Subject: Joe, Ashley Biden talk 2016 - Lucy McCalmont - POLITICO
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Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:08:29 -0500

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http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/joe-biden-ashley-biden-113469.html

Joe, Ashley Biden talk 2016

While she thinks her father, the vice president, would be an “absolutely fantastic” president, Ashley Biden says she would love some down time and the opportunity to work with him on other projects.

“I think that’s going to be a family discussion. Selfishly, I would love to get to work with my father and maybe start ‘Bidens United,’” Ashley joked Tuesday at POLITICO’s Women Rule Summit, a day-long event featuring panels on promoting women in politics, business and other areas.

Ashley, executive director of the Delaware Center for Justice, said her father “would be absolutely fantastic” as president.

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“It would be nice to maybe have a beach house, maybe have some down time would be wonderful,” she said. “But, you know, I guess we’ll see.”

As for the vice president’s opinion?

“I’d tell you. I honest to God haven’t made up my mind,” said Joe Biden, who appeared at the event with his daughter, when asked if he’ll run. “I don’t see any sense of urgency in making that decision, quite frankly.”

Biden said everything he would do to run for president is what he should be doing to be the best vice president. He said that it “wouldn’t be appropriate for me” to announce a bid—even if he had made a decision—and go off and “do this full-time now, there’s a lot of unfinished business.”

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“But I don’t think that precludes me from running, ” Joe Biden continued. “I’m confident I would be in a position to be able to be competitive, to be able to run a race, to be funded, et cetera.”

He said a decision on 2016 would come around the end of spring, early summer—“we’ve not had that family discussion, either.”

The 33-year-old Ashley Biden’s appearance Tuesday was somewhat of a debut on the national scene, as she has kept a low-profile compared to her notable brothers who have had a presence in politics. However, she and her father shared a bit on what it was like growing up Biden.

“With boys I always knew where the hell I stood,” Joe Biden said, referring to his sons. “They just were flat out, they would tell you, you know what I mean? You knew. I didn’t always know [with Ashley] —I wasn’t always positive. I always knew she loved me. Sometimes, I wasn’t always sure how much she liked me” - the vice president said, joking about typical embarrassing parent moments, such as kisses after a game or cheering too loudly.

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And while she didn’t grow up in the White House, Ashley Biden said she has shared similar experiences to Sasha and Malia Obama of watching your father being covered in the media.

“I think the hardest thing for me was actually watching the media criticize my father, someone who I adore and, you know, I feel like a lot of times they got it wrong,” Ashley Biden said.

She added that many times her achievements were attributed to the fact that her father was Joe Biden.

The pair also talked about race relations and law enforcement in the nation, following emotional and tense scenes after the deaths of Missouri teen Michael Brown and New Yorker Eric Garner, and lack of indictment of officers in each case.

“I think that the black community is hurting right now,” Ashley Biden said.

She said she hopes these events are the impetus for reforms, adding that there needs to be an understanding of institutional racism.

“And if you don’t know the history, it’s very difficult to kind of understand what’s going on now. There has been a very tumultuous relationship between law enforcement and the community for many years,” Ashley Biden said, citing issues of over policing of communities and policing tactics that are used.

The vice president praised his daughter’s work as well as that of Beau Biden, who served as Delaware’s attorney general.

“She’s understands more than I do about how young people are looking at crime now how we’re almost back to where it was without the epidemic of crime, back to where it was when I start writing the crime bill in the first place,” the vice president said, adding that he asks Ashley for her opinion on the issue.

He continued, “We have inequity again in the system. We’re putting people in jail instead of transiting them.”

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