How Biden Got His Least-Likely Role

His job as adviser will count

By Victoria Floethe, Newser User

Posted Jan 24, 2009 9:33 PM CST

(Newser) – A self-declared "Senate man," Joe Biden admitted up-front that he might not fit the vice-presidency. The charming Democrat had spent two-thirds of his life making feisty speeches and verbal flubs—not exactly characteristic traits of a VP. So Barack Obama and Biden sat down to talk. All Biden wanted, he said, was "to be a valued counselor on the big decisions," said Obama adviser David Axelrod.

Biden's unattributed quoting of a politician had cost him a shot at the presidency in 1987; his intense preparation for the Robert Bork Supreme Court hearings led to an aneurysm and brain surgery. This firebrand, for VP? "It's like putting a boxer in the ring and telling him not to fight," John H. Richardson writes in Esquire. So far, so good, despite a few bumps. The more Biden works with Obama, "the more I realize how philosophically in sync we are," he said.

[Images (5)]

[Videos (1)]

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Vice President Joe Biden arrives with his wife Jill Biden at the Neighborhood Ball on inauguration night in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill walk along Pennsylvania Avenue Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009, in Washington, during the inaugural parade. (AP Photo/Clarissa M. Rucker)

Vice President-elect Joe Biden, right, listens as President-elect Barack Obama's National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers, left, speaks during a meeting in Washington, Dec. 23, 2008. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill talk to Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez at the Mid-Atlantic Inaugural Ball on Inauguration night in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Senator Biden, Senator Frank Church and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat after signing an Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty.

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Joe Biden and Barack Obama talk to Steve Kroft on "60 Minutes." (YouTube)

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He could be the generic distinguished older man in a magazine ad from the '60s for a fine liqueur, standing next to a red leather chair with a snifter in his hand. - John H. Richardson, Esquire

...he somehow forgot to get rich. With an income pretty much limited to his salary and his wife's salary as a community-college professor, his net worth is..."somewhere between $59,000 and $366,000." - John H. Richardson, Esquire

We were very, very candid with one another, and the one thing I can tell you is we both said, 'This won't work unless we both agree in building a relationship that we'll be absolutely straightforward and candid.'
- Joe Biden

...if you're ever going to do this job, this is the time to do it. If you're a surgeon, do you want to do a tonsillectomy or a heart transplant? - Joe Biden

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How Biden Got His Least-Likely Role