WASHINGTON (AP) – In one minute, Joe Biden seems like a presidential candidate-in-waiting, eating up adoration from die-hard supporters who are pleading with him to run. The next minute, he seems light-years away from convincing himself he’s ready to run – a man still reeling from personal tragedy.
In painfully public fashion, Biden is wrestling with whether to close the curtain on a political career that’s spanned nearly half a century, or to fight one last fight for the job he’s always wanted. In a stroke of harsh irony, he’s at the height of his political popularity at the moment he’s least prepared to capitalize on it.
Confounding Biden’s decision about 2016 are emotional aftershocks from his son’s recent death, which Biden has begun to discuss publicly in a stunning instance of a politician unmasking his own frailty. This week he revealed that during a recent trip to Colorado, he “lost it” when a well-wisher brought up Beau Biden’s decorated military service in Iraq.
“You can’t do that,” Biden told talk-show host Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show.”
He was alluding to an unforgiving reality of American politics: Most voters want their presidential candidates to exude strength and self-certainty – not some of the time, but all of the time.