8 Cities Vie for 2016 Republican Convention

No major Republican contenders have announced that they will seek the presidential nomination in 2016, but eight cities are officially in the running to throw the party for the nominee.

Three of them are in Ohio, a perennial swing state. None of them are on the coasts.

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, tweeted the list of contenders on Thursday:

Congratulations to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus in Ohio; Denver; Dallas; Kansas City, Mo.; Las Vegas & and Phoenix for moving on to the next phase.

â€" Reince Priebus (@Reince) 27 Feb 14

Each city will make its case to the party’s selection committee in Washington on Monday. That task may have been made simpler for the Phoenix delegation, after Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto on Wednesday of a bill that was perceived as allowing discrimination against gays and lesbians on religious grounds. A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said Ms. Brewer’s deliberations on the matter had no bearing on the timing of the announcement or convention process.

Las Vegas has waged one of the most aggressive campaigns, with casino titans like Sheldon G. Adelson and Stephen A. Wynn backing the city’s bid.

Republicans spent a muggy, hurricane-threatened week in Tampa, Fla., in 2012, so the bids from Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Dallas suggest that delegates and reporters might be in for a dry-heat convention in 2016. But no matter which city the Republicans choose, the biggest difference from 2012 might be the timing: The Republican National Committee announced last month that the convention would most likely be held as early as June rather than in late summer, which is the tradition.

After site visits, the selection committee is expected to select finalists in the late spring, with a full committee vote in the late summer or fall.

The deadline for bids for the Democrats’ convention is Saturday.

In an Article, a Biden With an Eye on 2016, if Few Steps Taken

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was livid when Jim Messina, President Obama’s former campaign manager, publicly pledged his support for a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign in 2016, a new profile of the vice president says.

The article, in Politico Magazine, describes Mr. Biden as having been “beside himself” after reading that Mr. Messina had placed Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state, ahead of him in the not-yet-started race to succeed Mr. Obama in the White House.

“I think the numbers clearly show that she’s the strongest presidential candidate on the Democratic side,” Mr. Messina, the new leader of the Priorities USA PAC, told The New York Times last month. “And Priorities is going to be there for her if she decides to run.”

When Mr. Messina called Mr. Biden to smooth things out, the vice president did not take his call, the article says. People with knowledge of the vice president’s reaction said that the two men simply did not connect, and have seen each other since, including during Mr. Biden’s swearing-in of Max Baucus, the former senator from Montana, as ambassador to China.

Mr. Messina did not respond to emails requesting comment about the article. Aides in Mr. Biden’s office also declined to comment.

The article is the latest to suggest that Mr. Biden has his eye on a possible run for the presidency, despite having taken few concrete steps toward that goal. Mr. Biden has recently given several interviews on the topic.

On ABC’s “The View” this week, Mr. Biden said that Mrs. Clinton’s decision about a run would not affect his. “Whether she runs or not will not affect my decision,” he told Barbara Walters. “I have absolutely not said no. I’m as likely to run as to not run.” He added that he saw himself as “uniquely positioned” to be president.

In the magazine article, Mr. Biden is said to have responded to a longtime friend with a quote from the poet Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Still, the article says that Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s former chief of staff and a close adviser, has drafted a memo outlining a possible path to victory for Mr. Biden in 2016.

“Klain, according to several sources, has drafted another one of his famous memos outlining the narrowest of paths for positioning Biden in the 2016 race: either as a progressive alternative to Clinton or as an heir apparent, ready to pounce if she decides not to run,” Glenn Thrush, the article’s author, writes.

Mr. Biden has shown little reluctance to talk about the skills he would bring to the Oval Office.

“I think I’m qualified by the record I have demonstrated over the years, by the experience I have, by the significant knowledge I have of not only foreign policy but individual leaders in foreign countries and domestically as well,” he told the magazine.

And yet the article concludes that Mr. Biden has done little of the work that he needs to do if he wants to make a serious run for the White House again. He has not set up a leadership PAC. He has not seriously begun raising money for candidates in the midterm elections.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said in a press conference on Thursday that Mr. Obama has not been thinking about his potential successors, either.

“He has in the vice president an extremely effective partner in all that they do together and in pursuit of an agenda in which they share great faith in,” Mr. Carney said. “It’s 2014, still early. There’s no reason to be focused on anything else.”

Mr. Biden “in all likelihood won’t be the next president, and, yes, he knows that as well as anyone,” Mr. Thrush writes. “But that might not be enough to keep him out of the race.”