US President Barack Obama never considered the idea of dropping Vice President Joe Biden from his 2012 re-election team and replacing him with Hillary Clinton, the White House has said.
“Double Down,” a new book on the 2012 campaign, says Mr Obama’s top aides considered the notion but decided not to pursue it because it did not materially improve Mr Obama’s odds.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, pressed on the issue at his daily news briefing, did not deny that such an idea was floated within Mr Obama’s re-election campaign, Telegraph informs.
“Campaigns and pollsters, as part of campaigns, test a lot of things,” he said. “What I can tell you without a doubt is that the president never considered that, and had anyone brought that idea to him, he would have laughed it out of the room.”
Mr Obama feels Mr Biden has been an enormous asset through two presidential campaigns and at the White House, said Mr Carney. Pressed on whether Mr Obama was aware that such an idea was floating within his campaign, he said, “I’m not aware that he was aware of it.”
