Once again, we get a story on how Vice President Joe Biden will or will not announce that he is running for president any day now, or at least by the end of the month. We have been getting stories about Biden's impending run for about a year now—
here is a February version that promises a decision by the end of the summer—and while the vast, vast majority of them are farcical nothingburgers drafted up by reporters so bored with the current peaceful, largely uneventful Democratic race that they are contemplating kidnapping Joe Biden and duct-taping him to a podium just to liven things up, a few of them have tidbits that suggest it could indeed
still happen.
People familiar with the conversations tell CNN that Biden has been making the calls throughout the week, including on Wednesday, just as many leading Democrats argued the window to a potential candidacy was closing in the wake of Hillary Clinton's strong performance in the party's first presidential debate. He is asking these people to work for him if he runs. [...]
Biden has not shared the timing of his decision or announcement with people he is calling this week. One senior party official said the announcement is expected in the next three days, while other Democrats say Biden may wait for a week or more. He will reveal his decision before month's end.
Perhaps he will run. Perhaps he won't. I'm still of the personal opinion that he would be best off sitting tight to play the part of the reluctant hero swooping in in the extremely unlikely event that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both step on rakes, but if he is to mount a campaign that does
not involve showing up to save the good ship Democrat only after the rest of the crew has taken to the lifeboats then "the end of the month" is already pushing the limits of plausible campaign strategizing. There's too much to done, too quickly, between now and the first states.
So there you go, you're up to date on your requisite Biden speculation.