Tag: The Establishment

Jeff Swensen / Getty Images Joe Biden hasn’t decided whether he’s running for president, but he has assembled a coalition of 30 of some of the biggest names in Washington last month to help shape his domestic policy, from union presidents to former top Obama administration officials to bank officials. Announced last month, the Biden Institute’s new Policy Advisory Board is the next major piece in what is shaping up to look like a very familiar playbook: a potential presidential run rooted in old-school, establishment politics, capitalizing on his broad popularity among Americans and vast experience in politics. Said one former Biden adviser, “He’s building out a host of different pieces, and he’s definitely doing that with an eye towards the presidency and the future.” Though many of Policy Advisory Board members say joining doesn’t mean they’re signing on to support him if he runs for president, the adviser said, “They have to know what they’re doing to some extent. The folks that really need to be on a panel like this right now are people that you and I have not heard of that are living the reality that most Americans live on.” More than a half-dozen members sidestepped questions from BuzzFeed News about whether they wanted the former vice president to run in 2020. “The first reason I joined is out of personal loyalty to Biden,” said Larry Summers, a top Obama economic adviser and the former president of Harvard. Dean, of Democracy for America, said Biden’s advisers were unlikely to consider how closely the former vice president’s economic concerns were tied to issues of racial justice. Biden “comes from working-class roots, and we don’t question that, but times are not the same as when he was going through them,” Dean said. The Institute’s advisory board is stocked with longtime Biden loyalists, like the president of the powerful International Association of Firefighters, Harold Schaitberger. When he said he would not run, the union waited months to support Clinton. Biden is “clearly a voice that knows how to speak to workers.” “I know by January, I have to make that decision,” Biden said in a speech at Vanderbilt University on Tuesday.