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Joe Biden won't slow down after official exit

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/07/23/joe-biden-wont-slow-down-after-official-exit/86952334/

Joe Biden won't slow down after official exit
SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL
Biden family friend and campaign volunteer Sonia Sloan holds up a picture
of her and Joe Biden in the 1990s. The vice president is scheduled to
address the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday. less

After he suffered two nearly fatal brain aneurysms and outlived his two
children and his first wife ...

After he spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate and mounted two failed
presidential bids ...

After he became, according to prominent scholars, one of the most
productive vice presidents in American history ... Joe Biden has every
reason in the world to take a breather and ride off into the sunset.

But that's not Sheriff Joe's MO.

"What I plan on doing is staying engaged in all the issues I'm engaged in
now," the vice president said in a phone interview from his Greenville home
Friday after returning from a week in Australia and New Zealand.
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/07/19/biden-reasserts-us-pacific-power-trip-australia/87283256/>

Biden added that while he has no "intention" of running for public office
again, he won't formally rule it out.

"If something happens and it's appropriate for me to be engaged," he said,
trailing off.

The Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/07/15/biden-speak-wednesday-democratic-national-convention/87138096/>
this week is a reminder that the vice president will soon exit the
"official" upper echelon of the party, following more than four decades of
steadfast service.
“What I plan on doing is staying engaged in all the issues I'm engaged in
now.”

Vice President Joe Biden

That's not the end of the road. President Barack Obama has called on Biden
to lead a national “Moonshot” initiative
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/health/2016/06/29/biden-leads-cancer-moonshot-summit-dc/86347038/>,
with a $1 billion budget, to eradicate cancer worldwide. Biden is also
expected to remain active in the party by serving in an unofficial advisory
role, lecturing across the globe and stumping for down-ticket
candidates, according to his family, friends and colleagues.

The vice president said Friday that he hasn't "approached anybody about
having to make a living." But he plans to continue advocating for women's
rights, criminal justice reform, quality education and other issues central
to his platform, explaining that he measures public servants' sincerity and
devotion by their willingness to remain involved in their private lives.
Biden said his wife, Jill, is weighing an offer to head up an international
organization focused on helping women, which he declined to name.

KYLE GRANTHAM/THE NEWS JOURNAL

Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Louis L. Redding Benefit and Awards
Gala more

*STORY: Joe Biden - From Scranton to vice president
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/07/23/joe-biden-scranton-vice-president/87323494/>*

*STORY: Hillary Clinton names Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her VP pick
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/07/22/hillary-clinton-running-mate-kaine-vilsack/87432024/>*

He also said he is in preliminary discussions with the University of
Delaware about collaborating on a facility, possibly a vice presidential
library. In 2014, Biden donated nearly 2,000 boxes of his Senatorial papers
to UD.

A UD spokesman would only confirm that the university has been in contact
with Biden about "potential connections and partnerships."

Democrats would be wise to capitalize on Biden's high approval ratings
after he leaves office, political insiders say. Polls show that Americans
consider the self-described "poorest man in Congress" more trustworthy than
presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/07/20/hillary-clinton-super-pac-stockpiles-40-million-donald-trump-attacks/87347474/>.
In multiple interviews, one character trait is invoked repeatedly to sum up
Biden’s lasting impact on the party: conciliatory.

"I would bet a very large sum that Biden would've beaten Trump by a much
larger margin (than Clinton),” said longtime political analyst Larry
Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

At age 73, Biden is perhaps the closest he's ever been to achieving his
presidential ambitions. But he’s moving on.

"I had planned on running for president and life intervened," he said
Friday. "I made the right decision for my family, for my children. I made
the right decision across the board. I have no regrets."

When the elder statesman takes the podium Wednesday
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/07/15/biden-speak-wednesday-democratic-national-convention/87138096/>
it will be to trumpet Hillary Clinton's "experience and steadiness,"
her ability to "bring people together to tackle the big challenges and get
results," according to a statement from the Democratic National Convention
Committee.

It's as if the vice president were describing his own legacy. Saddled with
an increasingly polarized political system, he is among a dying breed
of lawmakers who gets things done by relating to his opponents as human
beings, not as products of an evil empire.
“I don't think we're losing him. I think we'll continue to have his
leadership and engagement in years to come.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware

"At a time when Americans are dissatisfied with most government
institutions, Biden has made his vice presidency consequential to an extent
never before achieved," according to Joel Goldstein, a Saint Louis
University law professor and a leading authority on the United States vice
presidency.

“It’s hard to imagine anybody on the scene right now who exceeds Vice
President Biden in his appreciation of and his ability to practice
bipartisan governance,” Goldstein said.

"He's old school," added Richard Harpootlian, former chairman of the South
Carolina Democratic Party. "He believes people came to Washington to move
the ball forward."

"What we're going to miss about Biden," the sharp-tongued attorney
continued, "is his ability to talk in a reasonable, rational way to our
party or the other party."

Asked to list the accomplishments he is most proud of, Biden brings it
back to Delaware. He discusses his role in helping the Democratic Party
gain a foothold here and his efforts to secure the return of federal land
at Cape Henlopen.

-
-

On the international stage, Biden points to his advocacy of U.S. and NATO
intervention in the Bosnian War in the mid-1990s, and, more
recently, negotiating closely with leaders in Iraq, Cypress and Ukraine.

Taken together, a "dysfunctional" Congress and Republican presidential
nominee Donald Trump are "having a real impact on the conduct of our
foreign policy," he said.

He provided the following anecdote closer to home: In trying to
garner support for Merrick Garland
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/04/07/coons-praises-garland-intelligent-experienced/82758108/>,
Obama's
nominee to the Supreme Court, Biden said he met with a dozen Republican
senators.

*STORY: Delaware delegates want Donald Trump unchanged
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/07/20/delaware-delegates-want-trump-unchanged/87362124/>
*

*STORY: Gingrich - Melania plagiarism charge similar to Biden's
<http://ewseum.org/todaysfrontpages/?tfp_display=list&tfp_id=DE_NJ>*

"All of the 12 I spoke to said, 'You're right, Joe. I know you're right.
But I'll be killed if I do it,'" recalled Biden.

The ability to come together is "the single most needed attribute for the
next president," he said.

Biden is a bundle of contradictions that somehow manages to gel. He is
a blue-collar populist and foreign policy wonk who embodies the Washington
establishment yet retains the folksy demeanor of the scrappy Scranton,
Pennsylvania, car salesmen marking his youth.

Dismissed by some, Biden became Obama's dependable right arm, dispatched to
defuse high-stakes conflicts on Capitol Hill and around the globe.

SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL

Vice President Joe Biden stops to take a photo with Ed Sharp at the
Hockessin more

And, by no mean feat, he did it largely scandal-free. (Biden voted for the
Iraq War in 2002, but later admitted his “mistake.”)

In digging for common ground, Biden is fond of saying that he may question
the judgment of others, but not their motives. That attitude — of looking
beyond what Biden terms the "caricature of a person" — has helped him
earn trust on both sides of the aisle.

Clinton, his former Democratic rival, has credited Biden with helping to
save the auto industry and rebuilding the economy.

"If I know Joe, he will always be on the front lines, always fighting for
us all," she said after Biden announced in October that he would not
challenge her.

Like the Kennedy clan, Biden has suffered multiple personal setbacks. The
most recent was the loss of his son Beau
<http://www.delawareonline.com/topic/641e6717-f988-4ea0-a3c3-9add6af45d5a/beau-biden-1969-2015/>,
Delaware's former attorney general, to brain cancer last year.

“Beau is what gets him up in the morning,” said longtime Biden supporter,
the Rev. Samuel Lathem, former president of the Delaware AFL-CIO. “Beau
gives him the determination and fortitude to lick this disease.”

Jae C. Hong, Associated Press

Joe Biden is embraced by his son Beau after being introduced during the
Democratic National Convention in Denver on Aug. 27, 2008. Beau Biden, the
former Delaware attorney general, died in 2015.

Restless and resilient, Biden pivots. Then he pivots again.

"The greatest gift is the ability to forget," he once told an audience in
Detroit. "To forget the bad things and focus on the good."

Today, he is bringing his collaborative spirit to the silos of academia,
research laboratories and hospitals worldwide to find a cure for cancer. On
Friday, Biden spoke of the need to create an independent center to
coordinate the effort. Highly competitive and fractured, the cancer
research climate resembles “a group of lions and bears who pee all over
their territory,” Lathem said.

SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL

Rev. Samuel Lathem, former preisdent of Delaware State AFL-CIO and Biden
supporter, discusses Biden's legacy in the Democratic Party and Delaware.

Delaware’s cancer incidence rate is among the highest in the country;
nearly 2,000 residents die from the disease each year.

Said Sabato: “Would there be a better legacy than cracking the cancer
curse?”

But Biden’s Cancer Moonshot
<http://www.delawareonline.com/videos/news/health/2016/06/28/78876944/>
is neither a consolation prize nor a replacement legacy, according to
Valerie Biden Owens, the vice president's younger sister and
former campaign manager.

Biden is not wringing his hands over what might have been, she said.

SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL

Former Sen. Ted Kaufman and Valerie Biden talk about VP Joe Biden's career.

"It's a disappointment, but he has his whole life ahead of him,” his sister
continued. “He's not looking for the title of president. He's looking to
influence the culture and direction of our country."
'The last guy in the room'

Back in May, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons accompanied the man who used to occupy
his seat to deliver the commencement address at Delaware State University
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2016/05/07/live-video-joe-biden-speaks-dsu-graduation/84064722/>
.

"You need the head to know the difference between knowledge and judgment,"
the vice president intoned. "Ambition without perspective can be a killer
when reality intrudes."

"And it will intrude."

After Biden finished, sheets of rain drenched him as he cracked jokes about
ruined hair and shoes with some of the 700 graduates. He lingered in the
downpour until the last student had a chance to snap a photo.

"There was not one moment when it seemed there was anywhere else he wanted
to be," Coons remembered.

Biden's got the gift of the gab — as a student at Archmere Academy, he
recited Yeats and Emerson at night to overcome stuttering —which means he
inevitably blurts out something he's not supposed to.

In 2007, he was criticized for characterizing then-Sen. Obama as a
"mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean." In
the following presidential election, Biden called then-GOP hopeful Mitt
Romney "etch-a-sketchy" and told a largely black crowd that his economic
policy would "put y'all back in chains." More recently, Biden endorsed
same-sex marriage before his boss did.

A source of momentary embarrassment, Biden's off-the-cuff remarks usually
blow over, according to G. Terry Madonna, a veteran Pennsylvania pollster.

Ron Edmonds, Associated Press

Joe Biden is sworn in as vice president by Justice John Paul Stevens at the
more

"You can disagree with his position but you can't help but like him," he
said.

At campaign events, Biden is often the last man standing as ice cream melts
and nerves become frayed, his supporters say. One South Carolina university
had to turn the lights off on him, recalled Lathem, who was part of the Draft
Biden Super PAC for the 2016 election
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2015/10/07/draft-biden-goes-national/73493112/>
.

In the Oval Office, the vice president has jockeyed to be "the last guy in
the room on every major decision," Biden has told reporters.

"There is no power in the vice president at all," he said Friday. "It's all
reflective power. The only way it works is if the House, the Senate and
policymakers know that when you speak you speak for the president."

Obama and Biden have strengthened their relationship over the last seven
years, in contrast to former President George W. Bush and Vice President
Dick Cheney. Obama delivered the eulogy at Beau Biden’s funeral
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/firststatepolitics/2015/06/02/memorial-services-beau-biden/28346985/>
and offered to help his second-in-command pay the family’s bills, Biden has
said. Several key members of Biden’s staff have been promoted to serve the
president.

Biden is “a credit to the President,” U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
told The News Journal in a recent email. “He left the Senate with a
significant legacy of achievement.”

A freshman senator from Illinois, Obama came to rely on Biden’s
institutional knowledge and troubleshooting abilities, according to former
Delaware Republican Governor and Congressman Mike Castle.

A one-time chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations
Committee, Biden presided over contentious hearings on Clarence Thomas’
nomination to the Supreme Court in 1991.

*STORY: 'Bernie or Bust' backers to flock to Philly to protest
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/07/21/bernie-bust-backers-flock-philly-protest/87385076/>*

*STORY: Here are the elected officials speaking at the Democratic
convention
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/07/21/democratic-convention-speakers-kaine-booker-brown/87401470/>*

As vice president, he has lobbied Congress on several controversial
proposals, including the 2009 economic stimulus program, the drawdown of
troops in Iraq and gun control legislation. Earlier this year, Biden helped
broker the historic reconciliation agreement between Turkey and Israel.

During a recent “60 Minutes’” interview with Republican vice presidential
candidate Mike Pence, Lesley Stahl asked Pence if he planned to mirror
former Vice President Dan Quayle’s dissolving-into-the-drapes tenure or
Biden’s active approach to budget wrangling and negotiating foreign policy.

Pence chose the latter.

Not since former Vice President Walter Mondale, who also lost a child to
brain cancer, has a vice president been such a trusted adviser, said
Goldstein, the vice presidential scholar. Remarkably, he added, Biden came
on the heels of Cheney’s perceived imperial vice presidency.

-
-

Flashing his trademark grin, Biden leverages his enduring relationships
from his time in the Senate. In 1994, he passed the largest crime bill in
U.S. history and the Violence Against Women Act with the support of Strom
Thurmond, the one-time segregationist South Carolina senator.

Biden and Republican Sen. Jesse Helms from North Carolina negotiated the
chemical weapons ban treaty in 1997. More recently, the vice
president brokered a deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, R-Kentucky
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2012/12/31/obama-biden-mcconnell-fiscal-cliff/1800075/>,
to
avoid the "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases in 2013.

Whether he is advocating for environmental protection, college aid or
strategic arms limits, Biden listens to his opponents with empathy, said
his close friend Ted Kaufman, former U.S. senator from Delaware.

“In Washington, the single most important thing is trust,” Biden’s former
chief of staff continued, “the ability to make a deal and stand by your
word.”
Delaware was a 'gift'

The Biden name is as inextricably tied to the First State as the DuPont
dynasty.

Delaware historian Carol E. Hoffecker has called Biden the most influential
Delawarean in history behind Caesar Rodney, who led the state during the
American Revolution and signed the Declaration of Independence.

At age 29, Biden was elected to the U.S. Senate in a stunning political
upset of Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs that changed the culture of
politics in Delaware. That same year, in 1972, former Republican President
Richard Nixon won his second term in one of the largest landslides in U.S.
history.

Barry Thumma, Associated Press

President Jimmy Carter listens to then-Sen. Joe Biden as they wait to speak
at a fundraising reception at Padua Academy in Wilmington, on Feb. 20,
1978. Biden was elected to the Senate when he was 29.

Biden’s campaign trifecta focused on the withdrawal from
Vietnam, environmental stewardship and civil rights. His family swarmed all
three counties. Valerie managed the effort (and every campaign since),
youngest brother Frank worked as volunteer coordinator, middle brother
James was finance chair and Biden’s mother, Jean, organized the coffee
klatches. Biden’s distinguished father, Joseph Biden Sr., was often
mistaken for the actual candidate, remembers Valerie.

Delaware was a “gift” to the former New Castle County councilman, she said,
noting that the state is only a two-hour drive from stem to stern. “It was
a platform. It offered Joe the opportunity without money, prestige or
political power to be known. And he’s never forgotten.”

A rising star, Biden took his first oath of office at Beau’s bedside, one
month after a car accident had killed his first wife, Neilia and their
13-month-old daughter. It was in another hospital bed 42 years later that Beau
reportedly urged his father to run for president
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2015/06/26/biden-presidential-decision-hinges-family/29356461/>
.

.

Valerie Biden Owens

The verdict is out on whether Biden would have clinched the party
nomination this year. Critics argue that he was neither far enough to the
left nor fresh-faced enough to succeed. Proponents point to Biden’s ability
to pull voters from Clinton and former candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders,
possibly leaving Clinton without a majority of pledged delegates.

As recently as a couple weeks ago, someone stopped Timothy Mullaney, New
Castle County chief administrative officer, and begged, “Is there any way
you can get Joe to run?”

“I think that train has left the station,” Beau Biden’s former chief of
staff replied.

“I think (Joe Biden) feels in his heart that he would be the ideal
candidate at this time in the country’s life,” Mullaney continued. “If
Beau’s health had held out, Beau would be running for governor and, knowing
what I know, he would’ve been disappointed if his dad was not running.”

His dad offered the following explanation to Bloomberg News in December:
“Beau was my soul.”

“You’ve got to get through the first Thanksgiving, the first empty chair,
the first Christmas, the first smell of spring,” added Biden, who knows
something about missed opportunities.

Battling two historic candidates, he withdrew from the 2008 Democratic
presidential primary after a poor showing in Iowa. In 1987, he dropped out
of the presidential race after reports surfaced that he had plagiarized a
portion of a speech and part of a law school paper. (The episode came back
to bite him recently when Melania Trump was accused of lifting lines from
first lady Michelle Obama during her convention speech
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/07/19/biden-cited-criticism-melania-trump-speech/87297126/>
).

Rather than launch a quixotic presidential run, Biden will end on a high
note deserving of a victory lap around the Wells Fargo Center, his
supporters say. Several noted they plan to sit this convention out.

SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL

Biden family friend and campaign volunteer Sonia Sloan discusses the vice
president's legacy. "If Joe were the candidate, I would’ve withstood any
crowd for him,” she said.

"If Joe were the candidate, I would’ve withstood any crowd for him,” said
Sonia Sloan of Wilmington, a close family friend and campaign fundraiser.

Harpootlian expects Biden's charisma to overshadow Clinton this week.

"Dare I say there will be a lot more people wanting to go to (his) cocktail
parties than Hillary's," he said.

For the first time in his career, Biden is leaving full-time public
service, a source of sustenance in his darkest moments. He can abandon the
three-hour round-trip Amtrak ride, during which he dissected
legislation. Perhaps
we’ll see even more of him at July 4 parades
<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/07/04/newark-fireworks-rescheduled/86669550/>,
jamborees and at Capriotti’s, since Biden said he and Jill have no plans to
abandon their primary home in Greenville.

Wilmington lawyer and former News Journal reporter Chuck Durante recalls
meeting Biden in 1972 at the Bridgeville Kiwanis Club. The candidate
promised that if voters sent him to Washington he would be a workhorse —
not a show horse.

SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL

Wilmington lawyer Charles J. Durante. He recalls meeting Vice President Joe
Biden in 1972 at the Bridgeville Kiwanis Club

After a decompression period, Biden will “reconnect and find that his true
self is just as vibrant and valuable without the official title,” Durante
said. “He’s not the kind of guy who is going to jump on corporate boards
and indiscriminately sell his name.”

"I haven't started thinking granular about the future," Biden said Friday.
"I have so much work to do between now and then."

In gearing up for Biden’s last campaign in 2012, Kaufman mailed the vice
president a quote from Pope John XXIII, reminding his friend to step back
and reflect in this "season of maturity."

Biden fired back with a quote from poet Dylan Thomas:

“Old age should burn and rave at close of day,” he wrote. “Rage, rage
against the dying of the light.”

*Contact Margie Fishman at 302-324-2882 <302-324-2882>, on Twitter
@MargieTrende or mfishman@delawareonline.com <mfishman@delawareonline.com>.*

*Hill Republicans on Biden*

*"He served as an example of how a powerful person with genuine character
and class treats staff or anyone in a position subordinate to their own. He
treats them as people with dignity equal to his own." – Sen. John McCain
(R-Arizona)*

*"If you want to get a deal done, bring in the deal man, Joe Biden." –
Former Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia)*

*"As good a man as God has ever created." – Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South
Carolina)*

*Who will take up the torch?*

*Former Sen. Ted Kaufman predicts that these Democratic senators will
continue Biden's tradition of compromise:*

*Sherrod Brown (OH)*

*Cory Booker (NJ)*

*Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)*

*Jack Reed (RI)*

*Amy Klobuchar (MN)*


Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

Sent from my iPhon