If there’s been one constant to former vice president Joe Biden’s bid for the presidency, it’s been how tightly he’s been hugging his relationship with his former boss, President Barack Obama.

Whether it’s been out on the campaign trail or during the monthly Democratic presidential debates, Biden regularly refers back to the days of the “Obama-Biden administration,” just to remind voters as often as he can of his relationship to the popular former president and the years of relative national calm and stability we enjoyed compared to these tumultuous, divisive years under Donald Trump.

Problem is that Biden no longer has the Obama corner to himself. Here comes billionaire and former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg with his free-spending TV advertising juggernaut. Because this time Bloomberg is up with an ad which touts his close relationship with our 44th president, and how Bloomberg has worked with Obama on important issues like gun safety, education and job creation.

The way the ad is cut, you might be forgiven for thinking that Bloomberg, not Biden, was Obama’s loyal VP.

And considering that a) Obama personally has remained silent in offering any endorsement in this year’s Democratic presidential contest and b) Bloomberg spends so freely to air his TV commercials (one report pegs it at more than $100 million thus far), you might be really be forgiven if you thought that after repeatedly viewing these ads, perhaps Obama had actually endorsed Bloomberg.

None of this can be good news for Biden, who started out this race as almost the invincible front-runner, but this week limped out of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses in a disappointing fourth place.

Biden’s major selling point this year had been that he had been Barack Obama’s right hand man, and that gave him the unique qualification that a vote for him, in essence, was a vote for a third Obama term.

And, now, with a single 30-second ad, Mike Bloomberg has essentially demolished Joe Biden’s basic rationale for his campaign this year.

No, this has not been a good week for Biden at all.

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