U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is continuing to assess whether to run against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, and will probably make a decision next month, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking.
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Clinton leads rival Democrats with 55 percent support among Democratic voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday.
It was headlined “Joe Biden in 2016: What Would Beau Do” – a reference to a passage in the column asserting that toward the end of Beau’s life, the Biden family got blue bracelets made bearing the letters WWBD, an acronym of “What Would Beau Do”.
The Wall Street Journal story that he son Beau, Delaware’s former Attorney General who died of brain cancer, told his father that he wanted him to run before he died was a plant.
As for the vice president himself, sources close to Biden say that he is “actively passive” when it comes to determining if he should throw his hat into the presidential ring – though they note that this is far from a new development.
But the poll also should give Clinton five reasons to be concerned as she tries to become the first woman to win the White House.
Biden could still decide not to run.
When Beau realized he was not going to make it, he asked his father if he had a minute to sit down and talk.
When ABC’s George Stephanopoulos interviewed Biden on “Good Morning America” in January, he said “there’s a chance” that he would challenge Clinton, but added, “I don’t think I have to make up my mind until the summer”.
Obama later chose Biden as his running mate.
Reports of a tense relationship between the Obamas and Hillary Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have persisted throughout the Obama presidency. Fox News reported on the meeting.
“As the Biden family continues to go through this hard time, the vice president is focused on his family and immersed in his work”, Barkoff said.
“He wasn’t testing the waters with me”, Susman said of Ricchetti.
Biden is by no means a virtuoso campaigner.
While the list of Republican presidential candidates starts to look more and more like the New York City Yellow Pages, the situation in the Democratic Party could very possibly be described as an increasingly paranoid Hillary Clinton looking over her shoulder.
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“He’s not saying no”, one adviser said.
