Joe Biden still wants to be president. Can his family endure one last campaign?

7/30/17
 
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from The Washington Post,
7/30/17:

The new house is on the edge of Cape Henlopen State Park, just north of the boardwalk: three stories, six bedrooms, three fireplaces and an expansive view of the Atlantic Ocean.

The new owners are Joe and Jill Biden, rich for the first time in their lives, thanks to a three-book publishing deal — two by him, one by her — that allowed them to purchase the $2 million vacation home in this beachiest of beach towns.

But if you think that sounds like a man ready for that golden political afterlife where time is finally your own and nothing is on the line, you’re wrong. Since Joe left public life in January, the Bidens have never been more public.

The last six months have seen the formation of the Biden Foundation, a way for Joe and Jill to support their pet causes, and the Biden Cancer Initiative to honor Beau. The University of Pennsylvania inaugurated the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement to study international issues, and the University of Delaware the Biden Institute for domestic initiatives.

Last — but not least — there’s a new political action committee, American Possibilities, a vehicle for raising money for Democratic candidates.

And maybe for one last try at the White House in 2020.

“Do I regret not being president?” Joe said this spring. “Yes.”

The story behind that decision— Beau’s illness, his death in May 2015, and the announcement that October that Joe would not seek the Democratic nomination — is the subject of “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose.” The memoir comes out Nov. 14, and every stop on the book tour will undoubtedly include a variation of “What if?”

With Washington in chaos and the Democrats without a standard-bearer, Joe Biden is arguably the most popular former vice president in history. His wife got a standing ovation when she appeared as a presenter at this year’s Tony Awards. Earlier this month , there was an excited buzz when the couple walked into Manhattan’s Music Box Theatrer to see “Dear Evan Hansen.”

But there was also the recent bitter and very public divorce of their younger son, Hunter, and the scandalous news of his affair with Beau’s widow, Hallie, a stain on the perfect family portrait.

Conventional political wisdom says that Joe, now 74, is too old to run for president again. But American voters, it seems, don’t really care about conventional wisdom anymore.

So the real question is: What next?

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