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Joe Biden's Senate seat will be filled by Edward "Ted" Kaufman, a longtime aide to the Vice President-elect.

Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner announced the appointment this afternoon.

Biden, who just won his seventh term in the Senate, must vacate his seat before being sworn in as Vice President on January 20th. Minner said Kaufman will be sworn in sometime in early or mid January.

Biden's son, Attorney General Beau Biden, had been seen as a possible replacement for his father. He announced last week that he wouldn't accept the appointment if offered, saying he planned to continue serving in the National Guard.

The [Wilmington] News Journal's Jeff Montgomery writes that "[t]he selection of the former Biden chief of staff was widely seen as a move by Vice president-elect Biden to protect his seat for" his son Beau, who is presently deploying to Iraq.

There will be an election in 2010 for Delaware voters to decide who will fill the final four years of Biden's term. Montgomery writes that the choice reflects a snubbing of Lt. Gov. John Carney; one Delaware professor suggests in the News Journal story that it will be viewed by some as "a backroom deal."

The new administration about to sweep into Washington, DC, is destined to do more than just change the face of the executive branch, it’s going to have a potentially profound impact on the Senate as well.

Already, President-elect Barack Obama has resigned his seat, leaving it up to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to select a replacement. A slew of potential cabinet choices could mean more changes should New York Senator Hillary Clinton, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry or even Republican Dick Lugar from Indiana make the jump.

One other certain new face will come from Delaware, where Vice Presidential-elect Joe Biden has yet to formally resign his seat. There has been speculation that he would like to see his son, state Attorney General Beau Biden fill his seat (to which he was just re-elected this year). But the younger Biden has taken himself out of the running, according to a statement yesterday evening. On his way to Iraq as part of the state’s National Guard, Beau Biden had this to say: “I have not sought and will not accept an appointment to the United States Senate. … I look forward to returning to my work as attorney general of the state of Delaware.”

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that the Obama campaign has told station WFTV-Channel 9 not to expect any more interviews until after the election.

According to a blog on the paper's Web site, this stems from a satellite interview the Orlando station's Barbara West conducted with Joe Biden on Thursday.

West asked the Democratic vice presidential nominee to defend whether the ticket's policies were "Marxist" and whether Biden's comments about Obama being "tested" early in his presidency were saying "America's days as the world's leading power are over."

During the interview, Biden reacted with surprise to the questions.

"Are you joking?" he asked at one point. "No," the anchor responded. Later, Biden said: "I don't know who's writing your questions."

The paper reports that the campaign then cancelled a planned interview the station had scheduled with Jill Biden.

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, central Florida communications director for the campaign, according to the paper.

Read more from the newspaper here.
Watch the interview with Biden.

Here's some raw video of Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden – with one eye, perhaps, on the baseball playoffs – suggesting today that the presidential race would be over "if this was a best of five series":

UPDATED CBS News and Knowledge Networks have conducted a nationally representative poll of 473 uncommitted voters to get their immediate reaction to tonight's vice presidential debate.

After the first presidential debate, a similar survey showed that more uncommitted voters identified Barack Obama as the winner

Final numbers from tonight's poll have yet to come in, but we do have some early results. (These numbers may change as more respondents complete the survey.) They suggest that once again more voters have responded favorably to the Democratic candidate.

Forty-six percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed say Democrat Joe Biden won the debate, compared to 21 percent for Republican Sarah Palin. Thirty-three percent said it was a tie.

Eighteen percent of previously uncommitted percent say they are now committed to the Obama-Biden ticket. Ten percent say they are now committed to McCain-Palin. Seventy-one percent are still uncommitted.

Both candidates improved their overall image tonight. Fifty-three percent of those surveyed say they now have a better impression of Biden. Five percent say they have a worse opinion of the Delaware senator, while 42 percent say they debate did not change their opinion.

Fifty-five percent say they now have a better opinion of Palin. Fourteen percent say they have a worse opinion, while 30 percent say their opinion hasn't changed.

After the debate, 66 percent see Palin as knowledgeable about important issues – up from 43 percent before the debate. But Biden still has the advantage on this – 98 percent saw him as knowledgeable after the debate. That figure was 79 percent before the debate.

Uncommitted voters’ views of Palin’s preparedness for the job of vice president also improved as a result of her debate performance - but they are still nowhere near the percentage that thinks Biden is prepared.

Fifty-five percent say Palin is prepared for the job, up from 39 percent before the debate. Ninty-seven percent say Biden is prepared, up from 81 percent pre-debate.

Although Palin made some gains on the question of whether she could serve as president if needed, she rose just 9 points on that measure. Now 44 percent say the Alaska governor could be an effective president. Ninety-one percent said Biden could be effective as president, up from 66 percent before the debate.

We will have a full report on the poll later on. Uncommitted voters are those who don't yet know who they will vote for, or who have chosen a candidate but may still change their minds.

Update: Click here for the complete poll data and analysis.

Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden told CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric today that he is "sick and tired" of the "phoniness" in criticism of his comment that it is patriotic for Americans with high incomes to pay higher taxes.

"There's been quite a brouhaha about your comment about paying higher taxes for those making $250,000 a year and over is the patriotic thing to do," Couric said to Biden while riding on his campaign bus.

As Couric noted, GOP vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said in response to Biden's comment, "To the rest of America, that's not patriotism. Raising taxes is about killing jobs and hurting small businesses. And making things worse."

"How many small businessmen are making $1,400,000 a year average in the top 1 percent?" Biden responded. "Give me a break. I remind my friend John McCain what he said when Bush called for war and tax cuts he said, 'it is immoral, immoral to take a nation to war and not have anybody pay for it.'"

"I am so sick and tired of this phoniness," Biden continued. "The truth of the matter is that we are in trouble, and the people who do not need a new tax cut should be willing as patriotic Americans to understand the way to get this economy back up on their feet is to give middle class taxpayers a break. We take the tax cut they're getting and we give it to the middle class."

(This post was written by CBS News' Ryan Corsaro and Brian Montopoli.)

The Obama campaign released 10 years of Sen. Joe Biden’s tax returns today. You can see them here. As the returns show, Biden makes a relatively modest income compared to his Senate colleagues.

There are a few reasons for this: Neither Biden nor his wife, Jill, with whom he filed jointly, have enormous personal wealth. Jill is a teacher – not a high-paying job. And Biden has been in the Senate for almost his entire working career, unlike many of his colleagues who have worked in the private sector for a larger paycheck.

Joint income between Biden and his wife Jill rose from $215,000 to $249,000 between 1998 and 2006. These numbers reflect the total of Joe Biden's Senate salary, his Widener University School of Law teaching salary, and Jill Biden's teaching salary.

The Bidens give little to charity. 2007, in which they donated $995, was their most generous year, though in other years Biden donated honoraria from talk shows which were valued at higher amounts.

The Bidens make almost no money each year from dividends or interest. They deduct only state/local taxes, mortgage interest and what he donates to charity. 2003 was the last year they claimed a dependent child -- their daughter, Ashley.

Under the Obama tax plan, Biden’s taxes would go up because of his tax bracket. To see how, check out the CBS Evening News video on how the Obama and McCain tax plans differ here.

As Politico notes, the release of Biden's tax returns is at least in part a move to pressure GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin to do the same; Palin has faced some questions about her personal income after reports that she billed the state for nights she spent at home. Republicans, meanwhile, are agitating for Biden to release past earmark requests.

Here’s a breakdown on the numbers from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

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While addressing delegates from his home state of Delaware this morning (more about that here), vice presidential candidate Joe Biden choked up a bit when recalling the years of support he received from his home state crowd. Watch it:

(DENVER) Addressing Delaware delegates to the Democratic convention this morning, vice presidential nominee-to-be Joe Biden acknowledged that he hasn’t always shined in his political career, the AP reports. But he told his home-state delegates that he couldn’t have gotten through his personal and professional failings without their help.

"It's all out there, in the clear public view," Biden said about his past foibles. "I didn't always comport myself in the way that I wanted to. … My private life has been lived in the public arena because y'all got me started so young," he said. I hadn't been out of
law school but a year when I got involved in the Democratic Party."

Biden has displayed a tendency for gaffes that he managed to keep under control through his presidential campaign last year with a couple of glaring exceptions. On the eve of his presidential announcement, he referred to Barack Obama as an "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." And, he was caught on tape talking to voters and saying, "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."

CBS News political consultant Joe Trippi on Obama's new running mate, Delaware Senator Joe Biden:

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In the 1988 Presidential campaign I worked for Gary Hart as his Deputy Political Director and then, after Hart left the race, for Dick Gephardt as his Deputy Campaign Manager. Both campaigns feared one candidate that year: Joe Biden.

Young, charismatic, hard charging, with a take no prisoners tenacity, in the early days of the 1988 campaign you didn’t have to look over your shoulder for Joe Biden, because he was in your face.

The Joe Biden of 1988, was sharp and smart, feared in debates, but seemed like a spring wound too tight. Instead of the cool, comfortable Obama of 2008, the Biden of 1988 was too hot, and too driven.

Much will be made by Biden’s detractors, in the coming days, of the gaffes that drove him out of the race for President in 1988. But those gaffes seemed to me at the time to be caused out of his tightness, and over reaching.

If you were in an opposing campaign you looked at his considerable talents and acumen with fear, and were relieved when he was so impatient to put them on display that he dropped another “Biden Bomb” and diminished his own chances to use them.

Many saw his candidacy in 1988 as driven by raw ambition. Perhaps. But from my vantage point it wasn’t ambition in the cynical way we throw that word around in politics. Biden’s ambition seemed to me to be driven by a volatile mixture of youthful idealism, and the “make every second count” attitude of a man who had lost his wife and infant daughter in a tragic accident just years earlier.

Something else happened far from the campaign trail that year. Biden was 45 years old in 1988, the same age Barack Obama is today, when he suffered two near fatal brain aneurysms weeks after he left the race that year. The wound too tight, impatient, too hot candidacy had ended just in time. Had Joe Biden still been on the campaign trail when the aneurysms occurred he would almost certainly not be with us today.

So it was with some fascination, 20 years later, that I watched Joe Biden on the campaign trail in 2008, this time from a front row seat as a Senior Advisor on the John Edwards campaign.

Sharp? He had gotten sharper and wiser. 20 more years of knowledge and experience made him that much more formidable in debates. His mastery of events, issues, and policies were beyond question.

Gaffes? Oh he had his share of gaffes, but they were different.

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