After Warren meeting, signs mount that Biden will run

As Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign faces challenges, signs are mounting that Vice President Joe Biden may mount a run of his own.

On Saturday, Biden met with Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a favorite of the party’s liberal wing, for an hour-long lunch in his Washington, D.C., residence. The two discussed issues important to progressives and the primary campaign, NBC News reported. Biden did not directly ask Warren — who has so far rebuffed progressive calls for her to run — for her support.

“The opening for Joe Biden is, he’s the original authentic candidate,” Josh Alcorn, a senior adviser to Draft Biden 2016, told msnbc’s Luke Russert Monday.

Alcorn’s support for the Draft Biden movement may itself reveal growing openness to the idea of a run within the Biden camp. Alcorn worked as a top aide to Beau Biden, the vice president’s son who served as Delaware’s attorney general and died in late May of a brain tumor. According to reports, Beau Biden urged his father to run shortly before his death.

Asked Monday afternoon about a possible Biden run, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest seemed to encourage the idea. Earnest noted that President Obama has called his decision to add Biden to the ticket in 2008 “the smartest decision he had ever made in politics,” adding: “That should give you some sense of the president’s view of Vice President Biden’s aptitude for the top job.”

And Monday, Biden announced in a statement that he’d hired Kate Bedingfield as communications director for his vice presidential office. Bedingfield was a spokeswoman for John Edwards’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday evening that Biden is increasingly leaning toward running — if he can put together a competitive campaign.

“He’s honest, he’s trustworthy, he’s straightforward,” said [Howard Mandel, a Los Angeles doctor, Democratic fundraiser, and long-time Biden backer,] of Biden. He contrasted the vice president with Clinton, who he said has “lost the trustworthy issue.”

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