Joe Biden Spot Pains CNN, Which Hoped He Would Headline Tonight’s Debate

Despite CNN’s on-air begging, Joe Biden really most sincerely will not be a last-minute add to the stage at tonight’s Dem debate. The network had said Biden could jump in as late as today and it would make room for him on stage:

CNN finally conceded defeat this morning, and switched its Biden blather to talk of how tonight’s debate “could very well convince Vice President Joe Biden to step up to the plate – or not.”: Jake Tapper.

But, though Biden did not take up the network’s invitation to qualify, by announcing his candidacy, and hop on a Las Vegas-bound plane, he has been appearing on the network since this morning. Draft Biden, the super-PAC set up to promote a VPOTUS to run for president, debuted its new ad, Never Quit.

Never Quit replaces the org’s previous My Redemption ad that told the story of Biden’s personal tragedies: when his first wife and 1-year-old daughter died in a car accident in 1972 and, more recently, the death of his elder son Joseph R. Biden III, the former attorney general of Delaware, at age 46, of brain cancer. That ad had been tagged for use on CNN in today’s run-up to tonight’s Dem debate, but reportedly was replaced after Biden’s camp rep said it walked over “sacred ground.”