Election 2016: Dick Cheney Wants Joe Biden To Run For President Against Clinton

Former Vice President Dick Cheney made a peculiar suggestion during a CNN interview aired on Monday: He wants Vice President Joe Biden to throw his hat into the ring for the Democratic presidential nomination. Biden, who has been mulling a bid over the past couple of weeks, has said he will make his decision sometime in the next month.

Cheney appeared on CNN's "New Day" with his daughter Liz to promote their new book, "Exceptional: Why The World Needs a Powerful America," which is reportedly very critical of President Barack Obama's management of the U.S. military. As Biden considers a run, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has seen a slump in polls as the controversy surrounding her use of a private email server while at the State Department continues.

"I'd love to see Joe get in the race," the Republican former veep said. "He's tried twice before; he obviously is interested. I think there's a lot of support for him in the Democratic Party. I think it would stir things up. They're short candidates on their side, so I'd urge Joe to have a shot at it."

Regardless of whether Biden decides to make a run for his boss's current office, Clinton clearly has some issues to work out. Once seen as the inevitable Democratic nominee for 2016, Clinton has found herself struggling in polls and facing a seemingly potent threat from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who himself was once seen as having particularly long odds of getting anywhere close to nabbing the nomination. A recent poll shows she's beating Sanders in Iowa by just 7 points, and an average of polls in New Hampshire recently put the senator ahead of Clinton.

In national polling averages, Clinton is ahead of Sanders by 21.5 points, but her numbers have been in a nosedive since early July, when her polling was at about 63 points in the field. Sanders has shot up to 26.3 percent. Biden, who is in third place, trails Sanders by 12.3 percent. Which isn't to say that Biden can't pick up more if he decides on a run: There are three other candidates -- former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee -- and not one of those other three is polling above 2 percent. Biden hasn't even declared.

Follow me on Twitter: @ClarkMindock