Vice President Joe Biden gave his most striking and somber answer yet on Thursday about whether he plans to run for President, saying during an appearance at an Atlanta synagogue that he’s unsure if he “has the emotional energy to run.”
“I will be straightforward with you. The most relevant factor in my decision is whether my family and I have the emotional energy to run,” Biden said during a speech at the Ahavath Achim Synagogue in Atlanta. “The honest to God answer is I just don’t know.”
Biden’s son Beau died of brain cancer in May and his death has weighed heavily on America’s Happy Warrior.
“If I can reach that conclusion that we can do it in a fashion that would still make it viable, I would not hesitate to do it,” he told the crowd.
Watch the speech, from the Wall Street Journal, below:
From the sounds of it, and I heard it last night, my feeling is, he really won’t run. He wants to, but he just doesn’t have the energy to.
I like The Biden a lot, as pols go. I think he’d probably make Hillary a better candidate. I think his entry would create an opening for storylines about Democratic policy ideas and things other than Hillary’s email usage. I also think he’d almost certainly lose, and I wouldn’t vote for him if there’s a competent woman candidate who’s acceptably solicitous of the left in the race, because I’m kind of over white dude presidents. For his sake, I hope he doesn’t run.
He isn’t running. I am not entirely sure why he is keeping this kabuki theater going, but its been pretty clear to me for awhile that he isn’t running.
If he wanted to run, that decision should have been made back at the beginning of the year. You don’t, at this late date, start contemplating a run while repeatedly saying you’re sure if you have the energy or the fuel for a run. To get in now he would severely disadvantaged, both in terms of organization and money. That sort of campaign requires enormous amount of personal desire or “fuel” to run. A candidate that is only half hearted into it? Not gonna happen.
@marnold I don’t see how Biden would have any impact upon Hillary from a policy standpoint. They occupy the same space on the political spectrum. He is VP in the same administration of which she was SoS. He has never voiced any particular policy differences with the Clinton campaign (which in and of itself, is a pretty big tell that he isn’t running). There may be some reasons to get behind Biden campaign, but that he will create serious policy discussions with Hillary isn’t one of them.
I’m not sure why he would run anyway. I think Hillary Clinton is up like 40 points on the field, isn’t she?
Not heartbreaking, but unusually candid, and IMHO he’s on the path to “Not.” The third time won’t be a charm.