Joe Biden expands role as White House link to CongressBy CAROL E. LEE & JOHN BRESNAHAN | 12/9/10 4:34 AM EST Updated: 12/9/10 8:21 AM EST
With Capitol Hill increasingly hostile territory for President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden seems ready to take the place of the departed Rahm Emanuel as the one senior administration official who can deliver the White House’s position — good news or bad — to members and senators of both parties.
White House officials say it’s the same role the vice president, who served nearly four decades in the Senate, has played since the start of the administration. But in the absence of Emanuel, who formerly served as Obama’s chief of staff and as a House member, no one in the West Wing matches Biden when it comes to his ties on the Hill, depth of knowledge on how Congress works and having the members’ trust on both sides of the aisle.
Obama gave Biden a pivotal role in the tax-cut talks on the Hill, making him the lead negotiator with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Biden is also the point person on the White House’s efforts to win enough Senate votes for a new START treaty during the lame-duck session. And he met last week at the White House with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who is preparing to take over as chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and who is expected to dig into the administration’s spending of economic stimulus money.
But his most public assignment of late has been as the White House’s emissary to Democrats, tasked with trying to tamp down their anger over a tax-cut deal hammered out largely between the White House and GOP leaders.
The vice president had a blunt message for House Democrats on Wednesday during a closed-door session, according to members who attended. “It’s as good as it gets,” Biden told them, taking a hard line that did not go well with everyone.
“The vice president said, ‘This is the deal, take it or leave it,’” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).
But at least one member felt Biden’s attentiveness was a salve for Democrats wounded by the product and the process that cut them out. “He made it easier,” said one attendee. “The vice president was pitch-perfect in tone. He was respectful. He really talked to the members in a way that they knew he was listening.”
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