“They have a different set of incentives at this point,” Mr. Debenedetti said. “They’re on the same team certainly, but Obama can connect more on a human level with Democrats who are exasperated with Republicans from afar, whereas Biden has to deal with the day-to-day reality of it all.”
This weekend’s Philadelphia reunion of the Obama-Biden team — or is it now the Biden-Obama team? — will invariably draw comparisons that will aggravate both men. Mr. Biden cannot hope to match Mr. Obama’s rhetorical heights, and some Democrats watching them together onstage may pine for what they no longer have.
Yet former presidents often generate nostalgia-fueled good feelings that they did not enjoy while in office. When Mr. Obama was in office, it rankled him when Democrats contrasted him unfavorably to former President Bill Clinton.
Likewise, former presidents have more freedom of travel than a down-in-the-polls incumbent. Mr. Clinton often made his way to competitive states that Mr. Obama did not campaign in while in office, just as Mr. Biden, with his working-class appeal, could as vice president.
Now Mr. Obama, with a 54 percent favorable rating in YouGov polling, has been hitting the most important battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin. Mr. Biden, at 45 percent, in this final week is mostly sticking to friendlier venues where Democrats are leading, like New Mexico, California, Illinois, New York and Maryland, as well as Florida, where national Democrats have little hope.
The appearance in Philadelphia is the rare exception. Pennsylvania, where Mr. Biden was born and to which he feels a special connection, is one swing state where he has made multiple appearances, and John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for Senate in a deadlocked race, has not avoided him.
It may come as a bit of a bittersweet reality for Mr. Biden to have to depend on Mr. Obama, whose shadow he has sought to escape for years. “There’s always that tension,” Mr. Debenedetti noted. “Obama is coordinating every one of his events with the Biden White House. There’s nothing about this that’s a surprise to Biden. It doesn’t mean he’s not sensitive about it, and he has been historically over time.”