Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Vice President Joe Biden says the real reason he decided not to make a presidential bid is because he did not believe he could win.
Vice President Joe Biden says he decided against running for president because he “couldn’t win,” not because he would have had too little time to get a campaign up and running. “I’ll be very blunt. If I thought we could’ve put together the campaign … that our supporters deserve and our contributors deserved, … I would have done it,” he said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
In the wide-ranging interview, in which Biden took questions for a time joined by his wife, Jill, the vice president also said he would not have gotten into the race just to stop Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I’ve said from the beginning, ‘Look, I like Hillary. Hillary and I get along together,” he said. “The only reason to run is because … I still think I could do a better job than anybody else could do.”
While Biden may not be a contender for the White House, he is remaining vocal and opinionated about the direction of the Democratic platform. One comment during his press announcement was interpreted as a shot at Hillary Clinton for her debate comments about being a proud enemy of the GOP (though he now denies it was directed at her specifically):
At the White House event, Biden lamented partisan bickering in Washington politics and said, “I don’t think we should look at Republicans as our enemies.” Clinton had made a statement to that effect during the Democratic presidential debate earlier this month.
Joe Biden is still making headlines in the 2016 political coverage, and his Democratic primary polling numbers remain around 17% nationally, even after his announcement. Biden’s opinion is going to matter for Hillary and Bernie, and their campaigns for his endorsement have probably already started.
