Another charismatic Democrat, former New York governor Mario Cuomo, famously left a plane idling on the tarmac ready to take him to New Hampshire as he dithered to the final minute over whether to run against Bill Clinton for president in 1992.
So it was no surprise to see Marine One perched majestically on the White House south lawn as an agonised-looking Joe Biden waited until his last possible moment to announce he would not be running against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
This time, the aircraft was waiting to take the existing president off to a pre-scheduled event in West Virginia, but Barack Obama’s presence beside his two-time running mate and close friend was no mere convenience.
Leaning, physically as well as emotionally, on a president dressed in a matching tie, Biden gave a sombre speech that pinned his decision first and foremost on the months spent grieving for his son Beau, who died from cancer in May.
“Unfortunately, I believe we’re out of time,” explained Biden, who said the process has taken him past the window for “mounting a realistic campaign for president”.
Biden’s decision came just before Hillary Clinton’s highly anticipated appearance before Congress on Thursday – which could potentially seal the fate of the Democratic primary – and spoke volumes too about the other psychodrama playing out on the crisp Rose Garden stage.
“I know that you in the press love to call me ‘middle-class Joe’, and I know in Washington that’s not really meant a compliment; it means you’re not that sophisticated,” said Biden as he began a longer-than-expected speech that sounded at times almost like he had changed his mind and was running after all.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time. When I got elected as a 29-year-old kid, I was called ‘the optimist’,” he added. “I am more optimistic about the possibilities – the incredibly possibilities – to leap forward than I have been any time in my career.”
And top of his list of grounds for optimism was the legacy of the Obama presidency, something both Clinton and her leftwing rival Bernie Sanders are increasingly running hard against.
“This party, our nation, will be making a tragic mistake if we walk away or attempt to undo the Obama legacy,” insisted Biden.
Though stressing continuity, Clinton has already distanced herself from Obama and Biden on issues such as trade, foreign policy, immigration and the environment.
Meanwhile Biden had in recent days begun to carve out what looked like the beginnings of his alternative proposition, something he continued in Wednesday’s speech with calls for action on campaign finance, college tuition and more bipartisan cooperation.
“I believe that we have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart,” said Biden in comments that could easily have been aimed at Clinton as well as her Republican detractors. “It’s mean-spirited, it’s petty, and it’s gone on for much too long,” he said. “I don’t believe, like some do, that it’s naive to talk to Republicans … for the sake of the country, we have to work together.”
It is no coincidence that such a platform would have looked more like the one he ran on with Obama in 2008 than the Clinton or Sanders campaigns currently do.
And for the dozens of vice-presidential staff who watched the speech, arms folded in stony silence, Biden’s moment represented a chance for a political afterlife that few would have predicted was even possible a few months ago.
The Biden candidacy, however theoretical, represented an insurance policy for a party worried at times that the combination of Clinton’s weakness and a powerful anti-establishment message from Sanders could leave it with an unelectable candidate in 2016.
Instead, expectations are now higher for Clinton’s appearance at the Benghazi committee on Thursday and she has pulled ahead of Sanders again in the polls after a strong performance in the first Democratic debate.
With Obama’s favourability ratings on the mend in his final months in office, the opportunity to offer a third term for his team was something that many would have relished. Fighting against Biden rather than Sanders could have pulled the former secretary of state back toward the political centre ground.
White House officials later confirmed on their way to West Virginia that Obama had played a key role as a confidant and adviser to Biden in recent days.
But the growing dominance of the Clinton campaign appears to persuaded both men that their legacy was now in the hands of others.
“Joe Biden is a good man and a great vice-president,” said Clinton in a statement, before adding: “As he said today, there is more work to do.”
