Effort to draft Joe Biden for 2016 based in Chicago

WASHINGTON — Will Pierce, the executive director of the national “Draft Biden” campaign headquartered in Chicago’s Loop, puts enormous meaning into the fact that Vice President Joe Biden has never personally ruled out a 2016 White House run.

“If he wanted to say no, he would have said it himself,” Pierce said when we talked. “He has not said that yet.”

Pierce, 27, is a Democratic operative who worked in campaigns across the country before landing in Chicago. He served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a captain in the Army Reserve.

He told me the notion to start a draft for Biden started in February, around the time when he was the field director for the mayoral campaign of Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) who lost in first round of balloting Feb. 24 to Cook County Board Member Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and the eventual winner, Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

By March 18, the politically entrepreneurial Pierce had his new gig: He filed a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission to create the “Draft Biden 2016” super PAC.

As of last week, Pierce said his group had 10 paid staffers working out of shared office space on the fourth floor of 9 W. Washington St. He has hired directors in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire and has someone on deck for South Carolina.

The group has accumulated about 100,000 signatures on petitions imploring Biden to make his third try for the presidency.

Pierce’s group is enjoying a boomlet as speculation has ramped up in recent weeks about Biden’s 2016 intentions — or lack thereof — even with the death in May of Biden’s oldest son, Beau.

Before the tragic death of his son from cancer, Biden watchers I talked to figured he could take his time before sending any signal.

“He absolutely is thinking about it,” a Biden confidant told me, adding that the decision could go either way. And by leaving the door open, “in a strange way, this is a way of working through unfathomable grief.”

Kendra Barkoff, Biden’s press secretary, told me in an email, “The Biden family is going through a difficult time right now. Any speculation about the views of the vice president or his family about his political future is premature and inappropriate.”

Every poll shows Hillary Clinton with a commanding lead. A rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent, is enjoying a surge, fueled perhaps by Democrats hungry for at least a debate.

The latest Quinnipiac University Iowa poll puts Clinton at 52 percent and Sanders at 33 percent. The other declared Democrats were all in single digits: former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley; former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb; and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

“A primary is good all the way around,” Pierce said. “It helps to ensure we get ideas out there.”

“A lot of people want to say we are running against Hillary. We are not,” he said. “We are campaigning for the vice president. We have nothing against the secretary.”

Or Sanders. Or any of the others.

The Draft Biden communications director, Ahmed Khan, 31, unsuccessfully ran for alderman in the 50th Ward in 2011.

Last year, Khan worked for what would have been the mayoral campaign of Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, switching to Fioretti’s operation after illness forced Lewis out of the contest. When Fioretti failed to make the runoff, Khan became a field organizer for Garcia.

Building a national operation is a big vault for Pierce and Khan. As of March 31, the last FEC reporting period, Draft Biden had receipts of only $7,039. Pierce said the next report, out later this month, will show more robust numbers.

Like Pierce, Khan only reads optimism in the Biden tea leaves.

Said Khan, “He took his time mourning. He’s back in action.”