Biden bows out of presidential run

WASHINGTON - Vice President Joe Biden won't run for president, ending months of intrigue about his political future and greatly boosting the prospects of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Over the summer, while his family grieved over the May death of his son, Beau, the vice president said the window for a presidential run might close before they were ready to decide.

'I've concluded it has closed,” Biden said in an appearance in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday, less than 15 weeks away from Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses. 'Unfortunately, I believe we're out of time, time necessary to run a winning campaign.”

Around the country, 'Draft Biden” organizations had been trying for months to persuade him to join the race.

'We're all very disappointed,” said Kevin McCarthy, a former Democratic majority leader of the Iowa House and co-director of the state's Draft Biden group. 'There are a lot of tears around the Draft Biden table around the country right now.”

Indeed, a close circle of advisers and at times the vice president himself worked to build support for what would have been a third campaign for the White House. In what has proved to be an unpredictable campaign dominated by outsiders, Biden's brand as an authentic - some say gaffe-prone - political warrior might have suited the times.

But Biden's announcement, with both his wife, Jill, and President Barack Obama at his side, signals the approaching end of a four-decade career in elected office that spanned more than a generation.

Barring the unexpected, his decision sets the shape of the Democratic race in a way that favors Clinton, the former secretary of state.

In a statement, Clinton called Biden's record one to be 'proud of, defend and build on.” She said that 'like millions of others, I admire his devotion to family, his grace in grief, his grit and determination on behalf of the middle class and his unyielding faith in America's promise.”

Biden's speech, though, contained at least one thinly veiled criticism of Clinton, warning against excessive partisanship. But overall, his decision strongly helps her.

In the past couple of weeks, polls have tested how the race would look with and without Biden. The surveys offered a consistent verdict that Biden would start with support from nearly one-fifth of Democrats.

Even more important than the raw numbers were the types of voters Biden potentially could have attracted.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton's main remaining rival, has gathered strong support among white, college-educated liberals who share his strongly held views about income inequality and his critique of big banks and corporate power.

But Clinton has stayed well ahead of Sanders in national polls and in surveys of most heavily Democratic states because of lopsided support for her among black and Latino voters and self-identified moderates. A Biden candidacy would have threatened that bulwark, potentially holding down Clinton's vote.

For his part, the often loquacious Biden used his time in front of the cameras Wednesday to lay out the themes on which he would have campaigned. He called on Democratic candidates to 'run on the record” that Obama has compiled over the past seven years, and he declared that 'I will not be silent,” promising to speak out 'clearly and forcefully.”

Biden also gave Clinton a challenge as he ticked off goals he argues the next president needs to embrace. Among them: free college.

'As a nation, let's make the same commitment to a college education today that we made to a high school education 100 years ago,” Biden said.

Clinton has placed college affordability at the center of her campaign, but has stopped short of pushing to make college free - a position more in line with Sanders.

James Q. Lynch of The Gazette contributed to this report.