All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Vice President Joe Biden's popularity has fallen to its lowest point since the Democratic National Convention, a new Gallup poll finds.

There are nearly as many people with an unfavorable opinion of Biden, at 40 percent, as there are with a favorable opinion (42 percent). That makes Biden far less popular than the previous two vice presidents, Dick Cheney and Al Gore, during their respective first years in office.

Biden's favorability rating peaked in November of last year at 59 percent, the poll finds, and has steadily dropped since. While President Obama's popularity has declined over the course of the year as well, his favorability rating remains higher than Biden's at 55 percent, according to Gallup. On average this year, Biden's favorability rating has been close to 20 points lower than the president's.

By contrast, both Cheney and Gore in their first years as vice president held favorability ratings just a few points lower than President George W. Bush's and President Clinton's, respectively. On average, Cheney held a favorability rating of 65 percent in 2001, while Gore was popular among 55 percent of Americans in 1993.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beats out both Biden and Mr. Obama with a recent favorability rating of 62 percent.

Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, has indicated that he is leaning toward running for the Senate seat held by his father for 36 years.

In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," the Delaware Attorney General said he was "absolutely" considering running for the seat in next year's elections.

But Biden isn't ready to definitely commit to a run yet. Before he makes the final decision, Biden said in the interview that he wanted to spend more time with his family and resume work in his current job. Biden has spent the last year on a tour of duty with the Army National Guard in Iraq.

"There's time to make that decision," Biden said. "First things first -- make sure I focus on my family, focus on my job."

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Vice President Joe Biden on Friday reacted to news that the unemployment rate has risen from 9.7 to 9.8 percent by stating that "today's bad news does not change my confidence in the fact that we are going to recover."

He said the news, bad though it was, reflected the fact that the stimulus package was having a positive effect.

"The first quarter of this year, we were losing jobs at an average of 700,000 jobs per month, month after month," he said. "In the quarter that ended this week, the loss was 250,000 jobs per month, two-thirds less."

Still, he said, "those facts and those realities aren't good enough for President Obama, and they aren't good enough for me."

"We don't think that 'less bad' is good," Biden said. "'Less bad' is not our measure of success. One job lost is one job too many, and it's still too much pain."

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Vice President Joe Biden Wednesday welcomed home from Iraq 110 National Guard soldiers – including his son, Delaware Attorney General and Army National Guard Captain Beau Biden.

Biden was joined in Dover by about 800 Delaware residents welcoming home the 261st Signal Brigade, the News Journal reports.

The vice president noted in his remarks that he had been to Afghanistan and Iraq several times in the past year, saying he "got to see our beloved son three times."

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UPDATED 8:55 p.m. ET

Vice President Joe Biden expects a health care reform bill "before Thanksgiving" after President Obama successfully re-centered the debate during his highly touted Congressional address on health care reform Wednesday night.

"What the president did was re-center the debate because he said if you like thing the way they are, go ahead don't participate. But all of you who you thinks there's a need for real reform, you have to get in the game," Biden said during an appearance on CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday.

Biden offered his pre-Thanksgiving prediction for legislation while making the rounds on other morning news shows, with appearances on ABC's "Good Morning America," and NBC's "Today" show.

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As if appealing for divine intervention in the health care debate, Vice President Joe Biden crossed himself when asked this morning about the prospects for enacting the plan President Obama wants.

"I do foreign policy, I don't do health care," said Biden, sounding as though he was looking for a way to weasel out of the question.

He said the reason he prefers foreign policy: "it's a lot easier than health care and a lot less complicated. And that's not a joke."

Biden did speak with passion about administration plans to modernize the health care system by computerizing all our medical records. He called the current system "absolutely archaic."

It would be another example, he said, of spending money to save money. "If we modernize health care record-keeping," said Biden, "we will save billions of dollars."

As for more details about what Mr. Obama will ask for in his health care address to a Joint Session of Congress on Wednesday evening, Biden urged his audience at the Brookings Institution in Washington to "stay tuned."

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Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in Politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

**President Obama to get specific on health care with speech to Congress next week...

**Biden talks stimulus today...

**Kennedy memoirs talk about the good and the bad...

HEALTH CARE: When he's faced a crisis, President Obama tends to confront it with a major speech. Now, with health care reform on the ropes and an America that is unclear on how he wants to change the system, Mr. Obama will speak on prime time TV next Wednesday to a joint session of Congress to again lay out his ideas.

"The president has been criticized for being insufficiently specific about what he wants health care reform to look like," writes CBSNews.com's Brian Montopoli. "Though has offered details about the provisions he is seeking in a series of speeches in recent months, Mr. Obama has left it to Congress to work out the legislative language. A CBS News poll this week showed disenchantment with the president's handling of the issue.

"Yesterday, senior advisor David Axelrod said the president may become 'more prescriptive' about what he wants from a health care bill, which the White House has asked Congress to produce by September 15th.

"The White House has been 'taken aback by the ferocity of opposition to its health care plan as expressed to members of Congress of both parties during their town meetings last month with constituents,' CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller reports."

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In the White House's latest online video to debunk so-called myths about health care reform, Vice President Joe Biden introduces features that attempt to make the White House's online health care campaign more interactive.

"The biggest myth of all is that our health insurance system is just fine, that there's no serious need for reform," Biden says in the video. He alludes to comments made by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) that health care reform "is not a major issue among the American people."

"Nothing, nothing could be further from the truth," Biden says.

But instead of explaining why himself, the vice president says, "I'd rather have you, the American people, bust this myth."

To argue their point, the White House has created a quiz to show how President Obama's health care reform proposals will impact different individuals.

"No matter how old or young you are, where you work, whether you have insurance or not, I'll bet you'll be surprised at how much you'll get out of this health insurance reform we're proposing," Biden says.

The vice president urges people to take the quiz and then upload a video response via YouTube to "bust" Rep. King's "myth."

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Vice President Joe Biden called the late Ted Kennedy a "historic" and "heroic" figure at his memorial service Friday night, and paid particular tribute to Kennedy's work on civil rights causes and legislation.

"The legacy of Teddy Kennedy can be measured by how we look at one another - and in turn how we look at ourselves," Biden said.

Biden also paid tribute to the help Kennedy paid to his own career, saying that he would not be where he is today without him.

Echoing a story he told on Wednesday about Kennedy coming to his aid during his 1972 Senate campaign, Biden said Kennedy was "the catalyst" for his victory.

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An emotional Vice President Joe Biden paid tribute today to his friend, Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died late last night of brain cancer at age 77.

"Today we lost a truly remarkable man," Biden added. "To paraphrase Shakespeare, I don't think we shall ever see his like again. I think the legacy he left was not just with the landmark legislation he passed but in how he helped people look at themselves and look at one another."

"My wife, Jill, and my sons, Beau and Hunter, and my daughter, Ashley -- and I don't say that lightly because they all knew Teddy. He did something personal and special for each one of them in their lives -- truly, truly are distressed by his passing," Biden added.

The vice president was holding back tears as he made the remarks at the Energy Department. He was previously scheduled to make remarks about the administration's energy policy alongside Energy Secretary Steven Chu, but instead devoted much of his speech to Kennedy.

Biden paid a very personal tribute to Kennedy for helping his first Senate campaign in 1972, saying that he "literally would not be standing here were it not for Teddy Kennedy."

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