Having passed on the 2016 presidential race, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. watches the fight for the Democratic nomination with a mixture of longing and restlessness.

He remains neutral in the battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but not between their campaign styles. He’ll take Mr. Sanders’s aspirational approach over Mrs. Clinton’s caution any day.

“I like the idea of saying, ‘We can do much more,’ because we can,” Mr. Biden said in an interview on the Washington-to-Wilmington, Del., Amtrak train he has ridden throughout four decades in national politics.

“I don’t think any Democrat’s ever won saying, ‘We can’t think that big — we ought to really downsize here because it’s not realistic,’ ” he said in a mocking tone. “C’mon man, this is the Democratic Party! I’m not part of the party that says, ‘Well, we can’t do it.’ ”

That’s easy for the vice president to say now. He no longer needs to contemplate the burden, as Mrs. Clinton’s front-running campaign must, of defending ambitious goals in a race against Republican opposition.

President Obama, who has done that twice, recently explained the contrast in Democratic candidates by noting that Mr. Sanders enjoys “the luxury of being a complete long shot and just letting loose.”

But it’s also consistent with the soaring, if sometimes overexuberant, rhetorical style that Mr. Biden has preferred throughout a career in elected office that will draw to a close in January.

“The clarion call for our generation is not ‘it’s our turn,’ ” Mr. Biden said in announcing his first presidential bid, in 1987. Disdaining “smooth, antiseptic and passionless” leadership, he insisted then, “We must rekindle the fire of idealism in this country.”

I love the energy he brings!

Having a day off at home obviously did him good.