Lincoln Chafee: Biden Is Definitely Running

This morning former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee appeared on CNN where he said that he believes Joe Biden will enter the presidential race. Chafee pointed to several recent joint appearances of Biden and President Obama, which have raised Biden’s profile. Chafee also noted yesterday’s statement by White House spokesman Josh Earnest. The Guardian has more about that:

Earnest told reporters that Obama’s decision to appoint Biden as his running mate in 2008 was “the smartest decision he’s ever made in politics”. “That should give you some sense of the president’s view of Vice-President Biden’s aptitude for the top job,” Josh Earnest said. It was not the first time Obama had expressed that sentiment about his vice-president, but the carefully chosen words from his spokesman hinted that Obama’s regard for and loyalty to Biden is unparalleled. The tenor of the remarks will lead to questions over whether Obama would spurn Clinton, the former secretary of state he defeated in the 2009 primary, for Biden. Obama said Clinton “would be an excellent president” earlier this year but stopped short of fully endorsing her candidacy. Earnest said on Monday that he could not rule out Obama endorsing one of the candidates in the Democratic primary, and said everyone was “pretty interested to find out” whether Biden would enter the race, a decision he has indicated he will make before the end of the summer. “The vice-president is somebody who has already run for president twice, he has already been on a national ticket through two election cycles now, both through 2008 and the re-election of 2012,” Earnest added. “So I think you could make the case that there is probably nobody in American politics today who has a better understanding of exactly what is required to mount a successful, national, presidential campaign.”

After the CNN host pointed out that Chafee is not registering in the current polls, he responded with a sideways jab at Hillary Clinton, saying that he’d never had a scandal in his 30 years as a politician.