Vice President Joe Biden has been traveling all over the United States “attending closed-door fundraisers and donor events for Democratic House candidates” that are “tacked on to government and campaign trips.” There’s only one requirement from Biden—the on-the-side fundraising events do not appear on his official schedule. Politico,
“None of these side events were on the official public schedule — and they came with strict rules from Biden’s office for the elite group of participants: No emails. No Facebook or Twitter posts, before or after. Phone is best, they tell everyone involved… The vice president’s office doesn’t even want to call these events fundraisers.”
Suzan DelBene’s campaign admitted:
“He did a small meet-and-greet at the airport for us. There were approximately a dozen folks,” said DelBene spokesman Viet Shelton.
Shelton – like VP Biden – wouldn’t even admit the event was a fundraiser for DelBene’s struggling campaign (a bare 50.67% vote in the primary), suggesting that “donors contributed to the campaign around the time of the meeting with Biden.”
That’s right, they weren’t contributing because they wanted a picture with the Vice President. They were just those lucky few who gave money “around the time” he was setting up a “photo line” at Boeing Field.
Read more via Politico.
Biden has done more than two dozen of these “unofficial” fundraising events—including the stop in Seattle—in order to remain relevancy as a possible presidential candidate in 2016. Biden’s Boeing Field stop never made his public schedule. We can only assume that much of the secrecy surrounding that fact comes from a sense of embarrassment. Of course, no one can fault Biden for that—anyone would feel embarrassed if they were obliged to fund raise for a publicity-stunt prone candidate like DelBene.
