JOE SAYS NO! He won’t run for President!
Vice President Joe Biden, who has been mourning the death of his eldest son, announced on Wednesday that he would not seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, ending weeks of speculation over whether he might enter the race.
He made the announcement in the White House Rose Garden, flanked by his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, and President Barack Obama, with senior administration officials sitting in the front row.
Biden said that while his family had come to support a run for the White House, he concluded that five months after the death of his son Beau, the window for a run "has closed."
"As my family and I have worked through the grieving process, I have said all along ... it may very well be that that process, by the time we get through it, closes the window on mounting a realistic campaign for president, that it might close. I concluded it has closed," Biden said.
Yet the speech could have been mistaken for a campaign speech in many ways, as he cast himself as the leading voice of the middle class and champion of Obama's legacy. He said he would "speak out frequently and forcefully" during the campaign.
"While I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent," Biden said. "Our nation will be making tragic mistake if we attempt to undo the Obama legacy."
Biden's vow to make his voice heard could prove difficult at times for the leading Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, since it suggested an endorsement may not be forthcoming anytime soon.
"I don't think we should look at Republicans as our enemies," Biden said in a subtle swipe at Clinton, who said at a CNN debate on Oct. 13 that she was most proud of counting Republicans among the enemies she has made in her years in politics.
But both Clinton and Sanders tweeted their compliments toward Biden after his announcement
Biden also rolled out portions of what could have been his platform, including a full-fledged campaign to cure cancer.
"If anything, I'd want to be the president who ended cancer. Because it's possible," he said.
"We intend to spend the next 15 months fighting for what we always cared about, what my family always cared about," Biden said. "I am absolutely certain we are fully capable of accomplishing extraordinary things, we can do this."
The Beau factor
In recent weeks, Biden at times looked as though he was on the edge of launching a presidential campaign with an aggressive travel schedule that included marching in parades and giving speeches.
However, he has also been publicly mourning his son Beau Biden, who died in May at the age of 46, and appeared as though he did not have the internal fire for a third presidential campaign.
In a telling interview on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Biden told Colbert that he'd "be lying if I said that I knew I was there.”
“I’m being completely honest. Nobody has a right, in my view, to seek that office unless they’re willing to give it 110% of who they are Nobody has a right, in my view, to seek that office unless they’re willing to give it 110% of who they are,” Biden told Colbert in the interview. “As I said, I’m optimistic, I’m positive about where we’re going, but I find myself — you understand it — just sometimes it just sort of overwhelms you and I can’t be....
Biden then described an encounter he had with a soldier who served alongside his son in Iraq.
Biden then described an encounter he had with a soldier who served alongside his son in Iraq.
“All of a sudden, I lost it,” Biden said.
As Biden has publicly wrestled with his grief, many have surmised that he did not have, as Biden himself put it, "the emotional energy" to mount another bid.
Public support
Though Biden opted against a presidential run, polling suggested that he could have made a formidable opponent. A national Bloomberg Politics poll of Democratic voters and independent voters that leaned toward supporting the Democratic party found Biden gaining support.
Biden was the top pick of one in four respondents.
Of those surveyed, 47% thought that Biden should mount a third presidential bid, while 37% said he shouldn’t enter the race and 15% were not sure.
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