How Long Can Joe Biden Wait?
U.S. Vice President Joseph 'Joe' Biden attends a meeting with President Barack Obama, not pictured, and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, not pictured, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. 'This is obviously a challenging time in world affairs, particularly in the Middle East,' Obama told reporters, mentioning energy near the end of a list of topics that he and Salman would address. Photographer: Olivier Douliery/Bloomberg
Photographer: Olivier Douliery/BloombergSome longtime friends of Joe Biden and other Democratic donors, including ones who’ve been supporting Hillary Clinton, are preparing for the possibility the vice president may delay announcing whether he’ll run for president past an end-of-September timeline he and his advisers were targeting.
Biden and his advisers initially signaled that he'd make a decision by the end of this month, and an independent Draft Biden group has been building its fundraising and organizational strategy with that timeline in mind. His travels this week, his first overtly political trip since late-summer rumors began heating up about a possible Biden entry into the race, sent mixed signals. On the one hand it had many of the trappings of a campaign trip, putting Biden in front of key constituencies, but on the other he did not take advantage of obvious opportunities for tête-à-têtes with donors on his own behalf.