In a candid admission, US Vice-President Joe Biden has said that his decision not to contest the 2016 presidential race was driven by a realisation that he “couldn’t win” and not really because he had run out of time to mount an effective campaign as indicated by him last week.
In an interview to CBS’s “60 Minutes” show on Sunday evening, Biden said, “Couldn’t win. I’ll be very blunt. If I thought we could’ve put together the campaign that our supporters deserved, that our contributors deserved, I would’ve done it.”
Saying he made the “right decision for the family”, Biden conceded that it took long for him and his family to decide, given the backdrop of utmost grief over the death of his 46-year-old son Beau due to brain cancer in May-end.
In most of the polls prior to his announcement, Biden was seen lagging behind not only front-runner Hillary Clinton but also her main challenger Senator Bernie Sanders.
Yet, there were conflicting signals from the Biden camp, contributing to the intense speculation over the past month that he might enter the race until he made his announcement not to run last Wednesday.
In his interview, Biden also scotched reports that his son had pleaded from his death bed that he take another shot at the White House. Biden had made two unsuccessful bids in the past. “Beau all along thought that I should run and I could win. But there was not what was sort of made out as kind of this Hollywood-esque thing that at the last minute Beau grabbed my hand and said, ‘Dad, you’ve got to run, like, win one for the Gipper.’ It wasn’t anything like that,” Biden said.
Discussing front-runner Clinton, Biden said: “I’ve said from the beginning, ‘look, I like Hillary. Hillary and I get along together’. The only reason to run is because ... I still think I could do a better job than anybody else could do.”
He, however, will not be coming out with an endorsement until the Democratic Party chooses its nominee. Biden thought that both Clinton and Sanders did a “great job” at the first Democratic presidential debate in las Vegas on October 13.
Asked about Republican front-runner Donald Trump, Biden voiced disappointment over his remarks against immigrants. “I know what a showman and all that he is. But I really don’t think it’s healthy and I hope he reconsiders this sort of attack on all immigrants. I think that is beneath the country. I don’t think it’s where the American people are. And I hope he really doesn’t believe it,” Biden said.