The calendar may read 2012, but at the Iowa delegation's breakfast here Wednesday the trio of ambitious Democrats were already making introductions and grasping for local connections that could serve them well when the caucuses come around in four years. And Warner, Klobuchar and O'Malley - respectively senators from Virginia and Minnesota and the governor of Maryland - were hardly alone among the ranks of 2016-minded Democrats making the trek to a tent in the parking lot of a modest suburban hotel well away from the swanky convention scene in this city's "uptown” hub.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came out to speak Monday and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will make their pitch on Thursday morning.
To the Iowans, and in similar remarks to South Carolina Democrats, none of the Democrats dare breach the unspoken political etiquette of openly discussing their White House hopes. But even as they all speak to the oh - so - critical importance of reelecting President Barack Obama in November, each is also telling his or her own story – talking up their humble roots and discussing their accomplishments.
Such moves in the so - called invisible primary have become staples of the modern convention, with a stable of eager pols always looking four years hence. Yet even as the potential aspirants come courting early - state delegates this week, the nascent ۲۰۱۶ jockeying could ultimately be moot. That’s because two heavyweights not engaged in openly maneuvering ahead of the next Democratic primary still loom over the race.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, conducting diplomacy in Beijing while her would - be rivals name - drop Keokuk and Muscatine outside the Marriott TownePlace Suites here, has maintained that she’ll leave government service at the end of Obama’s term and advocate for women and children as a private citizen.
“She’s in the same place she is every time she’s asked about this, ” said adviser Philippe Reines, traveling with Clinton in China.
But until Clinton definitively declares that she is or isn’t running for president again, the ۲۰۱۶ race will remain in a state of suspended animation. “At least half of them would drop out if she was there, without question, ” Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper predicted to POLITICO about the impact of a Clinton candidacy on the rest of the field.
Party leaders indicated the Secretary of State would begin the race with a considerable advantage.
“I was for Barack in ۲۰۰۸ and I’ll wait on her, ” said South Carolina Democratic Chairman Dick Harpootlian, an early Obama supporter who memorably compared Bill Clinton to the late GOP operative Lee Atwater in the last Democratic primary in South Carolina. “The only buzz I hear is Hillary. ”
Jaime Harrison, the South Carolina vice chairman and a former senior congressional aide, added that all the efforts now would turn into a vice presidential derby were Clinton to make the race.
“If she doesn’t run, it’s wide open, ” Harrison said.
But the former first lady isn’t the only big - name Democrat who could instantly reshape the ۲۰۱۶ field. While he wouldn’t have the potential field - clearing impact of Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden would enjoy decades of goodwill from Democratic activists and donors around the country and the loyalty of key figures in Obamaworld if he decided to make the race.
Publicly, Biden is focused entirely on November. But he’s making moves behind the scenes that indicate at least a desire to keep open the possibility of a third run for the presidency.
The vice president considered attending Iowa’s Thursday breakfast — and Gillibrand’s time was moved to accommodate him — before his staff decided against making such an eyebrow - raising move, sources tell POLITICO.
Biden officials declined to comment about the decision.
But just because Biden is skipping the breakfast doesn’t mean he won’t see any of his old Hawkeye State friends.
On Tuesday night, Biden stopped by a fundraiser at a Charlotte art gallery for his son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, and chatted with a handful of Iowans who were there, including Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, perhaps the most powerful Democrat in the state.
Biden also invited Gronstal and a handful of others from Iowa and beyond up to his VIP convention suite to watch the first night’s proceedings.
“He said go out and win this election; there wasn’t a hint of anything besides go out and win this election, ” said Gronstal about his conversation with the vice president Tuesday.
Biden, who would be ۷۳ in ۲۰۱۶, clearly wants to keep in contact with his longtime Iowa friends, though.
Sara Riley, a Cedar Rapids attorney and Democratic delegate who caucused for Biden in ۲۰۰۸, was invited to the Beau Biden fundraiser by the vice president’s political director, who also helped get her son convention credentials.
A source close to Biden said the next election was “a worry for another day, ” but noted that the vice president is hardly feeling his age.
“He has more energy than the rest of us, ” said the source. “He loves all this. ”
Biden himself seemed to say as much in an interview published this week in New York Magazine.
“I have no intention, if I feel as good and have the same mind - set I have today, of my just saying, ‘Well, you know, I put my years in, and I am proud of what I did. And now, you know, I’m going to play a lot more golf. ’ ”
Biden is not the only Delawarean giving a look at ۲۰۱۶. Gov. Jack Markell also may consider a White House run, according to a Democratic source.
Markell, who has been making the rounds of panel discussions here this week, is a pro - business Democrat with a solid record on jobs and education. Currently the chair of the National Governor’s Association, Markell is finishing up his first term and is running for re - election this fall.
Of all the potential candidates, though, none is moving as aggressively to position himself as O’Malley. The Marylander, who currently heads the Democratic Governors Association, has become ubiquitous on the Sunday shows as a sharp - edged Obama surrogate and was making the rounds at all hours here this week.
“I didn’t have any favorites, it just seems to me that if anybody’s campaigning for ۲۰۱۶, it’s O’Malley, ” said Michael Fitzgerald, the treasurer of Iowa.
O’Malley attended a Bloomberg dinner Monday night with a group of newspeople, including New York Times editor Jill Abramson, Washington Post editor Marcus Brauchli and Bloomberg’s Al Hunt and Norman Pearlstine.
Tuesday morning, O’Malley started his day at an AIPAC breakfast and finished it by jamming past Midnight with his Irish rock band at a Charlotte pub in front of an audience that included former Iowa Gov. Chet Culver.
The Marylander, who also was planning to stop by South Carolina’s delegation on Thursday, got good reviews from the Iowans and, thanks to his TV presence, was swarmed afterward for photographs.
“I like O’Malley, ” said Gronstal. “He seems to have the kind of presence to be a candidate in the future. ”
The week was not exactly ideal for O’Malley, though. He created a ruckus Sunday, when he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the country was not better off than it was four years ago, something he’s since walked back, and only delivered a middling prime - time convention speech Tuesday that was overshadowed by Michelle Obama’s boffo performance.
If O’Malley had perhaps the highest profile among the potential class of ’۱۶, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo continued to maintain his low public profile. Cuomo was only planning to come to Charlotte for a single day and is scheduled to attend just the Empire State delegation’s breakfast on Thursday.
Harpootlian said he invited the New Yorker to speak at South Carolina’s Jefferson - Jackson Day Dinner earlier this year but Cuomo declined.
Hickenlooper ventured that Cuomo, a HUD Secretary under Bill Clinton, would stay out if Hillary runs. “Would he be where he is without the Clintons? ” asked the Colorado governor.
Not all are being so shy, though. Villaraigosa is keynoting Iowa’s J - J Dinner this fall and O’Malley will do the same at Harkin’s famous Steak Fry fundraiser, one of the first major events Obama did before his sown run.
Booker, though widely assumed to first run for governor or Senate, is also in demand, said Harrison, the South Carolinian.
Of all the supplicants this week, perhaps none were as open about ingratiating themselves with early - states as the Newark mayor.
“If I ever get introduced again to a great body of people like Iowa, I want to be introduced as a son of New Jersey but[also] a grandson of Iowa, ” said Booker. “Because my grandma, back in ۱۹۱۸, was born in Des Moines, Iowa. I’ve been to family reunions there, my grandmother grew up there, my grandmother’s siblings went to college there — and more than this, though, my family’s still spread out all over Iowa. ”
Maggie Haberman contributed to this story.
