Vice President Joe Biden and his associates “have begun to actively explore a possible presidential campaign, which would upend the Democratic field and deliver a direct threat to Hillary Clinton, several people who have spoken to Mr. Biden or his closest advisers say,” according to the New York Times.

“Mr. Biden’s advisers have started to reach out to Democratic leaders and donors who have not yet committed to Mrs. Clinton or who have grown concerned about what they see as her increasingly visible vulnerabilities as a candidate.”

Maureen Dowd reports that the death of Joe Biden’s son has prompted the vice president to consider a run for the White House.

“Beau was losing his nouns and the right side of his face was partially paralyzed. But he had a mission: He tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.”

Weekly Standard: “Ask this question: Who gave Maureen Down the details of the conversations between Joe Biden and his sons? The details are, after all, pretty … detailed: There are direct quotations from Beau, Hunter, and Joe; a sentence capturing the thought process of Joe; a brief description of Beau’s physical state. It’s great reporting, and it’s a story well-told; but we can ask, how did Maureen Dowd know this? Who was willing and able to give her this level of detail?”

Vice President Joe Biden “is still very much considering a bid for the White House, people close to Biden say, and will make a final decision at the end of the summer, targeted for September,” the Huffington Post reports.

“The Iowa caucuses are scheduled for early February, meaning Biden would have roughly four months to barnstorm the first-in-the-nation state before the contest turned to New Hampshire.”

New York Times: “Six weeks after the death of his elder son, Mr. Biden has thrown himself back into his work, meeting with foreign leaders, giving speeches and even cheering on the women’s national soccer team in its victory over Japan in the World Cup. Unsurprisingly, in the shadow of tragedy, he is not his typically ebullient self. But by all accounts he is feeling his way forward and trying to figure out what comes next.”

“Even without the heartbreak of loss, this was bound to be a crossroads moment for a vice president who has spent four decades in Washington only to find an uncertain path ahead. He has not ruled out running for president again, and some friends are nudging him to, even if the political math does not seem to favor it.”

National Journal: Should Joe Biden chase his dream?

Wall Street Journal: “When deciding whether to run for office, Vice President Joe Biden has made it a practice to seek his family’s counsel. That advice has included at least two members of his immediate family—his sons—urging him to run for president in 2016, Biden friends and advisers say.”

“The Biden family’s wishes add an intriguing wrinkle to a Democratic presidential race that has unfolded in unpredictable ways. But a White House official said speculation about the vice president’s political future was premature during this tough time for the family.”

New York Times: “The founders of the Draft Biden 2016 committee refuse to take probably not for an answer. And in this spare office with a shuffleboard table but no televisions, a handful of Democratic activists is trying to build the unlikely nucleus of an unlikely presidency.”

“Theirs is not exactly a political juggernaut. During a recruiting trip to a Democratic event in South Carolina, some who encountered the Draft Biden movement asked if it was a beer. Mr. Biden has not endorsed the effort, nor called or visited or publicly acknowledged its existence. The closest the team of activists has come to the vice president during this campaign season is the life-size cardboard cutout figure of Mr. Biden in the corner of their office.”

Vice President Joe Biden said he still has “plenty of time” to make up his own mind about running, USA Today reports.

Biden said it’s possible he’s “dead wrong” about delaying a decision.

He added: “But there’s a lot the president and I care about that has to get done in the next two to three months. When you run for president you’ve got to run for president, and I’m not ready to do that, if I’m ever going to be ready to do that.”

MSNBC: “Interviews with more than a dozen people close to the vice president paint a picture of a politician torn between a decades-long aspiration for the presidency, a deep commitment his family and a recognition of a political reality tilted against him. For reasons both bigger and smaller than Hillary Clinton, Biden will not achieve the dream to which he’s now come so close. But he refuses to rule himself out completely and will keep a presidential pilot light burning as long as possible. If nothing else, the fiercely loyal Biden will use these next two years to defend the legacy of the Obama administration and his role in it.”

Although Vice President Joe Biden has said he is seriously considering a run for president and has visited some early-primary states, National Journal says he’s not running.

“He’s doing nothing—nothing—to stand up an operation. No exploratory committee. No organizing in early states. No super PAC or allied nonprofit. Indeed, no ‘Ready for Joe’ bumper stickers are being printed and sent to field offices.”

Matt Bai: “The accepted wisdom where Biden is concerned is that you can’t have two establishment candidates representing continuity from the same administration, so the best he can do is to wait on the sidelines, keep his options open and hope that maybe Hillary decides to do something else in the twilight of her life…”

“Biden’s instincts have to tell him something different, though. After 40-plus years in Washington, he has to know that no one ever really gets plucked off the sidelines when the opening arrives; you have to create the opening yourself. He has to know, too, that the insiders are almost always wrong, and the further out from an actual election you are, the more wrong they tend to be.”

“Biden is a better candidate than most pundits have ever given him credit for. Yeah, he’s sloppy and meandering and says some nutty stuff. But that’s all part of being genuine and three-dimensional, which may be the most valuable trait in modern politics and not a bad contrast to Clinton’s robotic discipline.”

Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Biden has taken no overt steps toward building a national campaign machinery, and few people expect him to run. Nonetheless, Mr. Biden in recent weeks has fanned the will-he-or-won’t-he conversation by suggesting that he’s still considering a bid and by scheduling trips to three states that hold the earliest presidential nominating contests.”

H”is recent travels to Iowa and South Carolina—as well as a planned Wednesday excursion to New Hampshire—have been official White House business to promote the administration’s agenda. But inevitably, talk turns to the presidential campaign in private conversations. Mr. Biden doesn’t seem to mind, fellow Democrats say, but he remains consistently noncommittal.”

“Vice President Biden will travel to New Hampshire Wednesday — his third trip to a state with an early 2016 presidential nominating contest this month,” The Hill reports.

“By the end of February, Biden will have traveled to three of the four states with the earliest presidential nominating contests in 2016 this month alone.”