Vice President Joe Biden Won't Run for President
WASHINGTON - Vice President Joe Biden says he won't run for president in 2016.
Biden made the announcement Wednesday afternoon from the White House Rose Garden, alongside his wife Jill Biden and President Barack Obama.
He said he and his family are still grieving after losing their son, Beau, to cancer earlier this year.
"As my family and I have worked through the grieving process, I've said all along what I've said time and again to others, that 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've concluded it has closed," he said.
Biden's decision finalizes the Democratic field of White House candidates. His decision bolsters Hillary Rodham Clinton's standing in the Democratic primary by sparing her a challenge from the popular vice president.
Still, he vowed to be a forceful voice in the campaign.
"But while I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent. I intend to speak out clearly and forcefully, to influence as much as I can where we stand as a party and where we need to go as a nation," he said.
Biden isn't the only Democrat letting go of 2016 Oval Office ambitions. Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb announced he was dropping out on Monday.
