Joe Biden Reminds Everyone He Might Run for President, Too

Although it might feel like it, Hillary Clinton isn't the only person dropping hints about a run for the presidency in 2016: Joe Biden will attend the annual Senator Tom Harkin steak fry fundraiser next month in Iowa.

Although it might feel like it, Hillary Clinton isn't the only person dropping hints about a run for the presidency in 2016: Joe Biden will attend the annual Senator Tom Harkin steak fry fundraiser next month in Iowa. The steak fry, you see, is in an early primary state, and it's a traditional stop for Democratic presidential contenders.

But this isn't Biden's first small geographic step into the 2016 rumor mill. It's his second hinty Iowa trip this year, since President Obama secured re-election. Biden's visited South Carolina in 2013, and has designs on New Hampshire, too. The Vice President also filled his inauguration celebrations with pretty obvious hints in the form of a posse of invitees from early states. Here's Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal talking to the Des Moines Register about Biden's inauguration bash:

“I don’t know why, but there seemed to be an awful lot of people from Iowa there and an awful lot of people from New Hampshire there. I heard some folks who talked with a little bit of a southern drawl and I said, ‘Where are you guys from?’ and they said, ‘South Carolina,’” Gronstal said. “I’m not sure why people from all the early states were massively over-represented at a Joe Biden event.”

But back to the steak fry. It's on September 15. Biden's the keynote speaker, as first reported by the New York Times. The event, the steak fry, is important because in 2007 basically everyone who wanted the Democratic nomination spoke there. So even though the next election isn't until 2016, somehow Biden's 2013 speech tells us big things about his presidential ambitions. San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro will be there as well, meaning that maybe he's running for president (or vice president) too. Senator Harkin, meanwhile, isn't seeking a sixth term in 2016, which means that soon we might not be able to rely on steak fry fundraisers for presidential speculation.

Sadly, as the Atlantic Wire has previously explained, Joe Biden will not be president, no matter how much he wants it. Our Philip Bump wrote, "There is no demographic with which Biden does better than [Hillary] Clinton. In most, he does substantially worse." Meanwhile, it turns out that Clinton, who is also not yet officially running for president, has taken up the theme of female empowerment in pretty much every speech she's given in recent months, leading people to continue to talk about how she might run in 2016, too. After all, she's already the frontrunner.