Biden-Warren Ticket 2016 — Democrats’ Plan B

Joe Biden had good reasons to huddle privately with Elizabeth Warren on Saturday at his official residence. The Massachusetts senator may have chosen not to run next year, but her populist rhetoric and agenda dominate the 2016 Democratic contest. Should Biden challenge Hillary Clinton for the nomination, he will need either Warren’s neutrality or her blessing. Socialist Bernie Sanders isn’t the only candidate pounding the drums of class warfare. Hillary claims “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top,” attacks high-level corporate salaries, and says that “we have to go beyond Dodd-Frank” in passing laws to rein in Wall Street firms. All of these themes are straight from Elizabeth Warren’s playbook and bear scant resemblance to the centrism that Bill Clinton embraced as president in the 1990s.

But Warren is stoutly refusing to endorse any candidate, so far preferring to use her leverage to influence the entire Democratic field. In an interview on Friday, she told WBZ in Boston: “I don’t think anyone has been anointed.” A former law professor who came to prominence as a staunch critic of policies that make it easier for creditors to collect debts, Warren hasn’t forgotten that, as a senator, Hillary Clinton in 2001 backed a bankruptcy bill supported by the credit-card lobby. Biden, also a senator, backed a similar bill in 2005. No real surprise there, since Biden represented Delaware, the home of many credit-card issuers. But it’s still a black mark against him. (Clinton missed the 2005 vote.)