Biden’s New Role as Backup Player
By Jonathan Broder, CQ Staff
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Biden’s role, both in the campaign and in Barack Obama ’s White House, has been the subject of extensive discussions between the two men. Those close to Biden say he is well aware of the apprehensions about him and has sought to put them to rest. After two unsuccessful bids for the presidency — in 1988 and earlier this year — the 65-year-old senator views the vice presidency, these insiders say, as his last opportunity to play a major role in the making of national and international policy by the executive branch. Far from resenting Obama’s success in winning the presidency after only four years in Washington, they say, Biden at the moment considers himself honored to have the president-elect’s confidence in his judgment and enjoys an easy rapport with him.
Biden also has said he plans to put his judgment to work as Obama’s counselor in chief, not only on foreign policy but on other issues as well.
“I would be the point person for the legislative initiatives in the United States Congress for our administration,” Biden said during his debate last month with Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the GOP vice presidential candidate. “When asked if I wanted a portfolio, my response was ‘no.’ . . . Barack Obama indicated to me he wanted me with him to help him govern. So every major decision he’ll be making, I’ll be sitting in the room to give my best advice. . . . He said he picked someone who had independent judgment and wouldn’t be afraid to tell him if he disagreed.”
‘The Last Guy In the Room’
Given the daunting problems Obama is inheriting, former officials and scholars who study the vice presidency agree that the adviser’s role that Biden has chosen is a wise one. Overseas, Obama will have to deal with two wars, while helping stanch a global economic meltdown and working to repair strained relations with allies. At home, he confronts frozen credit markets and fuel prices that will probably head back up once the financial crisis is resolved. And in Congress, toxic partisanship will threaten Obama’s efforts to move his legislative agenda. And so having someone in the vice president’s office who is deeply familiar with foreign policy, domestic policy and the culture of Congress should be a big help.
“Nobody knows, unless they’ve been there, what a president goes through, what tremendous pressure is on him,” former Vice President Walter Mondale said in an interview. “The only other person who can come close to helping him and be seen as almost an equivalent in some respects is the vice president.”
After Obama selected Biden as his running mate, many in Washington assumed that, because he is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden would take the dominant role in helping an Obama administration address the nation’s foreign policy challenges. But aides familiar with Biden’s thinking say he rejected such a portfolio, convinced it could complicate the execution of the president’s statecraft. For the same reasons, Biden, who chaired the Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1994, turned down any role as a shadow attorney general, these aides say.
“Just as you have one president at a time, you’ve got one secretary of State and one attorney general at a time,” said Tony Blinken, Biden’s top foreign policy aide. “You can’t have two people doing the same job. That just creates potential for confusion and unclear lines of authority.”
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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=weeklyreport-000002984425
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