WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden successfully pressed former Senate colleague Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania to abandon the GOP and become a Democrat. The vice president also helped ensure that newly appointed New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand won’t face a Democratic primary.
And this fall, Biden’s schedule is packed with fundraisers for two Democrats in upcoming governors’ races and for a slew of House freshmen and other vulnerable members of Congress as well as longtime friends and troubled incumbents in the Senate — a full year before 2010 mid-term congressional elections.
No stranger to campaigning, Biden has become a political workhorse for President Barack Obama. The former Delaware senator is spending roughly a quarter of his time on electoral politics as Democrats defend gubernatorial seats in Virginia and New Jersey this fall and prepare to protect their comfortable majorities in Congress next fall.
Unlike Obama, who is handling a full plate of policy issues and has been in Washington just five years, Biden has the time to devote to campaigns and to the long relationships he’s cultivated during his 36 years in the Senate. The vice president also appeals to voting demographics that sometimes were cool to Obama during the presidential campaign and that are pivotal constituencies: working-class whites, independents and senior citizens among them.
“He has a little more freedom and flexibility to do things than the president does,” said Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff.
“There are places where you probably can’t employ the president, things that are harder for the president to do and easier for the vice president to do.”
All told, Biden will have hosted at least 48 events in at least 22 states and Washington between March, when he headlined an event in Little Rock, Ark., for Sen. Blanche Lincoln, and Nov. 21, when he speaks at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson dinner.
He’s fundraising for party campaign committees as well as for individuals at the direction of the White House and at the request of old friends.
In one recent week alone, he held events for Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes in Greenwich, Conn., New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes in New York, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine in Atlantic City, North Carolina Rep. Larry Kissell in Washington, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds in Virginia.
“He’s having an impact all over the country,” White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said. “The vice president can go anywhere. His range is diverse.”
Although Obama has done a few events, Biden is picking up the slack like his predecessors have done. But unlike some of them, namely Al Gore and Dick Cheney, Biden is doing it with a grin. He clearly loves the backslapping, chat-’em-up part of politics. It’s what attracted Iowans to him in the 2008 Democratic primary. And it’s part of what endeared supporters to him during the general election.
It’s also what stokes speculation of a Biden presidential run in 2016, assuming Obama seeks and wins a second term. Still, while Biden has left the door open, it’s unlikely. He would be nearly 74 on Election Day 2016, and Klain says, “There is no one who works in this office that spends a single minute of the day thinking about 2016.”
