Is Joe Biden Going To Be Dumped As Obama's Running Mate?

Speculation is rife that Vice President Biden might be dumped as President Obama's running mate. and as Daniel Halper reveals, there's a closed door meeting being held by the president, Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is most often touted as Biden's possible successor.

Is Slo-Joe on the way out?

Biden never added much to the ticket, except when it came to True Believers. Delaware is a small state with few electoral votes and is almost as reliably Blue as Massachusetts. The original rationale was that Biden, a senator for thirty years was supposed to add gravitas and experience, particularly in foreign policy matters to a presidential candidate with few qualifications for office whatsoever.

Anyone familiar with Biden's record knew that was a real howler, since he's been proven wrong on almost every public question of foreign policy since he's been in the Senate. But that's how it was sold.

Biden's main liability is that he seems unable to keep his mouth shut. He showed that earlier by rushing President Obama into an early endorsement of same sex marriage, and his latest nonsense about how Republicans want to keep blacks in chains didn't win any points either as it forced the Obama campaign to cover for him on something they in fact likely believe, but would rather not have had to endorse publicly. And President Obama and his minions are also likely not looking forward to the spectacle of a debate between Biden and Paul Ryan.

So, is this going to lead to an ascension of Mrs. Clinton? It's possible.

The two scenarios would either involve *shudder* a job swap ('Joe's always wanted to be Secretary of State') or a sudden health problem for Biden, with Hillary ( or perhaps someone else) stepping up to the plate as a pinch hitter.

Ignoring exactly which scenario get's chosen,let's see how likely it is that President Obama would be able to plug Mrs. Clinton into the ticket.

From Hillary Clinton's standpoint, her first concern would be what she gets out of the deal.

She has her shriveled little heart set on running for president in 2016 if the wind's right, and hitching herself to President Obama's star only works towards that goal if he wins.

Mrs. Clinton has some decent generic approval ratings, but that's largely because President Obama took away most of her power as Secretary of State and demoted her to being a messenger girl. As such, she's been mostly out of the public eye.

If she plunges full on into a national campaign, it isn't going to take much to remind a lot of people about why they dislike her - the shrill voice, the serial prevaricating, the outright plastic and transparent phoniness. And other things from the past are likely to resurface.Even more important to her future ambitions, it would mean she would have to endorse the policies and platform of the most radical left wing administration in history, which could limit her ability to perform the famous Clinton triagulation con game four years from now. That last factoid is true whether she wins or loses.

So is the fact that if Obama loses, she's going to be blamed, which also doesn't bode well for 2016.

So aside from calculating how likely Barack Obama is likely to win re-election, she has to calculate what it costs her win or lose, and whether it's worth it.

From President Obama's standpoint there are also pluses and minuses, aside from the obvious fallout of getting rid of a running mate under pressure.

First of all, there's the knowledge that he already shafted Mrs. Clinton once when they made the deal for her to be Secretary of State and then took most of the office's functions away from her. If she agrees to help him now, there's going to be a stiff price involved, and it will be demanded that the price be something he can't easily just renege on.

Second, with Mrs. Clinton comes the baggage of Mr. Bill. It's one thing to have him speak at the convention as an ex-president, but it's something entirely different to have him actively involved in the campaign and if it's successful, the Obama-Clinton administration.

If it's one thing President Barack Hussein Obama dislikes, it's being outshined, and having Bill Clinton along for the ride is a guarantee of that. Remember the look on President Obama's face and his body language when Bill Clinton took over that press conference and essentially told the president to go play golf, he'd handle this?

Third, having Joe Biden 'retire' is going to cost something as well. He's no longer a Senator, has his own plans to run in 2016 and getting dumped from the ticket means those dreams are over. He will not go quietly without something outrageous to compensate him for the effective ending of his political career.

It's a desperation move, and much depends on how desperate the president is feeling. All in all, I put the likelihood of a switch at 50-50.

UPDATE: The White House has had spokeshole Jay Carney deny any rumors of Biden being dumped from the ticket. Perhaps someone's price couldn't quite be met, or their suspicions quelled.