CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, CLEVELAND, Ohio-Ending months of intense speculation on whether he would make a bid for president, and following Hillary Clinton's rise in the national polls after her outstanding performance during the first Democratic presidential debate held on Oct 13, Vice President Joe Biden, flanked  his wife Jill and by President Barack Obama, announced today that he is abandoning his dream of succeeding Obama into office.

"As my family and I have worked through the grieving process, I’ve said all along what I’ve said time and again to others, that it may very well be that that process, by the time we get through it, closes the window on mounting a realistic campaign for president, that it might close," said Biden from the White House Rose Garden  in Washington, D.C. "I’ve concluded it has closed."

Biden, 72, has an  impressive political resume, which includes some 40 years in the Senate representing the state of Delaware, two previously failed attempts for the Democratic nomination for president, one in 1988 and the other in 2008,  and two terms as vice president with the Obama administration.

His decision not to run comes nearly five months after the loss of his oldest son Beau, 46 and a Delaware attorney and political operative like his father, to brain cancer.

The vice president promised to stay active in politics and called for bi-partisan cooperation in Congress and across the political continuum.

"I believe we have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart." said Biden "And I think we can. It’s mean spirited."

Clinton has been diplomatic on Biden's ambiguity relative to a possible presidential run, saying publicly that he is a friend.

But she was simultaneously gearing up to take him on if necessary, sources have said.

The vice president's decision gives the former first lady one less contender to worry about, and sets up a two-way race for the nomination between Clinton and longtime U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a socialist Democrat who is losing ground as the Feb. 1 Iowa Caucuses near. (Editor's note; Two other less known candidates. (Editor's note: Two less known and long-shot candidates, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley,  and Lincoln Chafee, a  former U.S. senator and former governor of Rhode Island, are also still in the race)

Biden also said during his press conference today, one marked with political overtones, that his tenure under Obama, a Democrat and America's first Black president, has been meaningful, and that he will cherish having worked "alongside the president and members of Congress."

Clinton has been the front-runner for the Democratic nomination from the onset, even before she announced in April that she would run. And she holds  a sizable lead, according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday.

Benghazi also was the subject of the first Democratic presidential debate, with Clinton saying that while she mourns the Americans that lost their lives in the attack, as long as the United States sends diplomats abroad there are risk that come with it, and that America's presence there was, to some extent, liberating for its people. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).