US Vice President Joe Biden faced an altered political dynamic on October 14 after Hillary Clinton reasserted her command of the Democratic Party presidential race during a debate that may have left little room for him to run.
Analysts widely hailed Clinton, 67, as turning in a nimble, effective performance on October 13 night, perhaps easing the fears of some Democrats fretting that the flap over her use of a private email server while in the Obama administration was torpedoing her candidacy for the November 2016 election.
In doing so, she may have dampened calls for Biden to make a belated entrance into the race while also blunting the threat from insurgent candidate Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old US senator from Vermont and self-described democratic socialist.
Sanders, Clinton’s top rival among declared candidates, was handed the opportunity by debate moderators to assail her over the email issue. Instead, he dismissed the controversy as trivial, drawing an ovation from the crowd and shoving the spotlight away from Clinton’s most profound political weakness.
For Biden, 72, who continues to ponder a bid for the presidency, the evening served as a reminder of how tenacious Clinton can be as a candidate, steeled by scores of debates in her 2008 presidential run and four years as secretary of state.
At times, Clinton seemed to be reaching out both to the progressives in her party more likely to back Sanders and the moderates who may prefer Biden.
She went toe-to-toe with Sanders over gun control, addressed income inequality and advocated for more liberal family-leave policies.
At the same time, she refused to go along with Sanders’ call to break up Wall Street banks, reiterated her support of the Patriot Act, and said she would not hesitate to use military force if necessary, at times obliquely criticizing President Barack Obama's White House and, by proxy, Biden for failing to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and for doing too little about the civil war in Syria.
Biden mentioned the debate in remarks to reporters on October 14 but gave no indication of whether he will enter the race.
