05 joe biden LEAD IMAGE
Washington CNN  — 

Joe Biden isn’t running for president. Yet.

But it’s already becoming clear what sort of campaign he will run when he officially enters the race sometime next month: One based on the idea of his inevitability.

This, from a piece by CNN’s Arlette Saenz and Jeff Zeleny, is revealing:

After a likely announcement in April, Biden is hoping to seize command of the highly-fluid contest through major endorsements and possibly selecting a running mate early to highlight the argument that the party’s most urgent task should be defeating President Donald Trump, Democrats familiar with his plans tell CNN.”

Major endorsements. An early VP pick. Both are clear signs that what Biden wants to do – from the second he enters the race – is make clear that the field is really him and then everyone else. That he isn’t just one of the many candidates running, but that he’s the heavy favorite.

Polling, generally speaking, bears out the idea that Biden starts the race on top. A new CNN-SSRS national poll showed Biden leading the field with 28%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 20%, Kamala Harris at 12% and Beto O’Rourke at 11%. No other candidate received double-digit support.

Count me skeptical of this Biden strategy, though. Inevitability isn’t the sort of message that ever really resounds with base voters who tend to decide the identity of the nominee. And that’s especially true in this current political moment, where both party bases have deep doubts about their own establishments. Hell, if inevitability was a winning message, the 2016 presidential race would have been between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, and Hillary would be president right now. Didn’t work out that way.

By seeking to create the idea that he is the de facto nominee – and to do so by leaning on endorsements from politicians – strikes me as a somewhat tone-deaf approach to our current political times.

The Point: Biden isn’t in yet. So he can still change strategic course. And I would.