Biden in 2016: ‘There is a chance’

Vice President Biden isn’t ruling out a run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2016.

{mosads}“Yes, there is a chance,” Biden said Wednesday in an interview with ABC News’s “Good Morning America.” “But I haven’t made my mind up about that. We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then. There’s plenty of time.”

The vice president said he saw the nomination battle as “wide open on both sides” but praised former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is presumed to be a front-runner for the nod should she run, as a “really competent, capable person and a friend.”

But, Biden said, “the person who is going to be the next president of the United States is the one who is able to articulate the clearest vision” for how to move the country forward.

The vice president added that he did not think he needed to decide whether he would enter the race until the summer.

“Right now, my focus is getting implemented what the president talked about last night: to nail down this recovery and get the middle class back in the game,” Biden said.

A CNN/ORC poll released late last month showed Clinton to be the overwhelming favorite in the Democratic primary, with two-thirds of voters saying she was their choice. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) drew 9 percent, and Biden rounded out the top three with support from 8 percent of voters.

In an interview with The New Yorker last year, President Obama said Biden “would be a superb president.”

“He has seen the job up close, he knows what the job entails,” Obama said. “He understands how to separate what’s really important from what’s less important. I think he’s got great people skills. He enjoys politics, and he’s got important relationships up on the Hill that would serve him well.”