, who supported Biden in 2008 but hasn’t made an endorsement this year. Shurtleff believes Biden has only days left, not weeks, to decide.

Should Biden jump in within days, he could be launching his bid just as Clinton prepares to appear Thursday before a panel of House Republicans investigating her responses to the deaths of four Americans at a consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Biden would face difficulty catching up in campaign money and ground-level organization. Clinton raised $28 million from July through September and has $33 million in the bank. US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont vacuumed up $26 million, mostly in small donations from the party base.

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Sanders has been able to catch up with Clinton in the money game in part because he runs a lean campaign — pulling his own luggage through airports and cramming into economy seats. A campaign for a sitting vice president would be unable to skimp. Biden wouldn’t be able to fly commercial, according to Nicole Mainor, a spokeswoman for the US Secret Service.

If Biden did use Air Force Two, federal election rules require that he reimburse the government for campaign travel. Another option would be to use a private plane, like Clinton does, for air travel.

There are some donors-in-waiting — particularly in Boston, said Phil Johnston, a Democratic donor. “We know him here very well,” said Johnston. “Ted Kennedy and he were like brothers. So a lot of people who worked for Kennedy have a very positive feeling about him.”

Biden has sat on the sidelines pondering a presidential run in the past — only to decide to stay out of the race. During the summer of 2003, then-Senator John Kerry was worried that Biden would run. Kerry’s campaign already was facing a surprisingly strong bid from a populist outsider, Howard Dean.

If Biden takes the plunge, he would be months behind all of his competitors. At 72, he would be one of the older presidential candidates in the field. Only Sanders, at 74, is older. As vice president, he would be the candidate most connected to President Obama’s record, including a mammoth trade deal that’s proven deeply unpopular with segments of the Democratic base, especially organized labor.

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It’s been more than six decades since a sitting vice president tried and failed to win his party’s presidential nomination, according to Joel Goldstein, a professor at St. Louis University School of Law and vice presidential scholar.

That person was Alben Barkley, who was Harry Truman’s vice president.

Barkley lost, Goldstein said, for three main reasons: He got in the race too late, was considered too old, and he had trouble winning support from labor unions.


Annie Linskey can be reached at annie.linskey@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @annielinskey.