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Meet the most influential people in the world. They are artists and activists, reformers and researchers, heads of state and captains of industry. Their ideas spark dialogue and dissent and sometimes even revolution. Welcome to this year's TIME 100
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Joe Biden
Vice President
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By RAHM EMANUEL Thursday, Apr. 21, 2011

ENLARGE PHOTO+
MARCO GROB FOR TIME
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The partnership between any President and Vice President is like a shotgun wedding: Sometimes it works well. Most of the time, it does not. But the relationship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden is as successful a public partnership as I have ever seen.

They began as rival politicians who merged to form a ticket, which is not a prescription for harmony and close cooperation. But in my two years in the White House, I saw these onetime rivals become solid allies and then close friends. I saw a deep bond of trust grow between them, forged in a crucible of crisis.

Biden, 68, has been a wise counselor — unfailingly frank with the President behind closed doors and unwaveringly loyal on the public stage.

With 36 years of experience in the U.S. Senate and a wealth of relationships and insight, Biden has been an invaluable lieutenant on a wide variety of issues. And the President has trusted him with some of the most critical assignments, from the $787 billion Recovery Act to the transition in Iraq.

This is one shotgun wedding that works.

Emanuel is the mayor-elect of Chicago


View the full list for "The 2011 TIME 100"

Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

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