Analysis: After Clinton’s strong performance, a Biden bid looks more debatable

Reporting from Washington â€”  Almost as quickly as Democrats cleared the debate stage, the talk that has swirled for weeks in party circles — from the Washington Beltway to the moneyed salons of Hollywood — abruptly shifted.

The question surrounding Joe Biden and his presidential ambitions is no longer will-he-or-won’t-he. It’s, why should he?

In a stroke, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s strong debate performance reassured jittery Democrats and solidified her place atop the party’s presidential field, quelling much of the nervousness that fueled talk of the vice president as possibly a more electable alternative.

Speaking on Wednesday for many of his party peers, Democratic strategist Jim Manley said the opening he once saw, owing to Clinton’s slumping poll numbers and ensnarement in serial controversies, had all but slammed shut.

“There’s no denying that her campaign has been in a bad place for at least several months, and there was rising concern about how strong of a position she was going to be in heading into the meat of the campaign,� said Manley, a longtime Capitol Hill veteran who supports Clinton.

But, Manley said, the former first lady laid to rest many of those concerns in the Democrats’ inaugural debate, an assessment echoed by no less an observer than Donald Trump. “I think she did what she had to do,� the Republican presidential hopeful said Wednesday on MSNBC.

Perhaps emboldened, the chairman of Clinton’s campaign broke a deferential silence and suggested it was time for Biden to make up his mind.

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“He’s been through a tremendous tragedy,� John Podesta said on MSNBC, referring to the May death of Biden’s oldest son, Beau. “And I think he deserved the space and the time to think that through about whether … it was best for him to begin this new challenge to try to mount a presidential campaign. But I think the time has come for a decision.�

The experience of the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, is political triumph followed by some disaster or another, so no one familiar with that history was ready to declare Wednesday that the Democratic race was anywhere close to over.

Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator who has emerged as Clinton’s strongest rival for the Democratic nomination, also won praise from Democrats for his unvarnished debate performance Tuesday night. His dismissal of the controversy surrounding Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State — “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails!� — may have been the most widely rebroadcast moment.

Underscoring Sanders’ grass-roots appeal, his campaign claimed to have raised nearly $1.5 million online in just a few hours after he left the stage.

But there is no doubting that Clinton was the night’s big winner, fending off skeptics in her party and giving her besieged campaign some badly needed breathing space.

“There’s been carping by Clinton donors and hangers-on and the like, and I assume that carping will cease, which will make it easier for them to raise money and also easier for the campaign to go about its business without people trying to upset the apple cart every five minutes,� said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster who endured similarly panicky stretches during John F. Kerry’s rough road to the party’s 2004 nomination.

If anyone feels pressure in the days to come, it is likely to be Biden.

In the days leading up to Tuesday’s debate, the sense of drama was such that TV crews staked out the vice president’s Delaware home, hoping for an announcement. Once the candidates took the stage in Las Vegas, however, Biden’s name never came up.

He apparently watched at least a part of the session. “I thought every one of those folks did well,� he told reporters, responding to a shouted question at the White House.

For a fiercely competitive politician like Biden, the debate provided moments that could nudge him toward the race.

Most obviously, none of Clinton’s competitors have the experience or stature he would bring to the Democratic contest.

The problem for Biden, as it has been all along, is that his decision-making process is being guided not solely — or even primarily — by political considerations. Instead, his deliberations are shaped by the question of his family’s readiness to endure a campaign after the tragedy of his son’s death.

Someone familiar with Biden’s thinking, speaking anonymously to preserve his relationship with the vice president, said Biden understands that a decision by now would have been preferable.

The next big date on the political calendar comes next week, when Clinton is scheduled to testify before the House committee investigating the 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. That appearance, once viewed with concern in Clinton’s camp, now seems more likely to enhance her standing, at least among Democrats.

If Biden were to enter the race, he would be unlikely to make his announcement before that testimony, people close to him have said. Doing so might be perceived as undermining Clinton as she prepares to confront her Republican critics.

Those holding out hopes for a Biden candidacy contended Wednesday that nothing had changed.

Howard Mandel, a Los Angeles-based Democratic donor and leader of the Draft Biden effort, said Clinton’s rivals seemed wary of being overly aggressive during their debate — something that won’t happen with Republicans — and her performance did little to address concerns about her electability in November 2016.

“I don’t think the vice president is making a decision to run because of the debate or how anybody did in the debate,� Mandel said. “I think he’s going to make the decision based on what he feels is the best thing to move the country forward.�

For her part, Clinton told reporters at a campaign stop in Nevada the decision was Biden’s alone to make.

“He needs to decide what is best for him and his family,� she said after touring a worker training facility in Henderson. “I just am not going to comment on it. It’s not my place to do so.�

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Twitter: @markzbarabak

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Twitter: @mikememoli

Memoli reported from Washington, Barabak from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Evan Halper in Nevada contributed to this report.

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