Former Delaware Attorney General, Beau Biden, son of U.S. Vice
President Joe Biden, died on Saturday after battling brain cancer, the
vice president said. He was 46.
"The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words," Vice President
Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
"We know that Beau's spirit will live on in all of us, especially
through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie
and Hunter," he said.
Beau Biden had announced last year he planned to run for governor of
Delaware in 2016.
He was diagnosed with brain cancer in August 2013 and underwent
surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. After getting a "a clean bill of
health" in November of that year, his cancer recurred in the spring of
2015, the vice president's office said.
He sought aggressive treatment and had been hospitalized this month at
the Walter Reed Army Medical Center outside Washington. His family was
with him when he died.
"Beau embodied my father's saying that a parent knows success when his
child turns out better than he did," the vice president said. "In the
words of the Biden family: Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest
man any of us have ever known."
Beau Biden was very close to his father and a familiar presence in his
political campaigns.
After eight years as attorney general in Delaware, Beau Biden joined
the investor law firm Grant & Eisenhofer in 2015.
He served a year-long tour in Iraq as a member of the Delaware Army
National Guard. He suffered a mild stroke in 2010.
President Barack Obama said he and his wife, first lady Michelle
Obama, were grieving. He paid warm tribute to Beau Biden, saying he
took after his father.
"He studied the law, like his dad, even choosing the same law school.
He chased a life of public service, like his dad, serving in Iraq and
as Delaware's Attorney General," Obama said in a statement.
"Like his dad, Beau was a good, big-hearted, devoutly Catholic and
deeply faithful man, who made a difference in the lives of all he
touched, and he lives on in their hearts."
The vice president has not publicly ruled out a run for president in
2016, but he would face tough odds to gain an advantage over his
friend, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is far ahead in
public opinion polls in the race for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
Clinton expressed condolences over Twitter on Saturday.
"My heart is broken for the family of Beau Biden – a wonderful man who
served his country with devotion and lived his life with courage," she
wrote.
The vice president has faced family tragedy before.
Shortly after winning election to the U.S. Senate in 1972, his wife
Neilia and three children were in a car crash. Neilia and their
daughter were killed, while their two sons, Beau and Hunter, were
injured.
Biden opted not to move to Washington, choosing instead to make the 2
1/2-hour daily round-trip train commute from Delaware to his Senate
job so he could spend more time with his sons. He married Jill Jacobs
some five years after his first wife died.
Biden took office as vice president when Obama entered the White House
in January 2009. He has a deep knowledge of Washington politics after
decades in Congress and a folksy, avuncular style that contrasts with
what many consider Obama's more aloof manner.
Biden regularly mentions his family in speeches and sometimes has his
grandchildren accompany him on diplomatic trips abroad.
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