Former Vice President Joe Biden’s “No Malarkey” tour is having a rough first week. The internet roasted it, Iowans seem to have rejected it, and now, former President Barack Obama is ignoring it, but Biden says it doesn’t bother him.
In a particularly sad moment on Tuesday, Biden was asked whether it bothered him that Obama hasn’t been a vocal proponent of his presidential campaign, choosing instead to stay on the sidelines and work on his own personal agenda.
“In a wide-ranging interview aboard his campaign bus during an eight-day, “No Malarkey” tour through rural Iowa, a feisty Biden answered questions for 30 minutes, discussing his prospects in Iowa, the likely strength of his campaign going into Super Tuesday and his relationship with the former president,” according to Politico.
“Biden reiterated that he asked Obama not to endorse him, and he stuck by that stance even when asked whether he’d want Obama’s backing if the field narrowed to three people: ‘No, because everyone knows I’m close with him,’ Biden said. ‘I don’t need an Obama endorsement,'” the news magazine reported.
Biden takes credit for making Obama a popular candidate in the Rust Belt and in battleground states like Pennsylvania, where he says he made inroads with middle-class and blue collar workers — and even African-American voters — who were skeptical of the inexperienced Obama.
But Obama hasn’t been as effluous about Biden’s contributions as Biden has been, though. When the former Vice President kicked off his campaign back in April, Obama expressed lukewarm praise for Biden but was careful not to endorse him, telling reporters then that he preferred to see how the Democratic nomination process played out.
“President Obama is excited by the extraordinary and diverse talent exhibited in the growing lineup of Democratic primary candidates,” a source told the Daily Beast then. “He believes that a robust primary in 2007 and 2008 not only made him a better general election candidate, but a better president, too. And because of that, it’s unlikely that he will throw his support behind a specific candidate this early in the primary process—preferring instead to let the candidates make their cases directly to the voters.”
And just last week, Obama was rumored to have told friends that he felt his former veep “really doesn’t have it” and that he doesn’t believe Biden is ready to be president, even though he made a great second-in-command.
Biden, for some reason, told reporters he agreed with the sentiment.
“He may have said that. And if it’s true, and he said it, there’s truth to it,” Biden said, adding that, before now, “mostly campaigned for other people in the time I’ve been here. And I’ve never been in a position seeking the nomination where I have had the money and the organization to be able to get open headquarters all over the state.”
That’s almost … sad. But Biden, at least, is in good spirits, and believes that if his “No Malarkey” tour can meet with success, he’s almost guaranteed to be the 2020 pick to take on Trump. If he wins Iowa, he told Politico, it will be “awful hard to stop me from winning the nomination.”
Unfortunately, that’s not guaranteed. Biden is holding on to a very tenuous lead in Iowa and while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) seems like less of a threat as days go by, South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg seems to be on the upswing. Biden told Politico that he’s convinced that Buttigieg is just copycatting him.