Joe Biden facing pressure to decide on presidential challenge to Hillary Clinton [View all]

[brooklynite]

The Guardian:

Joe Biden may come under pressure to decide whether he will challenge Hillary Clinton for the White House sooner than anticipated, as liberal anxiety has prompted multiplying grassroots supporters to wonder if the vice-president might be knocked from his perch of studied neutrality and into a presidential bid.

A third-party political action committee urging Biden to challenge Clinton from the left in the smoldering controversy over her email arrangements has ballooned tenfold in the past week alone, the Guardian has learned, even as advisers close to the vice-president insist that he will wait and see about a 2016 run they say he is still “seriously considering”.

Hints that the Democratic search for alternatives to Clinton may be more heartfelt than previously thought – an earnest progressive case for an Al Gore candidacy emerged last week, and the email controversy has created air pockets in Clinton’s popularity ahead of her expected run – has some eyes wandering anew in the direction of the current White House.

Now, with Republican candidates launching formal campaigns and the Clinton machine not far behind, Biden supporters are for the first time displaying organizational structure: a Draft Biden web site last week that has gone from a list of 2,000 supporters to 20,000 backers nationwide, director Will Pierce told the Guardian.