Vice President Joseph Biden Jr has announced on Wednesday that he will not be running as president for next year's elections, ending public scrutiny over the matter and clearing one of the biggest obstacles for Hillary Clinton's path for the Democratic nomination.

In a speech arranged at the White House Rose Garden, The New York Times mentioned that Biden said after they had to overcome the death of his elder son, they can commit for the rigors of the campaign, but with days left for filing deadline, he said that it's simply too late at this point to file for his candidacy. His flirtation with the candidacy finally ended after he and his advisers looked to his calendar and reckoned they did not have enough time to raise money and to campaign sufficiently.

"Unfortunately, I believe we're out of time, the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination. But while I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent," he said. He then proceeded on using the rest of his speech to outline his paper if he would have run, with a few jabs at Clinton over her foreign policy and hostility to Republicans.

His decision to forgo the upcoming elections is a bit of surprise to his supporters considering that after skipping last week's democratic debates, he called on a handful of operatives that he hoped would work on his campaign, leaving them with the impression that he's ready to run as he told the operatives that he had "the strongest chance to continue the work Barack has done." He also mentioned the possibility of Clinton losing to the Republicans.

However, The Washington Post noted that as per indications from polls, if Biden jumped into the competition this late, he will draw votes from Clinton's supporters as they come from the same center-left sector of their party, with similar long-standing institutional ties and even allegiances in the party. They also have relevant claims to national security and legislative experience.

However, it cannot be ignored that the former secretary of state also has a formidable head start, with her standing improving considerable over the past week, which is partly due to her commanding performance at the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas. Chief political Strategist for Obama's two presidential campaigns (including his victory over Clinton in 2008) noted that Clinton "was the likely nominee yesterday and she's the slightly more likely nominee today."

What did you think of Biden's decision not to run for president in the next elections?