Biden is a Key Adviser and Confidant in Obama's White House--By Kenneth T. Walsh

A group of Rutgers University students was walking down a corridor in the Russell Senate Office Building when a distinguished, gray-haired man with a broad smile emerged from his office. It was Joe Biden, then a senator from Delaware. He stopped to say hello and, to the students' surprise, launched into an impromptu 15-minute discourse on Washington politics and what was happening in the Senate that day. "The kids were totally captivated and enormously flattered," recalled an observer. "He's a very effusive guy."

This is the Joe Biden whom many in Washington have come to know over the past three decades--gregarious, loquacious, and brimming with energy. And that's the Joe Biden who is settling into his new job as Barack Obama's understudy. It has been a relatively easy transition for the 66-year-old Washington insider, his aides and friends say. And even though the vice presidency is often derided as little more than playing second fiddle, Biden seems content with his evolving role. He believes he is making a contribution, especially as a confidant to the president and a superlobbyist on Capitol Hill. [See the members of Obama's inner circle]

Biden doesn't want to be pigeonholed with a "boutique portfolio" of small issues that few others care about, his aides say. Nor does he want to be a yes man. Just as important, Biden isn't trying to promote himself as a future president, as so many of his predecessors have done, according to advisers and friends. Aides say that Biden hasn't ruled out running for president again (he has done it twice and fallen flat both times), but he is totally focused on the immediate goal of helping Obama as much as he can. [Read Obama's 12 Most Important Decisions]

Official duties. The Constitution specifies only three tasks for the vice president: breaking a tie vote in the Senate, receiving the results of the Electoral College as president of the Senate, and being first in the line of succession. Many of Biden's predecessors have chafed under those limits; John Nance Garner, who gave up the House speaker's chair to be Franklin Roosevelt's first vice president, memorably said the job wasn't worth a "pitcher of warm spit."

President Jimmy Carter helped to redefine the position in the late 1970s when he gave Vice President Walter Mondale the key roles of presidential adviser and administration advocate. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton made Al Gore an important insider, and of course George W. Bush gave Dick Cheney enormous authority, especially on national security. [Read about Cheney's legacy]
Biden says Cheney went too far and became an independent power center at the White House, keeping many of his activities secret from other policymakers and creating a Machiavellian decision-making process. So the former Delaware senator is being as collegial as he can and making sure everyone knows that President Obama calls the shots.

Biden's role so far is fourfold: confidant to the president on a wide range of policy issues, especially foreign affairs; public surrogate to sell the administration's agenda; congressional lobbyist; and advocate for the middle class, a mission especially prized by this son of a car salesman who says he has never lost touch with his roots. Ron Klain, the vice president's chief of staff, says Biden is an "across-the-board adviser," someone "who's there to ask the hard questions, to challenge groupthink, speak his mind--and that's probably the most important role he plays in this administration."

So far, he seems to have the boss's trust. Obama told the New York Times March 17 that Biden is like a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet. He gets that extra rebound, takes the charge, makes that extra pass." [Poll: Has Biden been vocal enough in supporting Obama's policies?]

And true to his desires, Biden isn't a yes man. A senior administration official says Biden is "unbelievably candid.... His antenna goes up when alternative views are not brought up," and he will sometimes raise contrarian points just to give them an airing.

Biden appears to have as much access to Obama as he wants, sometimes strolling into the Oval Office unannounced to chat with his boss. They have a private lunch once a week and talk frequently by phone, and Biden participates in Obama's daily briefings on national security and the economy. [See photos of the Obamas behind the scenes]

But Biden can get himself into trouble with his public statements, which sometimes come across as blather. During the campaign, for example, he called Obama "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." These remarks were criticized as racially insensitive. Biden quickly said he meant no offense.

As vice president, he has gotten into a major dust-up with Karl Rove, the former chief political adviser to President George W. Bush. It started when Biden said that he had once scolded Bush in the Oval Office for showing poor leadership. Rove said the incident never happened and called Biden a "blowhard" and a "liar." Biden aides countered that the account was true, and the battle made headlines.

In a CNN interview on April 14, Biden shot back at Cheney's contention that America is less safe because of Obama's national security policies. Biden called Cheney "dead wrong" and said the Bush administration left the country in a "weaker posture than we've been any time since World War II: less regarded in the world, stretched more thinly than we ever have been in the past, two wars underway, virtually no respect in certain parts of the world." Under Obama, Biden insisted, "we are more safe. We are more secure."

A senior administration official says Biden realizes he needs to be more careful about public statements. On the other hand, many who have worked with him prize his outspoken nature. Some Democrats particularly welcomed his defense against Cheney's attacks.

Internally, he appears to be a forceful advocate, which Obama welcomes. Not that Biden wins every argument. Some administration sources say he expressed doubt about whether the government had the resources to push for a massive healthcare overhaul this year, but Obama disagreed. Yet there is evidence that Biden helped persuade Obama to set a clear, limited goal in Afghanistan of fighting terrorism and to limit the increase of military assistance there.
A strong influence. Behind the scenes, Biden is an aggressive and highly valued lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Last December, Biden was very active in courting senators to support Obama's economic stimulus plan. At one point, he phoned Republican Sen. Susan Collins while she was driving to a family event in Caribou, Maine, just before Christmas. She ended up voting for the legislation, one of only three GOP senators to do so.

Obama has made Biden the head of the White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, charged with promoting Middle America in government policy, and Biden has used this perch to hold a series of forums around the country. He doesn't make much national news but generates considerable positive local publicity, and his aides say he enjoys the contact with everyday people. He continues to return home to Delaware most weekends by train. During the two-hour ride, he sometimes chats with other passengers and the Amtrak conductors, just as he has done for three decades. When he gets home, he still shops occasionally at the grocery store and the hardware store. All this reflects another objective he has as vice president: to stay as connected to everyday life as he can. He acknowledges that this is tougher than he expected, given his heavy schedule and the security bubble that surrounds him, but Joe Biden promises to keep trying.