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That approach carried risks. Biden missed the chance to recruit top-level aides, including former Obama advisers, women and people of color, because he had not formalized his campaign. He left urgent questions about his political vulnerabilities lingering, and he has not deployed researchers to review his vast record, because he has not hired any.
Still, the former vice president persisted with his unrushed strategy — until this past week, when it appeared to backfire in striking fashion.
Biden has faced accusations from multiple women who complained that his penchant for close physical contact made them feel uneasy. Rival Democrats demanded he account for his treatment of the women, and President Donald Trump lobbed taunts that offered a preview of how he might attack Biden in a 2020 general election.
It was a multiday crisis that seemed foreseeable. But despite almost five decades in the political arena, Biden, 76, did not have a fully staffed campaign in place to confront it.
He issued three statements and one online video attempting to explain his conduct, only to joke about the issue in a speech to a union conference Friday.
Biden showed no evident regret about his wait-and-wait-some-more strategy, explaining coyly that he would “give everybody else their day, then I get a shot.”
But Biden’s eventual announcement now seems fated to fall in the shadow of the recent allegations and the progressive concerns he has declined to address. Far from remaining above the fray, Biden will enter the campaign as bruised as any of the 16 other candidates in the race.
Amid the week’s chaos, Biden for the first time took several swift steps toward becoming a candidate: His allies have been told to expect an announcement after Easter.
Biden has used his time on the sideline to some advantage. Aides have put him through “murder board” sessions on his vulnerabilities and compiled documents detailing his accomplishments and weaknesses.
But if the attacks from Trump and his allies illustrated that Republicans are worried about facing Biden, the controversy has also shined a light on the risks Democrats would be taking in nominating him.
He does retain obvious strengths as a potential candidate: He is still at the top of the polls, albeit not quite as high as he was at the start of the year. Democratic voters view him in overwhelmingly favorable terms, as a thoroughly qualified commander in chief and an emblem of the Obama administration.
Yet his decision to wait on announcing his candidacy has come with a cost. Without a campaign in place, Biden has not done any polling to determine his most glaring liabilities or substantial assets.
John Morgan, a prominent Florida trial lawyer who raises money for Democrats, said he believed Biden’s authenticity would still connect powerfully with voters.
But, Morgan added, it was past time for Biden to make a decision about the race.
“There are two ways to get in a cold pool,” he said, ”toe by toe, or take a tequila shot and do a cannonball.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.