Biden Writes In Memoir That He Did Not Run For President Fearing Dirty Campaign From Clinton Supporters

One year ago the Democrats lost an election to a candidate as awful as Donald Trump. They lost not because of Russia, and not because of James Comey. They lost because of giving the nomination to a candidate as awful as Hillary Clinton. In a normal year Joe Biden would have probably have been the establishment candidate and, while he would not personally be my first choice, he probably could have beaten Donald Trump easily. In his upcoming memoir,  Promise Me Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose, Joe Biden wrote that he did not run because of being threatened with a dirty campaign by Hillary Clinton supporters.

The Telegraph is one of the newspapers which quoted portions of Biden’s memoir:

Joe Biden knew he could beat Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination but decided not to run because he feared a “stop at nothing” smear campaign by her supporters, he reveals in a new memoir.

The man who served as Barack Obama’s vice-president remains a favourite among party faithful, many of whom believe he would have fared better in the states that delivered the White House to Donald Trump.

His words are certain to deepen splits among Democrats following their defeat and reignite speculation the 74-year-old is preparing for one last run.

In Promise Me Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose, due to be published next week, Mr Biden discusses his decision not to stand in the wake of his son Beau’s death.

He describes meeting Mrs Clinton in February 2015 when she was preparing her campaign and probing his plans.

“But if I ran, I told her, I would not run a negative campaign. She said the same,” he writes, in excerpts published by Mail Online, but then she added: “Although some of our supporters can get out of hand sometimes, it would not be me.”

After his son’s death, the Biden family had to deal with more upheaval when his other son, Hunter, left his wife for Beau’s widow.

That summer he received messages urging him to stand but had an ominous feeling that “the opposition research had already started on me”.

He does not say who the opposition was, but describes how negative stories began appearing in the media about past political positions.

“And Clinton backers sent the signal that they would not stop at voting records and policies if I did get in the race,” he writes.

Biden is being overly kind to Clinton in blaming her supporters and not Clinton herself. It has been typical of Clinton to claim innocence of some of the dirtiest acts of her supporters, such as launching the Birther campaign against Barack Obama during the 2008 nomination battle. I think that Biden is smart enough to see through this. Regardless, we certainly know how dirty and dishonest many of Clinton’s supporters are and can understand Biden’s concerns.

1 Comment

  1. 1
    Dj says:

    No surprise. I would’ve been surprised to hear different. Thank GOD Hillary is NOT our president!!!!

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