DAVENPORT, Iowa Hillary Clinton came here Wednesday to sharpen her stump speech and, while she was at it, campaign for Bruce Braley for Senate.
Joe Biden came Monday to shake hands, pose for photos, wallop Republicans and try to convince the 150 people in an executive suite at the citys minor league ballpark that Braleys race is more important than either of the ones that put him and President Barack Obama in office.
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I look out on that field, and first thing I think is, Coach, put me in, man, Im ready to play, Biden said.
Most of the time, its not so hard to tell what Bidens thinking hes just said it. But even his inner circle doesnt seem to know where his head is on 2016 whether he is actually going to get in the game or stay on the sidelines, dreaming of his glory days.
Throughout the midterms, he has been helping out candidates all over the country. Its not clear to anyone, though, that theres been the kind of strategy to help himself hed need if he were serious about a White House run.
You know the ideas rattling around there, but I think thats as far as we can speculate at this point, said Larry Rasky, communications director for Bidens two previous presidential runs and still an adviser and friend.
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People whove been talking to Biden say the factor weighing on his mind may be less Clinton than Obama. Even as a sitting vice president, Biden might not be too proud to run a long-shot campaign, they insist. He was living it up during those months in 2007 when he was lucky to get a dozen people in a room and finished with a grand total of 1 percent in the Iowa caucuses.
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Anyway, some around Biden say, maybe hed be a better fit to be Clintons secretary of state.
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A presidential campaign platform seems easy to imagine to Biden fans: He has been a middle- and working-class warrior for decades, and he has years of experience dealing with foreign policy and building relationships. Hes a hero to the LGBT community for pushing ahead of the president on gay marriage. Hes been around Washington forever, and while critics and Washington politicos say his gaffe-tastic speeches have given him the image of a political buffoon, Biden fans believe they make him seem outside-the-Beltway authentic.
Average Americans would like more of that, not less of that. I think theyre tired of this calculating, intellectualized, very scripted politics, said Mark Gitenstein, a former aide who recently returned from a tour as ambassador to Romania and remains in touch with the vice president. Biden says what he thinks, and I think we ought to see more of it.
The world is a very scary place to a lot of people, and a wise old fatherly figure would say to people, This guy gets it, Rasky said.
As in Iowa, Bidens been eagerly sought for midterm campaigns in places Obama, with his low approval ratings, cant go near. With a little less prestige and fewer motorcade cordons than when the president comes to town, and a lot less scrutiny and blowback, Bidens been talking student loans, health care, Social Security, the wage gap, budget cuts that cost cops on the street all the things Democrats want people to be thinking about on Election Day.
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Later that day at a Rockford, Illinois, union hall rally for Gov. Pat Quinn, he went after multimillionaire Republican nominee Bruce Rauner.
Youd think hed be embarrassed, Biden said. My God, how can you have that much money and say we should have no minimum wage?
A number of Democratic operatives involved in this years races wish theyd heard more of that. They blame Bidens indecision for not being as active and effective a midterm weapon as theyd wanted, not stumping more and planning more carefully the stops he has made. With the presidential talk in their minds, they see a politician whos anxious about putting himself in a position where he might look like hes running for president, and anxious, too, about not doing enough.
He should be owning and selling the fact that hes a useful surrogate, said a Democratic strategist involved in this years races.
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Everyone makes too much of the preparation, said Ted Kaufman, a former Biden aide and temporary U.S. senator from Delaware.
In the group thats starting to get anxious, though, are people like Biden superfan Sharon Holle, a retired nurse who was the Davenport field director for his 2008 run who gushes about every encounter shes ever had with him.
Whenever Biden comes to town, shes there, along with all the other supporters who are wishing hed run.
He hears that were on board, and his eyes just twinkle, Holle said at a café overlooking the Mississippi just before Mondays event.
Maybe thats a yes. Maybe thats a wistful no. Holle said she has no idea.
If Biden is going to run for president, he needs to start getting staffers on the ground here in Iowa now, she said.
There are people on his staff convinced hell run and have been since election night 2012. There are people on his staff who are sure he wont.
In Davenport, Biden tells a story hes told before, a lesson he says he learned in his earliest days in the Senate, when candidates kept asking him his secret to winning.
Simple, Biden remembers saying.
You have to figure out whats worth losing over.
