The president he served was nicknamed “No-Drama Obama.” Joe Biden’s life, on the other hand, has been pretty much all drama for 76 years. His father went from sailing yachts to selling used cars; the scuffling Bidens moved in with hard-drinking relatives. In 1972, just over a month after Biden was elected to the U.S. Senate, his wife and one-year-old daughter were killed in a car crash; his two sons, Beau and Hunter, survived with critical injuries. A plagiarism scandal ended Biden’s 1988 presidential run; two brain aneurysms nearly ended his life. Then there was the 2012 TV interview in which Vice President Biden bluntly endorsed legalizing gay marriage, infuriating the White House and spurring his boss, Obama, to shift positions. So it is weirdly fitting that Biden’s decision about running in 2020 may include whether he’s willing to chance reviving attention to a painful family drama.

Biden has stayed largely silent as Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Julián Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Sherrod Brown, and Tulsi Gabbard have made early moves. That’s one luxury of being the front-runner in early polls—though Biden’s lead is likely a mirage of name I.D. “If this were Vegas, Biden is the ultimate sell-high,” a veteran Democratic campaign strategist says. “We saw this happen with Hillary, when she had 60 or 70 percent approval post-State Department, before she got into the race.”

Biden, who is scheduled to speak at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast in Washington on Monday, does have real strengths: deep, substantive experience in both domestic and foreign affairs. “He’s a highly, highly competent guy,” David Axelrod, Obama’s former political strategist, says. “Joe Biden was an enormous asset to Barack Obama in a way that maybe no other vice president has been—as a counselor, and as a guy who took on some really tough and gritty assignments. He administered the Recovery Act on behalf of the president, giving out $887 billion in a short period of time. The opportunity for rampant mismanagement and waste was enormous. But there was really very little of that, and that was a tribute to him. When it looked problematical as to whether a government could be formed in Iraq, Biden was the guy who got assigned the task of working with the Iraqi factions, and he made it happen.”

The flip side of Biden’s lengthy political record is that he has a very lengthy record. His harsh questioning of Anita Hill, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas hearings, looks even worse now, in the #MeToo era and in the wake of the battle over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation. Biden has high favorability ratings with black voters, but primary rivals would highlight his strong support for President Bill Clinton’s crime bill. “Uncle Joe loves his relationships with the cops, and so he’s not going to go around talking about our justice system being inherently racist, which is the way you need to speak right now in a Democratic primary,” a national Democratic strategist says. “And if Biden runs, the Bernie [Sanders] people would be like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me with this centrism, neoliberal bullshit?’” Biden’s age—Election Day 2020 falls just over two weeks before his 78th birthday—cuts against the party’s midterm trend toward younger candidates. “He would have to confront that issue right away,” a top Democratic strategist says. “Iowa is one of the oldest states in the country. A lot of people at these caucuses will be Biden’s age peers, who can’t imagine themselves running for president at this stage of their lives. And leaving out the special case of Lyndon Johnson, every successful recent Democratic presidential candidate was a younger outsider—Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, Obama.”

Jay Carney, the ex-journalist who worked as a White House spokesman for Biden, declares upfront, “I love him.” Carney says that the former vice president is sure to be taking in polling numbers and sifting the advice of his small circle of longtime political aides. “But I don’t think his decision is about, ‘What are the odds of me winning?’” Carney says. “It’s more fundamental: ‘do I have something to offer? And is my family up for it?’”

That second question is even more vexing for Biden than it is for most pols. His high-profile older son, Beau, died of brain cancer at the age of 46, in May 2015. Later it emerged that his younger son, Hunter—married with three children—had become involved in an affair with Beau’s widow, Hallie. In divorce papers, Hunter’s wife claimed that he had blown money on prostitutes, strip clubs, and drugs; the split was settled without the allegations being litigated. In 2017, Biden issued a statement to the New York Post’s Page Six saying, “We are all lucky that Hunter and Hallie found each other as they were putting their lives together again after such sadness. They have [our] full and complete support and we are happy for them.”

Biden must now weigh whether a presidential run would disturb the hard-won family equilibrium. Two strategists for possible Democratic presidential contenders volunteered to me that Hunter would inevitably become part of the public discussion if Biden were to join the 2020 race. Hunter seems to have a gift for dubious associations. He was on the board of one of Ukraine’s largest gas companies, which was owned by an oligarch with connections to Viktor Yanukovych, the Russia-backed Ukrainian president who was one of Paul Manafort’s prime clients. “You know how some people are both fuck-ups and earnest at the same time? That’s how Hunter is. He’s not a bad guy at all,” a former colleague of Hunter’s says. “Even as Hunter was a pain in the ass, Joe was supportive of him—he was a real dad. I don’t think he’s embarrassed by Hunter. But whether the family is willing to have all that revisited is tricky.”

Three years ago, Biden came close to mounting a primary challenge to Clinton, but chose instead to help his family heal from the fresh tragedy of Beau’s death. “In 2016, the decision was as much about keeping the family together and taking care of the grandkids and making sure that everybody was O.K.,” a Biden insider says. “Family responsibility simply outweighed whatever political calculus he may have been entertaining. I know that those personal considerations are in play this time, but obviously it’s different circumstances.” If Biden runs he’ll be calculating that Democratic primary voters, focused on picking the nominee with the best chance to defeat President Donald Trump, will consider his family’s travails irrelevant or sympathetic.

Hunter Biden responded to a request for comment with a long, self-reflective statement about his personal relationship with his father. “The important aspect of my complicated divorce (like all divorces) and an equally complicated life, marked by the tragic loss of my mother, sister and brother is this: My father has been a constant source of love and strength in my life,” he writes. “Even though my life has been played out in the media, because I am a Biden, my father never once suggested that the family’s public profile should be my priority. The priority has always been clear for my dad, as it is, now, for me: Never run from a struggle. Love people and find a way to love yourself. And remember that the two things are very much connected . . . So, you ask me, whether my father might not run for President because of reports about me in the news. What you fail to realize, in asking such a question, is that my father has always been proud of me—whether when I was volunteering for the Jesuits, or working as a lawyer. And he remains proud of me today. He loves me. And he loves the American people far too much to let any form of adversity stand in the way of service.”

“As the V.P. has said publicly, he’ll make a decision in the coming weeks,” a Biden spokesman says, “and that decision will be a family one.”

Hunter Biden’s full written statement is below.

Chris:

The important aspect of my complicated divorce (like all divorces) and an equally complicated life, marked by the tragic loss of my mother, sister and brother is this: My father has been a constant source of love and strength in my life. Even though my life has been played out in the media, because I am a Biden, my father never once suggested that the family’s public profile should be my priority. The priority has always been clear for my dad, as it is, now, for me: Never run from a struggle. Love people and find a way to love yourself. And remember that the two things are very much connected.

I believe that my father has become an ongoing symbol of what it means to keep on fighting for what is good in oneself, in others and in our country. I can tell you that I wouldn’t be alive today, if my dad hadn’t kept fighting for me, too. So the idea that tragedy or tough times or any number of trials would dissuade a Biden from serving his fellow man—whether a friend or a fellow citizen—could not be more misguided. My dad has proven, again and again, that he is (as Teddy Roosevelt once said of himself) “as strong as a bull moose” and that America “can use [him] to the limit.”

Pain is one of the unavoidable facts of life. We Bidens have had our share. We don’t pretend, otherwise. And we don’t pretend that we are different from families all over America that have to face the loss of loved ones, or have to deal with the fallout of divorces. My dad always told me, “Always remember no man is better than you, and you are no better than anyone else. Always be kind to people in pain.”

Our journey as a family—yes, including my own difficulties with my marriage—have made us unbreakable. It isn’t, of course, that we don’t suffer. We do. The point is that we don’t give up, no matter how much we suffer.

So, you ask me, whether my father might not run for President because of reports about me in the news. What you fail to realize, in asking such a question, is that my father has always been proud of me—whether when I was volunteering for the Jesuits, or working as a lawyer. And he remains proud of me today. He loves me. And he loves the American people far too much to let any form of adversity stand in the way of service.

Robert Hunter Biden
January 18, 2019

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