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Joe Biden fast becoming most influential VP in history

Biden becoming a contender for 2016 say experts

DARA KELLY,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Sunday, January 20, 2013, 7:35 AM

Updated Sunday, January 20, 2013, 7:35 AM

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US Vice President Joe Biden

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Joe Biden, who will be sworn into office on Sunday morning, is becoming one of the most influential vice presidents in US history according to historians and political observers.

“Sometimes he can get a little, I don’t know, goofy,” said Larry Rasky, a longtime Biden confidant and campaign strategist. “For everybody who knows him, that’s Joe. That’s who he is. . . . But when it comes time to step up his game and be a leader and a statesman, he
has always done it.”

According to an article in Boston.com, Biden is a joker whose mouth often gets him in trouble but whose gregarious nature gives him the ability to connect.

“To some extent I think Biden’s spontaneity is turning out to be something of an advantage in the sense that he’s old school in the best way,” said Joel K. Goldstein, a professor in St. Louis and an authority on the vice presidency. “You have a sense that he’s not scripted and what you see is what you get.”

The former US senator was initially reluctant about being Obama's vice president. When Obama and Biden began working out some the terms, the vice president made it clear he wanted to be involved in all major decisions the president made.

“The vice presidency is not something you ever aspire to . . . it’s not something he ever sought by any sense,” said Biden’s son, Beau, who is the attorney general of Delaware. “But when you’re asked to serve by your president, that’s what you do.”

Many historians believe the only one who can be said to rival Biden's influence as vice president is Dick Cheney.

“Biden is certainly one of the very most powerful vice presidents we’ve ever had,” Goldstein said. “Time and again, Obama seems to involve him as a troubleshooter on the most consequential matters that are facing the administration.”

While recently, President Obama tapped the vice president to shape the gun-control proposals, the two men have not always agreed on certain policies.

For example, Biden disagreed with Obama over the 2009 troop surge in Afghanistan. He also advised Obama against authorizing the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

While the 70-year-old Biden seems an unlikely presidential candidate for 2016 -- he would be the oldest new president in history by five years-- it is nonetheless a frequent topic of conversation.

“Everybody says ‘I want elected officials to say what they think,’ ” said Ted Kaufman, a longtime Biden aide who was appointed to his US Senate seat when Biden became vice president. “You know why he’s so popular now? They got a politician who says what he thinks. And they like it.”

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seanomelb | Jan 21, 2013, 07:01 PM EST

Biden is probably the most influential VP ever and maybe he'll go one step further in 2016. To play the devils advocate maybe Obama would be his VP.Anglo is hurt !!

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Meanolgrouch | Jan 21, 2013, 11:18 AM EST

To Eschetic: I agree with your words below about honoring 'a good speech by repeating the ideas or even some of the words without the attribution you would make in an academic paper.' Good yellow dog Democrats like myself are prone to repeat FDR's comment, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself' without redundant citing of the source. Any dullard should know where the credit for that one goes without being reminded each and every time. Although I'm fond of a short pause followed by this personal ammendment - '... except the hellborn political rightwingers.' Anybody who thinks I'm not relishing this GOP disaster to the fullest has another think coming.

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Meanolgrouch | Jan 21, 2013, 11:02 AM EST

I apologize for the unintended double entry below. Hold that 'submit' button down too long and see what happens?!

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Meanolgrouch | Jan 21, 2013, 10:59 AM EST

VP Biden is the only public figure I ever think of in terms of what his mom called him: "Joey". I absolutely love the man and celebrate his lifetime of hard work and public service. The teabaggers posting below should've heard my favorite comment by a Pulitzer-prize winning author and educator on Bill Moyers' show, describing GOP reaction to their election loss: "I never saw so many people look so slapped." Hell's bells, as Joey would say: they deserve it. I hope every teabagger hate junkie chokes on his own bile while we spend this wonderful day basking in the glow of well-earned victory. Take THAT, you misbegotten sons (and daughters) of perdition!

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Meanolgrouch | Jan 21, 2013, 10:58 AM EST

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Eschetic | Jan 21, 2013, 09:53 AM EST

Thanks to "Tom Mo" for starting Inauguration Day with a great laugh! NO ONE withdraws from a Presidential Race (regardless of some shallow reporting at the time) because they honor a good speech by repeating the ideas or even some of the words without the attribution you would make in an academic paper. With three electoral votes in tiny Delaware, Biden was not going to be a finalist THAT year. Times and positions have changed; at the same time, thanks for proving that radical right wing haters do occasionally have a sense of humor - even if it's a perversely distorted one.

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Smyrnian | Jan 21, 2013, 02:38 AM EST

That's one scary headline!

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krisdaly | Jan 21, 2013, 01:35 AM EST

HOW DO YOU SPELL POLITICAL SKANK?? BIDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Tom Mo | Jan 21, 2013, 12:38 AM EST

Nice try Eschetric. Biden was 45 years old when he had to withdraw from the 1988 Presidential race because he plagarized a speech of British MP Neil Sinnock. Biden is a conman.

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Tom Mo | Jan 21, 2013, 12:28 AM EST

You have deleted my response to Esehetic. Spiked it. Is that the Modus Operandi of Irish Central when you disagree with a comment?

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Eschetic | Jan 20, 2013, 11:28 PM EST

Admittedly, the evil Mr. Cheney (the first Vice President since Aaron Burr to nearly kill a man during his term - Burr in a duel, not a drunken hunting trip) may have been more influential during his time as VP, but former Senator Biden's career in office has produced and continues to produce a FAR more positive legacy. The ignorant haters of the extreme right wing will cling to his college plagiarism scandal of more than 50 years ago and his occasional malapropisms to degenerate the man, but REAL Republicans respect a leader who may be the best qualified Vice President to BE President since former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson. We may not agree with either of them on policy, but it is foolish in the extreme to think they are fools as great as those who despise them. All these continued attacks on a great Vice President merely expose how terrified the losers who ran the last failed Republican attempt to snow the voters are to have to campaign against him.

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Tom Mo | Jan 20, 2013, 07:16 PM EST

Seanomelb/CC Dara Kelly On the "mastery of Joe's silvery tongue." Joe: Calls on Sen.Chuck Graham to "stand up," despite the fact that he is in a wheelchair. Joe: Says "J-O-B-S" is a four letter word. Joe: On TV claims that FDR got on TV in 1929 to speak about the Stock Market crash. FDR was not President and TV was not a household item in 1929. Joe: On the mother of Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen who is very much alive (3/17/10). "His mom lived in(sic) Long Island for ten years or so, God rest her soul. And-although,she-wait-your mon's still- your mom's still alive? Your dad passed. God rest her soul." Joe: "A man I'm proud to call my friend friend. A man who will be the next President of the United States- Barack America. Joe: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and clean and a nice-looking guy." Need I go on? Silvery tongue, my arse The man is an eegit!

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anglo-norman | Jan 20, 2013, 07:07 PM EST

seanomelb-You are an aussie now son, comment on your own country.

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seanomelb | Jan 20, 2013, 06:50 PM EST

One couldn't get any lower than the knuckle dragging teaparty racist cretins.

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Tom Mo | Jan 20, 2013, 06:14 PM EST

The Vice Presidunce, slo Joe Biden, is a plagiarist and a proven liar. But he is the Bees Knees to the present crop of low information voters in the United States. Dara Kelly being one with Irish Central acting in concert.

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