Vice President Joe Biden will not be on stage for the first Democratic debate on Tuesday, but his biography and accomplishments will be heavily featured next week in a 90-second television ad from supporters urging him to jump into the 2016 presidential race.
The Draft Biden movement, which has effectively served as a shadow campaign for the vice president, is launching a campaign-style ad to promote his potential candidacy. The group announced the national cable ad on Wednesday, as Biden inches closer to revealing whether he will make a bid for the White House.
Josh Alcorn, a senior adviser to the Draft Biden effort and a former adviser to Beau Biden, told CNN the ad is not intended to lure the vice president into the race, but rather share his life story to a national audience.
“There’s a thirst for someone who has his story and his empathy,” Alcorn said in an interview. “There is space for him in the race.”
The Draft Biden movement operates separately from the vice president’s political operation. Alcorn said he does not know for certain whether Biden had decided to run, but he and other supporters were optimistic that he would.
“I don’t know that he’s doing it. This ad isn’t about him doing it,” Alcorn said. “It’s a chance for us to show millions of people about him.”
The ad is unusual in its length – 90 seconds – and its movie-like quality. Mark Putnam, one of the creative minds behind President Barack Obama’s campaign ads, produced the ad.
The spot features a narration of Biden’s own words, taken from his commencement speech at Yale University in May. Two weeks later, his oldest son, Beau Biden, died of cancer.
“Things can change in a heartbeat. I know,” Biden says in the opening moments of the ad, which is titled “My Redemption.”
The black-and-white ad stitches a narrative of Biden’s triumphs and losses and ends with the message: “Run, Joe.”