Take Note Of Joe Biden's Secret To Staying Popular

The Vice President has really had a lot to say in the past couple of days. After dropping a few little snippets about how he may or may not have presidential aspirations for 2020, Joe Biden revealed a secret to Stephen Colbert about how to stay popular in politics, and it makes a whole lot of sense. What does he recommend? Announce that you're not running.

He makes a good point. Biden's decision not to run for president came at a time of deep heartbreak, only months after his son Beau's death from brain cancer. He was already a hugely sympathetic figure merely as a father having lost a son, and you can't exactly criticize a person in that situation when he decides what action he needs to take for himself and his family. But in his public life, there were also rumors of a Biden run swirling after he began making potential campaign strategies with a group of advisors and even met with Elizabeth Warren about the country's economic issues. Democratic support for Biden was strong and rising, especially as people began to see potential problems with Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But then Biden cut off all speculation in October 2015, saying that he just wasn't in a place where he could entirely devote himself to the pursuit.

As he said to Stephen Colbert, this made him "the most popular guy in America." There's actually even some data to back this up; his favorability ratings only climbed after his announcement that he wouldn't run for president, and the questions about what might have happened if Biden had run have been coming in droves. He's not the only one to get that kind of treatment, either. Hypothetical speculations concerning Elizabeth Warren have also continued, and she was adamant from the very beginning that she wouldn't run for president. Bernie Sanders, who of course did run for president, has only seen his favorability rating rise after he dropped out of the race.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons for this overall trend. None of these politicians faced the attacks that Clinton and the other candidates who were actually running faced. People could look at them through rose-colored glasses, wondering what might have been. When he was talking to Colbert, Biden went even further with the joke, saying that he had just announced that he would run in 2020 so that he could later announce that he wasn't running just to boost his popularity. Well, Joe, if that's the game you're playing, you've definitely got me.