Who would make a better president, Vice President Joe Biden or former secretary of state Hillary Clinton? “Not a chance am I going there,” said President Obama when asked Thursday by msnbc’s Chris Matthews.
But should either choose to run in 2016, “both Hillary and Joe would make outstanding presidents, and possess the qualities that are needed to be outstanding presidents,” Obama said during a 40-minute interview at American University in Washington.
“I think Joe Biden will go down in history as one of the best vice presidents ever, and he has been with me, at my side, in every tough decision that I’ve made,” the president said. “Hillary, I think, will go down in history as one of the finest secretaries of state we’ve ever had, and helped to transition us away from a deep hole that we were in, when I first came into office, around the world, and rebuilt confidence and trust in the United States.”
Neither Clinton nor Biden have said whether or not a presidential campaign is in their immediate futures, but speculation continues to remain high, with Republicans already preparing to run against Clinton in 2016.
“We have to be very aggressive on what she’s done or hasn’t done,” RNC chairman Reince Preibus said in a radio interview Wednesday. “And the things that she is famous for, like a botched health care rollout in the 90s, and Benghazi, and the things that she is involved with that are or went obviously pretty badly, we need to focus in on.”
Clinton has topped various polls asking voters who they would support in 2016, with a recent poll showing Clinton as the overwhelming favorite at 70%. Biden came in a distant second, with 9% of the hypothetical vote.
Traci Lee