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Biden's family is urging him to run in 2020

Biden's family is urging him to run in 2020
Biden's family is urging him to run in 2020

NEWARK, Del. — Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that there’s “a consensus” in his family that he should run for president, but Biden said he did not want to embark on “a fool’s errand” and was still deliberating about whether to enter the race for the Democratic nomination.

“The most important people in my life want me to run,” Biden said, disclosing that he had a family meeting this month, which included his grandchildren, to discuss whether he should mount what would be his third presidential bid.

In the most detailed and unvarnished accounting yet of his thinking, the former vice president outlined a series of concerns about running. They included whether he would be able to garner enough money and support, and the nastiness of the campaign he predicted President Donald Trump would run against whomever Democrats nominate.

“It would be the greatest honor of my life to be president of the United States, but it’s also something I have to make sure I could run a first-rate effort to do this,” he said.

It is not clear that Biden planned to speak, at least at such length, about the possibility of running. He was appearing before about 300 people at the University of Delaware to celebrate the naming of the Joseph R. Biden Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration. And he sat on stage for a conversation with historian Jon Meacham about Meacham’s book, “The Soul of America,” which examines how the country overcame periods of division and turmoil.

But after the two spoke for more than an hour, Meacham asked Biden directly about his intentions. (Meacham told Biden before the session that he planned to raise the 2020 question, according to an official familiar with their conversation.) The 76-year-old former vice president — who has led in early Democratic primary polls — initially hesitated, praising an audience he said was mostly composed of Delawareans who knew him well. But that only prompted some in the crowd to stir.

“Come on, say it!” one woman shouted.

Biden said he was “being prodded” by his wife and two children but acknowledged he had been uneasy about “taking the family through what would be a very, very, very difficult campaign” against Trump. “I don’t think he’s likely to stop at anything, whomever he runs against,” Biden said.

Some of the former vice president’s closest advisers are concerned about how he may react to Trump’s barbs, particularly if the president invokes the death of Biden’s son Beau, and the relationship between his other son, Hunter, and Beau’s widow.

Yet Biden made clear that he was just as focused on his prospects in the Democratic race as he was on Trump. He noted that the rise of social media had dramatically changed campaigns in the decade since he and former President Barack Obama ran, and he said he was taking briefings from “the most advanced people in the country” about how to run a sophisticated race.

And he said he wanted to fund any race on his own terms.

“I will not “be part of any super PAC,” he said to applause, a posture other Democratic contenders have taken.

Biden said he has gotten encouragement from key Democratic donors, as well as “some major Republican folks.”

But he wondered out loud about the “alleged appeal that I have,” saying that before he committed to running he wanted to know “How deep does it run? Is it real?”

At one point he almost seemed to be trying to talk himself into it — “I think we can,” he said — before he was met with another plea from the audience. “Oh god, just say yes!” a supported yelled.

He said he was in “the final stages” of deciding. And in a brief interview after the event, Biden said that, if he ran, he would begin his campaign in the second quarter of this year, which could mean as early as April.

But Biden has been creating and blowing past his own self-imposed deadlines for months, and few of the aides who were in attendance dared to hazard a guess as to when he may ultimately decide.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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