DES MOINES, Iowa — Joe Biden is talking. "Barack does a room, Hillary does a room, I do the same room and I win," he says. "I have absolute confidence in that. The question is: Do I get in enough rooms?"
Biden is sitting at a table in a Starbucks, a cup of coffee rapidly growing cold in front of him. We talk for 30 minutes, and in that time I manage to fit in exactly two questions. I am not complaining.
Biden is charged up and telling me that if he could trade places with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John Edwards in Iowa right now, he would not do it. Would not!
"I am not being a wiseass," he tells me, nudging my arm for emphasis. "I am not joking. The guy with the most money and the woman with the biggest buzz, beaten by the man with the right message! Who people think is honest!"
Though beating them, in Biden's view, does not mean actually coming in ahead of them in the tally for delegates on Jan 3, the night of the Iowa caucus. He means he will beat them when it comes to expectations.
He poses a possible outcome for caucus night. He says he is just making the numbers up, but it seems clear he has thought about them.
"Let's say I end up with 15 percent, Barack is at 20 percent, Edwards is at 22 percent, and Hillary is at 26 percent," Biden says. "That would be a big victory for me."
He savors that for a moment. "Barack spends as much as Hillary and has all that organization and all that hype! And he gets beaten by Hillary by six points!" Biden says as if his fictional numbers were not fictional.
"Some say John [Edwards] is done," Biden says matter-of-factly and then spins a new scenario. "A third-place finish for him would be pretty dismal. After campaigning four years here. That would be a big loss."
Biden says two big supporters of Edwards in 2004 called Biden not long ago to say they were switching to him. "Whoa! Where did that come from?" Biden says. "Two weeks out and they are jumping in for me? Where the hell did that come from?"
I ask Biden if a candidate with a message and a personality, but not a big organization, can actually win Iowa.
"You need enough of an organization, though a couple of candidates hope just a message is enough," Biden says. "You don't have to have megabucks, but you have to have a savvy organization. I don't think you can do like Bill [Richardson] is apparently doing and hoping people just go in and vote for you."
Biden has a network of endorsements from state, county and local officials, and while these endorsements can sometimes appear small-time — Biden had just been endorsed by the mayor of Keokuk — these are often the kind of politicians who have real political organizations.
Along with those organizations, Biden is also depending on his ability to connect with people.
Obama and Clinton "don't really get to talking to people," Biden says. "They may get 500 people in a room where I get 250, but the people who come out for me stay two hours, and I shake hands with them all. Hillary is on TV a lot, but with me you come out and I meet your two sons and your daughter and I show some enthusiasm."
"You can feel it," he goes on. "My crowds are three times as large as ordinary."
(And, in fact, at his next event, which is at the Italian-American Cultural Center of Iowa on Des Moines' south side, the parking lot is full, people are hunting for spots on side streets, the room is packed and they are putting out more folding chairs wherever they can find a space. It is the proverbial cold winter night, but people continue to trickle in even as Biden is speaking. One woman, pushing a walker, comes in just as he is finishing, which might make it the first time in history Joe Biden has not gone on long enough.)
At Starbucks, Biden says: "I tell my contributors — the few we have — and I tell my staff, 'I cannot show you anything until Jan. 3.' Then you guys (i.e. the media) will cover me and I will finally get to the front page of The New York Times, as reluctant as they are to do that."
To Biden, it is just a matter of getting in front of enough people.
"I am confident in my message and I am confident in breaking through, and the only thing I am not confident about is have I been to enough places?" he asks with a shake of his head and then immediately brightens. "But I promise you, I am totally, completely at peace with the way I have done it."
