Story highlights Joe Biden disputed Thursday characterizations of working class Americans as racist or sexist

The vice president said when you don't run for president, "you're a popular guy out there."

(CNN) Vice President Joe Biden downplayed the chances his would be presidential campiagn could have emerged victorious with a more strident economic message than Hillary Clinton's, saying Thursday that Republicans would "probably have eaten me alive" if he had decided to run.

But Biden said Thursday this year's presidential campaign lacked a focus on improving the lives of working class voters, a flaw he suggested may have cost Clinton the presidency.

"There's been a shift in focus now that we got the car out of the ditch and on the road and running, on really focusing on the real inequities that exist and still exist for working class, middle class people who are left behind. And what happened was that wasn't a central part of the campaign moving forward in my view," Biden told CNN's Jake Tapper in an interview.

"I said at the convention when I introduced Hillary and praised her, I said we don't show enough respect to that group that has been in fact left behind," he went on.

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