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** <http://www.politico.com/>

*Beau Biden: The next generation*
By: Edward-Isaac Dovere
July 24, 2012 04:38 AM EDT

WILMINGTON, Del. — The *Beau Biden*
<http://www.politico.com/tag/beaubiden> rollout
has begun.

Unless* Mitt Romney* <http://www.politico.com/tag/mittromney>’s *running
mate* <http://www.politico.com/2012-election/vp-watch/> is a complete
surprise, this will be the first presidential election in 80 years without
a veteran on either ticket. That makes the Delaware attorney general, 43, a
unique ambassador for his father and the president as the leader of
Veterans and Military Families for Obama.

He has the profile to draw attention because of his name and his office.
And his experience as a JAG officer whose National Guard unit was stationed
in Baghdad for 10 months gives him added authority when he talks up
*Obama*<http://www.politico.com/tag/barackobama>’s
performance as commander in chief — a record the president himself touted
Monday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno.

As a younger veteran of a recent war who has a young family, Biden is a
contrast to former Sen. Bob Dole and former President George H.W. Bush, who
co-chair Veterans for Romney, and Sen. John McCain, who’s headlined many of
their events. Recent polls are split — in May, Gallup found that Romney was
far ahead with veterans and Reuters found that Obama was far ahead.
Traditionally, the Democratic candidate trails among this group, but the
Obama campaign believes it has a prime opportunity to build on its support.

The campaign is particularly focused on *swing
states*<http://www.politico.com/2012-election/swing-state/> with
high active military and recent veteran concentrations. That includes Iowa
— where Beau Biden campaigned last week — and Virginia, around Fort Bragg
in North Carolina or Colorado Springs, as well as the 21 military
facilities in Florida and the many scattered across Nevada, Iowa and Ohio.

Biden’s goal will be to focus veterans’ attention on an idea Romney floated
at a Veterans Day event last year to have soldiers “choose whether they
want to go into the government system or the private system with the money
that follows them, like what happens with schools in Florida, where people
have a voucher that goes with them.”

In an interview at the Riverfront Market here, Biden laid out his response:
“There should be no debate that it is the role of government, not vouchers,
to take care of veterans from the moment they get off that plane to the
moment they take their last breath. There’s no better illustration of the
fundamental difference of the president’s view of what the role of
government is, and Mitt Romney’s.”

Biden was 3 years old when his father became one of the youngest senators
in history, but his own early interests ran more toward policy. After law
school, he followed his father’s lead in commuting to Washington, but he
headed for the Justice Department, working with officials in the Clinton
administration to develop a program to track missing children. After a
stint as an assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, he narrowly won a 2006
campaign for attorney general in Delaware, despite accusations of
inexperience and nepotism.

Those criticisms haven’t entirely disappeared, but he’s built a record on
two issues that he says have defined his office, and are finally getting
the kind of national attention he believes they deserve — prosecuting
pedophiles and mortgage malfeasance.

He cites the child predator unit he set up that has intensified
investigations and pursued a series of “Dateline”-style ensnarement
operations, as well as the increased penalties for child pornography and
not reporting offenders that he’s gotten passed into law.

The number of banks based in Delaware gives Biden an outsized influence on
the financial industry. His leading dissent during the early negotiations
of the multi-state mortgage settlement helped make the final, $25 billion
agreement narrower to preserve the possibility of more prosecutions down
the line. On the local level, the new requirement for mandatory mediation
he put in place since January has resulted in a plummeting foreclosure rate
in Delaware.

In the interview, Biden said Romney’s response to the foreclosure crisis is
another example of the Republican candidate’s unfair and uncaring approach.

“He goes to veterans to talk about voucherizing V.A. benefits, he goes to
Nevada to talk about ‘We got to let this hit bottom,’” Biden said. “Hit
bottom? This isn’t about whether borrowers or bankers deserve bailouts. I
can have a discussion of who got the bailout and who didn’t — I think the
American people know that.”

Joe Biden is up-from-the-bootstraps Scranton. Beau Biden is the son of a
successful politician from the right side of Wilmington. Joe Biden honed
his long-winded, chummy style as a legislator. Beau Biden has the guarded
and cautious approach of a prosecutor, a hesitance that fans and enemies
alike say makes him nicer than his father, but more limited politically.

As a rule, Biden says, he doesn’t discuss what he talks about with his
father. But the echoes from father to son aren’t hard to hear — and not
just because Beau Biden’s voice has that familiar timbre and wry pinch,
though without the gravel and without the boom.

“They mean what they say,” the attorney general slips in, admitting that
he’s inadvertently quoting his father’s stump speech. “Don’t tell me what
your priorities are, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what your
priorities are,” he said, using the same line from his grandfather that the
vice president often does himself.

“Just look at the Romney-Ryan budget. Doesn’t honor veterans,” the younger
Biden says. “If you just accept Paul Ryan’s math, which I do — they mean
what they say, and I respect them for meaning what they say — that’s an $11
billion cut to the Veterans Administration. That doesn’t honor our
commitment to veterans.”

Romney spokesman Ryan Williams says the Obama record is the one to be
concerned about.

“The Obama campaign’s dishonest attacks are ridiculous given that the Obama
administration has already proposed a plan to privatize veterans benefits
that was widely criticized by veterans’ advocacy groups,” Williams said,
referring to a March 2009 White House proposal to have private insurance
companies pay for combat-related injuries. “On President Obama’s watch, the
backlog of veterans benefits claims has more than doubled to nearly a
million, his budget will cut $12.9 billion from military healthcare and
returning veterans are facing unacceptably high unemployment.”

But Biden says there’s a clear choice for veterans when they look at
Obama’s record deploying forces and ending combat operations, and the
efforts he and first lady Michelle Obama have undertaken on behalf of
veterans and their families.

Biden’s not the only Democratic politician who’s a veteran, but he was the
obvious choice to head the effort, said Rob Diamond, the director of
Veterans and Military Families for Obama and a former Navy officer himself.

“He’s somebody who has served in uniform, continues to serve, understands
firsthand the challenges that military service members and veterans face,
and is one of the highest-ranking officials to wear the uniform,” Diamond
said. “He’s just a natural and impressive leader for us.”

The attorney general’s office sits at the heart of the state capital, where
the JPMorganChase and MetLife towers are across the street from housing
projects, and the rural farms that still make up the state’s biggest
industry aren’t far away. At fewer than a million residents, the state’s
size helps define its character — and the character of its politicians.

Despite the vice president’s title, most people around here still call him
Joe. Likewise, the attorney general can’t sit through lunch out of the
office without running into a detective who is working a case he’s
monitoring, or grabbing a fast handshake with a childhood friend who
happens to be passing through.

A small state comes with limited options. Delaware’s governor, junior
senator and only congressman are all new in office as of the last election
cycle, and all Democrats. The state’s senior senator, Tom Carper, is
seeking reelection this year.

Wary of appearing to be getting favors because of his famous father, Biden
opted against being appointed attorney general in 2005* *or asking for his
father’s old Senate seat in 2009. But there was no questioning the
conventional wisdom at the time: longtime Biden aide Ted Kaufman as a
placeholder appointment for two years, former Rep. Mike Castle for what he
said would be only four, Biden for 36 years (to match his father) and
beyond.

That was before Christine O’Donnell upset Castle, and before the
48-year-old Chris Coons unexpectedly won the seat for the Democrats that
he’s now expected to hold onto for years.

“Even though Beau is the most recognizable name locally in Democratic
politics,” Castle said, “it becomes a little bit complicated as to what the
next step may be.”

There’s a consultant’s paradise in the boxes the attorney general checks:
famous name, crime-fighting record, family man with two young children,
popular enough in his own state that Republicans didn’t even bother
fielding a candidate against him in his 2010 reelection.

“People were looking for somebody who will come to help him, that brings
something to the table, that’s going to be newsworthy,” Kaufman said,
explaining the sudden surge in Biden’s popularity as an Obama surrogate.
“What’s happened is the word’s gone out.”

One of Biden’s earliest memories is seeing his father at his side at the
hospital, after he and his brother survived the 1972 car crash that killed
his mother and sister on their way to buy a Christmas tree. Not long after
the attorney general told that story to introduce his father at the
Democratic National Convention, he shipped out to Iraq. He was back only a
few months before he suffered an early stroke, reminiscent of the aneurysms
in 1988 that had nearly killed his father.

Biden cites all these twists and turns as his explanation for refusing to
engage in much speculation — about himself or his father. He’s planning to
run for reelection as attorney general in 2014, he says, and between now
and November his only political consideration is helping the national
ticket. He won’t talk about the path that’s opening up for him, or what he
thinks about a 2016 presidential run for Joe Biden.
“In my house we don’t talk about anything but 2012, per my dad’s
instructions,” Biden said. “My dad’s focused on one thing: November.”


*From the Iowa trip:*

*Beau Biden*, VP's son, tells Iowa vets that Obama is decisive commander in
chief<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/07/19/beau-biden-calls-obama-decisive-commander-in-chief-who-is-incredibly-respected-by-veterans/&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARgAIAAoATAAOABAuIOjgAVIAVAAWABiBWVuLVVT&cd=802_BjDnEow&usg=AFQjCNFQddYY3_Rb6TL-CMySg5h_nK9sPg>
DesMoinesRegister.com (blog)

President Barack Obama has been a decisive commander-in-chief who has
fulfilled his promises of four years ago and has a deep appreciation for
the nation’s veterans, says Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe
Biden.

Beau Biden, 43, is the attorney general of Delaware and a major in the
Delaware Army National Guard who served a year-long deployment to Iraq in
2008 and 2009. He made two appearances in Iowa on Thursday, visiting with
Obama supporters at the Iowa Veterans Home at Marshalltown and speaking to
about 30 veterans at the Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 33 union hall in Des
Moines.

The younger Biden said Obama understands exactly what it means to be
commander in chief, recognizing when and where and how to deploy U.S.
military forces. Obama promised to go after al-Qaeda terrorists, which is
what he has done, eliminating much of al-Qaeda’s leadership structure and
giving the approval for the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, he said.

Obama also understands how to redeploy military forces, ending the war in
Iraq responsibly and placing the U.S military on a path in Afghanistan to
hand over authority to the Afghans, he added.

Third, Obama understands that his obligations to veterans don’t’ end when
they come home, but continues until they take their last breath, he said.
That’s why Obama has increased spending on behalf of veterans more than any
other president over the past three decades, he said.

Obama’s has been criticized by Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign, which
contends that if the president’s proposed defense cuts become a reality,
more than 5,000 Iowans could find themselves out of work. That would
include the loss of hundreds of jobs at the Iowa Air National Guard’s 132nd
Fighter Wing, Romney aides said.

Romney “will make sure that our armed forces have the resources they need
to defend our country and that our veterans receive the care they deserve
when they return home,” said Romney spokesman Shawn McCoy. He also noted
the unemployment rate for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan is currently
higher than the national jobless rate.

Biden said in an interview with the Des Moines Register that no president
has been more on the side of the National Guard than Obama, who has carried
out his pledge of four years ago to have the head of the National Guard
become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also said the president’s
proposed defense budget has supported by the leaders of the Joint Chiefs,
as well as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his predecessor, Robert Gates.

“The professionals are supportive of it, and that is a strong indication of
it being the right thing for our nation and our armed forces,” Biden said.

Biden added that he hasn’t heard Romney talk much about veterans, except
for a speech last year in which Romney floated the idea of issuing vouchers
to privatize health care for veterans.

While it is worthwhile to debate the role of government, there should be no
debate that it is the sacred role of the U.S. government to take care of
veterans, Biden said.’

“That is a fundamental, stark difference. One candidate wants to voucherize
it, and hand people a voucher when they get off the plane after putting
their lives on the line. Another wants to increase spending on behalf of
veterans and continue to do a better job every day,” he said.

Regarding unemployed veterans, Biden noted initiatives promoted by the
Obama administration to encourage hiring of former military service
members, some of which have apparently been helping veterans to find work.

Biden also mocked Romney’s knowledge of foreign affairs, noting the former
governor had called Russia “without question our number one geopolitical
foe” in a March interview on CNN.

“The president is incredibly respected by the veterans I served with, as
well as around the world,” Biden said.

*Beau Biden* makes stop at Iowa Veterans Home
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.timesrepublican.com/page/content.detail/id/551245/Beau-Biden-makes-stop-at-Iowa-Veterans-Home.html%3Fnav%3D5005&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARgAIAEoATAAOABAo8CjgAVIAVgBYgVlbi1VUw&cd=VbG3PXDqWnE&usg=AFQjCNHMfIB9HU027FUD1vN9Pb_LKzV6BA>
Times-Republic

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said his stop at the Iowa Veterans
Home Thursday was more about thanking vets than campaigning.

"The sacrifice you make and your families make is really what this county
is all about," he said.

Biden, son of Vice President Joe Biden, lauded President Obama's efforts as
commander in chief saying the president understands when and where
deploying troops is appropriate.

Obama's efforts, he said to a crowd of about 50, helped end the war in Iraq
in a responsible way and made a significant dent in the war on terror.

"He refocused our effort overseas to get al-Qaida," he said.

He pointed to the president's effort to expand the GI Bill and veterans
benefits as well provide businesses tax credits for hiring veterans as
evidence that Obama understands, what he called, the sacred obligation of
being commander in chief.

Shawn McCoy, Iowa communications director for Romney, however, said Obama's
plan to cut military spending will cost Iowa 5,000 jobs.

"It's disappointing that the Obama campaign would come to Iowa asking for
the support of veterans despite President Obama's broken promises to our
men and women in uniform," McCoy said in an email.

Biden, a major in the Delaware National Guard and an Iraq War vet, spoke
about how being a service member affects the family, calling veterans one
of America's greatest treasures.

"Those of us who signed up [for military service], we chose to do so. Our
families didn't choose," he said. "We are not just sending service members
to war. We are sending the entire family to war ... we do not defend this
nation without the men and women, the sons and daughters, the moms and dads
who support this effort."

But Romney's campaign claims Obama's military budget cut holds national
security funding hostage for political posturing, claiming the president's
plan would "force military families and veterans to pay more for healthcare
even as President Obama pays off his political cronies at failed companies
like Solyndra."

The company, a manufacturer of solar panels, went bankrupt despite millions
of dollars in government tax breaks given to it by the Obama administration.

Milan B. Hood, a Korean conflict veteran, said Biden's message about family
values is one veterans should take to heart.

"He's a good family man," he said of Biden.

VP's son in Iowa to tout Obama record; he draws fire from
GOP<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.radioiowa.com/2012/07/19/vps-son-in-iowa-to-tout-obama-record-he-draws-fire-from-gop/&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARgAIAAoATAAOABAlMSlgAVIAVAAWABiBWVuLVVT&cd=SshmdZL69yY&usg=AFQjCNHDgLOrjTfF-hcOQJ_K0xfaLXdYZQ>
Radio Iowa
**

Vice President Biden’s oldest son is in Iowa for a two-day visit. Beau
Biden is a major in the Delaware National Guard and his first stop in Iowa
was the Veterans Home in Marshalltown, but the younger Biden dismisses the
idea he is a chief veterans outreach officer for the Obama/Biden campaign.

“I’m just one veteran among this grassroots organization here in Iowa and
Virginia and North Carolina,” Beau Biden told Radio Iowa, “helping out on
spreading the word why the president deserves to be reelected.”

Biden made the case that President Obama has shown he knows “when, where,
why and how to deploy soldiers around the world” and Biden said Obama has
shown he knows how to take care of soldiers when they come home.

“That’s why this president, President Obama, has increased military
spending for veterans more than any president of the United States has in
30 percent,” Biden said. “His budget for the upcoming year increases
veterans benefits by 10 percent.”

But a few hours before Biden arrived in Iowa, two retired military officers
held a news conference at the Iowa Republican Party’s headquarters to blast
Obama’s military policies. Retired Army Colonel Gene Nosco of Waukee
accused Biden of being “disloyal” to members of the Iowa Air Guard who may
lose their jobs under an Obama Administration proposal.

“You don’t see him talking about what he is going to do to save those jobs
and you don’t see him thanking the people that literally saved his life
when he was in a combat theater of operations, so that’s my beef,” Nosco
told Radio Iowa. “…I think he probably is disloyal, in my personal opinion.”

During a telephone interview this afternoon with Radio Iowa, Biden
responded.

“President Obama is the first president of the United States to put the
head of the National Guard — a four-star general — at the table with the
Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Biden said. “…This president has done more for the
National Guard, I argue, than any president of the United States has.”

Beau Biden, a Judge Advocate General in the Delaware National Guard, was
deployed to Iraq in 2008 and returned to the U.S. in September of 2009.
During his conversation with Radio Iowa this afternoon, Beau Biden insisted
he has no idea whether his father will run for president in 2016.

“We only talk about 2012,” Beau Biden said. “The focus of my father, my
mother and my family is to make sure the president of the United States
gets reelected as does my father, the vice president of the United States.”

Beau Biden was elected Delaware’s attorney general in 2006. Earlier this
week he announced a settlement between the State of Delaware and a firm
that registers mortgages to ensure consumers can quickly find out what
company holds their mortgage. The company also agreed to reforms that will
improve the accuracy of its mortgage records.


Candidates' surrogates faces questions from Iowa
veterans<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://qctimes.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/candidates-surrogates-faces-questions-from-iowa-veterans/article_2fce66ca-d270-11e1-a8b1-001a4bcf887a.html&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARgAIAAoATAAOABA6vqngAVIAVAAWABiBWVuLVVT&cd=gxn4QSKL5ns&usg=AFQjCNENbrdeD5gwq1ePQ1OwxoJJHc_jGQ>
Quad City Times

DES MOINES — Surrogates for November’s likely presidential candidates waged
a battle for the hearts and minds of Iowa’s veterans Thursday.

The day began with a news conference at Iowa Republican Party headquarters,
located in a former funeral home just a few blocks from the Statehouse.

There, two Iowa veterans — Chuck Larson Sr., a former U.S. Attorney and
colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and Gene Nosco, president of West Point
Society of Central Iowa and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army —
questioned President Barack Obama’s defense strategy and his budget
proposal, saying the commander-in-chief doesn’t have plan.

“All we know is we are getting the same promises that we got four years
ago, which are, basically, to trust us,” Nosco said.

While Nosco framed the promises as reflecting poorly on the president,
Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden claimed just the opposite during a
stop at a Des Moines union hall Thursday night, where he spoke with about
three dozen veterans.

“He’s done exactly what he said he was going to do,” said Biden, the
43-year-old son of Vice President Joe Biden and an Iraq War veteran.

Beau Biden said Obama promised to cut troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan,
to hunt Osama bin Laden and to provide for veterans and their families.

Obama’s proposed 2013 defense budget is $614 billion, about $32 billion
less than the 2012 figure. The defense budget does not include spending for
veterans’ programs which are paid for through the Veterans Affairs
Department budget. The Obama administration has requested a 10.5 percent
increase in spending on those programs in 2013.

Still, a Gallup poll from May showed Romney had a commanding lead of 58
percent to 34 percent support among veterans.

“One thing I don’t really watch is polls,” said Biden.

Nosco and Larson criticized the defense cuts earlier in the day saying the
federal government should make budget adjustments elsewhere. Nosco added
that the administration was being “disloyal” to Beau Biden for proposing
defense cuts.

“The President of the United States has installed for the first time ever
on the Joints Chiefs of Staff, a member of the National Guard,” said Biden
who is a major in the Delaware Army National Guard. “There’s been no
president who has been more committed to make sure that the National Guard,
Air and Army, has what it needs to fight, whether it be overseas or to
respond on the home front.”

Biden was in Marshalltown earlier Thursday to talk with veterans. He plans
to be in Iowa City today.

“This is a grassroots organization it’s going to continue to work all
across the country to continue to spread the message, shopping center to
shopping center, door to door, person to person, phone call to phone call,”
he said.

AG Biden stumping for vet votes in
Iowa<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://blogs.delawareonline.com/firststatepolitics/2012/07/20/ag-biden-stumping-for-vet-votes-in-iowa/&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARgAIAAoATAAOABA5LqqgAVIAVAAWABiBWVuLVVT&cd=OvwldvMoM2k&usg=AFQjCNFiVDWzrpCMe5RTsg82m-Jp0GQzsw>
The News Journal (blog)

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden was back in a swing
state<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120720/NEWS09/307200033/-1/SPORTS12/Biden-s-son-touts-Obama-s-commitment-veterans>this
week (Iowa) stumping for the Obama-Biden ticket, talking specifically
to military veterans. Vets are a key constituency this fall, and are
typically strongly Republican. And to be sure, veterans aren’t just voting
on matters of foreign policy. Unemployment among veterans fell in June, but
to 9.5 percent,<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120720/NEWS09/307200033/-1/SPORTS12/Biden-s-son-touts-Obama-s-commitment-veterans>
far
higher than the 8.2 percent among the general population.

Earlier this year, Biden, who is of course the son of Vice President Joe
Biden, and a major in the Delaware Army National Guard who served in Iraq,
visited North Carolina and Virginia in search of veterans’ votes. Biden
stopped on Thursday at a veterans home in Marshalltown, Iowa, touting
Obama’s record of ending the war in Iraq and working to protect benefits
for veterans. Biden has criticized Republican Mitt Romney for remarks last
year that appeared to support a plan to privatize veterans’ health care.

“That is a fundamental, stark difference,” Biden said, according to the Des
Moines Register<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120720/NEWS09/307200033/-1/SPORTS12/Biden-s-son-touts-Obama-s-commitment-veterans>newspaper
in Iowa. “One candidate wants to voucherize it, and hand people a
voucher when they get off the plane after putting their lives on the line.
Another wants to increase spending on behalf of veterans and continue to do
a better job every day.=9