Will Biden Run for President?
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Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images(BELOIT, Wis.) — Vice President Joe Biden sang a different tune on his 2016 presidential prospects Friday afternoon when a patron at West Side Family Restaurant asked him if he was going to run for president.
“You going to run as president this time?” the man, who was seated in a booth as the vice president made the rounds at the restaurant, asked Biden.
“Oh no, I am going to stick as vice president,” Biden said to the man. The vice president then turned to the press and said, “Y’all hear that, press?”
In Florida on Wednesday, Biden set off 2016 speculation when he suggested to a Republican voter that he could vote for him in the next election cycle.
“After it’s all over, when your insurance rates go down then you’ll vote for me in 2016. I’ll talk to you later,” Biden told a Republican over the phone at 400 Station, a restaurant in Sarasota.
Biden pursued a presidential bid in 1988 and 2008, and the vice president recently joked about being disappointed that he lost Iowa to then candidate Barack Obama during his last presidential bid.
“You know, you guys are the guys that put Barack on the road. You guys were the guys — I may have been a little disappointed at the time,” Biden admitted to volunteers at a campaign field office in Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday night. “But we got the right order. We got the right order.”
Before stopping in for a cheeseburger and fries at West Side in Beloit Friday afternoon, Biden greeted over 300 children at recess across the street at Hackett Elementary School. Just Thursday, Biden jumped out of his motorcade to shake hands with and greet nearly a thousand elementary and middle school children lined up on the street in Muscatine, Iowa.
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