in case Hillary's fortunes take a dramatic turn for the worse in the next couple of months. I don't think the Democratic party leadership has much confidence that Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley could win in 2016. Bernie Sanders is drawing big crowds at his rallies, but he's just a populist and doesn't really ooze "presidential gravitas" (whatever the heck that is ). And as for O'Malley ... he's just a nothing-burger. The Dems need to have a viable fallback in case the worst case scenario happens, and that's Biden. If Biden doesn't declare by the end of September, he simply won't have enough time to raise money and mount effective campaigns in all 50 states, and the Dems will have to go with what they've got.