Vice President-elect Joe Biden is getting this German Shepherd puppy when he moves to Washington in January.

(CNN) – While the country is fixated on what kind of dog President-elect Barack Obama’s family will get when they move into the White House, his Vice President-elect Joe Biden quietly picked out a puppy of his own last week.

Biden’s wife, Jill, promised the future VP a dog if he and Obama got elected. Biden found the as-yet-unnamed pup, a three-month old male German Shepherd, in a breeder’s kennel in southeastern Pennsylvania, the area’s Daily Local News reports.

See more pictures of Biden's new puppy.

Biden revealed his wife’s pledge on Election Day, telling reporters flying with him to Chicago that she had first promised him a dog if he was elected president, and when his primary bid failed, if he was elected vice president. Mrs. Biden even taped pictures of dogs on the seatback in front of Biden on the plane, according to the report.

“I’ve always had a big dog my whole life, even the time I was a kid. I’ve had German Shepherds and Great Danes and Labs and Golden Retrievers,” Biden said on November 4. “So with Barack inquiring about would I be willing to get vetted, Jill said, ‘I’ll make you a deal: if you get the vice presidency and get elected, you can get a dog.’

“I know what kind I want, I don’t know what kind I’m going to get yet,” he added before reiterating that the ticket hadn’t won yet.

Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said the vice president-elect had owned three German shepherds in his life, “so he's familiar with the breed and its personality."

“He's excited to bring it home when it gets a little older and has promised that his grandchildren can name it after the New Year,” Alexander said.

Biden was reportedly accompanied to breeder Linda Brown’s kennel by New Castle County Police K-9 coordinator Mark Tobin, who will train the puppy for the next six weeks before delivering it to the Bidens when they move into the vice presidential residence in January.

Brown told Delaware’s News Journal that the puppy is “the pick of the litter.”

Tobin added, “He's well-tempered, people-friendly and social…It's just a happy-go-lucky puppy."

Mitt Romney’s wife Ann has been diagnosed with the most common form of noninvasive breast cancer.

(CNN) – Ann Romney, the wife of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, released a statement Friday morning saying that she has been diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in sutu, the most common form of noninvasive breast cancer in women.

“Last week, following my annual mammogram at Brigham and Women's Hospital, I was diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma In Sutu (DCIS),” Romney says in the statement. “While this is commonly referred to as early stage breast cancer, it is technically not cancer but rather pre-cancer, as it has not become invasive.”

“Today, I have had a lumpectomy. This procedure does not require hospitalization. Mitt and I feel fortunate to have caught this so early. And, it reminds us how important it is for women to have regular mammograms.”

The Mayo Clinic says that DCIS is considered to be a “preinvasive” condition, and “the most common type of noninvasive breast cancer.”

The clinic’s Web site adds that the condition isn’t life-threatening, but that without treatment, DCIS could become invasive breast cancer.

Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998, and has said that she combines traditional treatment with alternative treatments like horse riding to keep the disease at bay.

Biden was told Wednesday that a WMD attack is ‘more than likely’ somewhere in the world before 2013.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Secretary of Homeland Security-designate Janet Napolitano received a bi-partisan commission briefing Wednesday on potential attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. The commission’s chairman, former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, didn’t mince words when he told the two members of the incoming administration that “it is more likely than not that between now and the year 2013 there will be a weapon of mass destruction used someplace in the world.”

After reviewing the 'World at Risk' report from the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, Biden said that the government is not doing all it can to prevent a possible WMD attack.

“The answer that jumps out very starkly is no, we’re not doing all we can or should. And we’re not doing all we can to prevent the world’s most lethal weapons from winding up in the hands of terrorists,” said Biden. “But this report is, in my view, more than a warning about what we’re doing wrong, it’s a pragmatic blueprint how to get it right...”

Graham and Sen. Jim Talent led the bi-partisan commission that was established by Congress as a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. Talent focused his comments Wednesday on steps they believe the government needs to take, including regulating work on biological pathogens and Pakistan’s nuclear elements because the country is “the nexus of all these threats right now and it’s deteriorating.”

Talent joked that he and Graham flipped a coin to see who would deliver the bad news, a duty that clearly fell to Graham as he told Biden, Napolitano and his fellow members of the Commission that terrorist groups are progressing, are more nimble and the ease of acquiring a biological weapon has increased.

“This leads us to the conclusion, one, that we have been losing ground and we are less secure today that we have been in the recent past,” said Graham. “Number two, that the threat is that it is more likely than not that between now and the year 2013 there will be a weapon of mass destruction used someplace in the world. And third, that it is more likely that that weapon will be biological than nuclear.”

Gov. Napolitano kept her remarks brief but reiterated that “the threat, whether nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological is a very real one indeed.” The Arizona governor said she would act on the commission’s recommendations in the Department of Homeland Security “with the urgency called for by the nature of the threat that confronts us.”

After the foursome made their introductory remarks to the press, reporters were ushered out so the group could continue to discuss the commission’s findings in private. Asked by CNN if his role in the administration had been clearly defined, Biden ignored the question.

Palin said she appreciated Obama and Biden meeting with the nation's governors Tuesday.

(CNN) – Governor Sarah Palin told reporters following the National Governors Association meeting with President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden Tuesday that she appreciated the new administration reaching out to the country’s governors, brushing aside ‘unflattering’ comments made by both tickets during the campaign.

Asked how she felt about a partnership with people she spoke unflatteringly about on the campaign trail, Palin replied that the jabs were “mutual.”

“But the campaign is over and I so appreciated this meeting that we had,” Palin said. “I'm quite optimistic about moving forward in a bi-partisan manner as we do forge this partnership between states and the federal government.

“I appreciated that President-elect Obama recognizes, first that he recognizes how valuable it is to have governors in his cabinet and we assume that all will go well and some of these governors will be in his cabinet,” she continued, adding that governors “know best” about the economic issues raised Tuesday.

“In fact, remember on the campaign trail I tried to convince the majority of voters that governors knew best. Obviously that didn't work, I'm here and VP-elect Biden is there,” she said, calling the meeting “overall great.”

The Alaska governor briefly waded into subject of Tuesday’s meeting, saying that she and other governors present had “great concerns” about increased spending under an Obama administration.

“When much of the economic problem that we are facing today perhaps was caused by too much debt, that solving those problems will not come from incurring more debt so we do have some concerns about these. This is going to be a matter of re-prioritizing federal dollars though and putting them to use in the wisest fashion for taxpayers, for constituents.”

Biden said that Palin attending the NGA conference Tuesday is a sign the election is over.

(CNN) – In the first few moments of his remarks to the National Governors Association Tuesday, Vice President-elect Joe Biden thanked fall rival Sarah Palin for attending the bi-partisan conference, saying it’s a “a metaphor for the fact that this election is over.”

“I want to thank all of you for being here and Governor Palin I want to thank you particularly," Biden said to the Alaska governor. “I think it is, I hope, the whole country can see it’s sort of a metaphor for the fact that this election is over and here we are.

“We’re all together, we’re all dealing with a common [economic] problem,” he continued. “This is not a Democrat or Republican problem, we’ve got ourselves a problem.”

President-elect Obama and his VP greeted Palin as they walked into the room to a standing ovation. In his opening comments, Biden lamented the lack of attention he now receives compared to Palin.

“As I told you when we walked in, since the race is over no one pays attention to me at all,” Biden told Palin as the governors laughed. “So maybe you’ll walk outside with me or something later and say hello to me.”

Biden’s comments were just his third set of public remarks since Election Day.

Capt. Beau Biden left for Iraq Wednesday with his Delaware National Guard Unit.

(CNN) – Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s eldest son Beau left his training base in Texas on Wednesday, bound for a year-long tour of duty in Iraq with his Delaware National Guard unit.

The 114 members of the 261st Signal Brigade were training at Fort Bliss, Texas for the past two months ahead of their mobilization to Iraq. Captain Beau Biden, also Delaware’s attorney general, will serve as an assistant Judge Advocate General (JAG) officer in Iraq, enforcing the Uniform Code of Military Justice and helping troops with legal issues back home.

On their way to Iraq, the unit will make two stops before arriving at a staging area outside of Iraq where they will receive additional training and equipment. The location of the staging area is classified, though most U.S. troops stage in Kuwait before going into Iraq.

The Vice President-elect was able to see his son one last time before his mobilization last weekend in Nevada when the unit had ‘R&R’ leave.

Beau was also given special permission to fly to Chicago to join his family on Election Day but declined, instead watching the returns and President-elect Barack Obama’s speech on a laptop at Fort Bliss.

“This is a different brand of kid,” his father remarked to reporters on the flight to Chicago.

Joe Biden often gets emotional when talking about his family and fought back tears during brief remarks at Beau’s deployment ceremony in Dover, Delaware on October 3.

“I’ve come here many times before – as a Delawarean, as a United States senator. But today I come as you prepare to deploy as a father,” Biden told the soldiers and their families gathered in front of the Capitol building. “Like all of the family members that are here today gathered on this green, my heart is full of love and pride.”

“Never before has a Delaware guard unit been deployed that is better qualified,” he added. “You are the best demonstration of both our nation’s greatness and, equally as importantly, our people’s goodness.”

Beau will return to Delaware next September and though he has tried to tamp down speculation, rumors are swirling about the possibility of his running for his father’s Senate seat in 2010.

Ayers said Friday that Republicans’ attempt to tie Obama to him is a ‘dishonest narrative.’

(CNN) – With the election over, 1960s radical William Ayers emerged Friday for an interview to promote an updated version of his memoir, saying that the Republicans’ attempt to tie him to President-elect Barack Obama was a “dishonest narrative” with the intent of “demonizing” Ayers.

Ayers was interviewed on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America,’ telling anchor Chris Cuomo that he doesn't know Obama any better than “thousands of other Chicagoans” and that “a secret link” between the two men is a “myth.”

Cuomo asked Ayers about describing his relationship with Obama as 'family friends' in the afterward of his book, a relationship he defined Friday as "professional."

“I’m talking there about that fact that I became an issue unwittingly and unwillingly in the campaign and I decided that I didn’t want to answer any of it at that moment because it was such a profoundly dishonest narrative," said Ayers. "I’m describing there how the blogosphere characterized the relationship. I would say, really, that we knew each other in a professional way, again, on the same level as, say, thousands of other people.”

The anti-Vietnam War activist who bombed the Pentagon, Capitol and New York City police headquarters became a household name in the waning weeks of the campaign with Sarah Palin accusing Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and John McCain arguing that the Illinois senator should be pressed further on his relationship with the “unrepentant terrorist.”

“I have roundly condemned those acts,” Obama, who was eight years old at the time of the attacks, responded in his final debate with McCain. “Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign, he has never been involved in this campaign and he will not advise me in the White House.”

During the campaign, Republicans zeroed in on Ayers’ 2001 quote, “I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough,” as well of accusing Obama of launching his political career in Ayers’ living room.

"We had him in our home and I think he was probably in 20 homes that day," said Ayers, also refusing to back down from his previous comments.

“I don’t think we did enough,” he said, “just as today I don’t think we’ve done enough to stop these wars and I think we must all recognize the injustice of it and do more.”

Since the coffee, Ayers and Obama served on the boards of the Woods Fund of Chicago and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge together. Ayers, now a professor at the University of Chicago, says the relationship was never more than civic-minded and professional.

“This idea that we need to know more, like there’s a dark hidden secret, a secret link, is just a myth," said Ayers. "And it’s a myth thrown up by people who kind of wanted to exploit the politics of fear and I think it’s a great credit to the American people that those politics were rejected.”

Wednesday, Palin told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that it’s “an association that still bothers me.”

“I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers,” said Palin. “And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol.”

“I don’t buy the idea that guilt by association should be any part of our politics,” Ayers replied Friday. “And the interesting thing is as much as this was created as an issue in the campaign it appears for most people it was, it had no traction, it had no meaning.”

“I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers,” said Palin. “And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol.”

“I don’t buy the idea that guilt by association should be any part of our politics,” Ayers replied Friday. “And the interesting thing is as much as this was created as an issue in the campaign it appears for most people it was, it had no traction, it had no meaning.”

The Cheneys and Bidens met Thursday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill arrived at their future home at Washington's Naval Observatory Thursday afternoon and were greeted as they exited their black SUV by its current residents, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne.

The couples shook hands as Mrs. Cheney arranged the photo-op on the front porch, telling Mrs. Biden, “Now Jill, I was told that you were to be in the middle.”

As the foursome headed inside for what was billed as a private meeting followed by a tour of the mansion, a reporter asked Biden if he had been there before.

“I’ve been on the ground floor a couple times,” Biden responded.

Afterwards, a spokeswoman for the vice president wrote in a statement that the meeting lasted 50 minutes and that "it was a good visit."

"Vice President Cheney and his wife Lynne were pleased to welcome Vice President-elect Biden and his wife Jill to the Naval Observatory this afternoon," said spokeswoman Megan Mitchell. "It was a good visit. The Cheneys enjoyed giving the Bidens a tour of the residence and wished them well as they make it their home in January."

A spokesperson for Biden also said the visit went well.

"The Vice President-elect and Dr. Jill Biden met with Vice President Cheney and his wife Lynne at the Naval Observatory this evening. The Bidens thank the Cheneys for welcoming them into their home and for their gracious hospitality," said spokesperson for the Vice President-elect Elizabeth Alexander.

Chances are most of Biden's visits to the residence did not come over the past eight years. The future vice president has been a regular and fervent critic of Cheney, calling him “the most dangerous vice president probably in American history” at the vice presidential debate in early October.

In that same debate, Biden accused Cheney of not understanding that constitution says the job of VP falls under the Executive Branch. In his speech at the Democratic convention, he also joked about Cheney’s understanding of the document.

“For every American who is trying to do the right thing, for all those people in government who are honoring the pledge to uphold the law and honor the Constitution,” Biden said. “No longer will you hear the eight most-dreaded words in the English language, ‘The vice president’s office is on the phone.’”

The Delaware senator also couldn’t resist poking fun at the vice president when campaigning at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, Washington in mid-October.

“I want to thank you for making this stadium today change, temporarily changing the name from Cheney Stadium to Obama-Biden Stadium for the day,” said Biden. “Besides, if it was Cheney Stadium, we’d be at an undisclosed location. You’d never have been able to find us.”

Biden used Cheney’s November 1 speech in support of John McCain and Sarah Palin to further the Democratic ticket’s case that their Republican opponents would continue the current administration’s failed policies, saying, “It’s not surprising. Dick Cheney has been wrong on everything for the last eight years, he’s on a roll.”

Cheney took on a far more powerful role as vice president than his predecessors had. Biden has said that he hopes to be a ‘confidante’ to president-elect Barack Obama, in the room for the important decisions and offering his judgment.

As for his new home: Biden has said he will still regularly go home to Delaware, though his grandchildren who live nearby in Washington are excited about the move because the new house has a pool.

Biden spoke with eight foreign leaders this week.

(CNN) – Vice President-elect Joe Biden spoke with eight foreign leaders earlier this week, the transition office announced Thursday, to express “his thanks and appreciation for their congratulations on the election.”

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee talked to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Afghan president Hamid Karzai, King Abdullah of Jordan and Polish President Lech Kaczynski on Monday and Tuesday.

In addition, the country that got the most calls was Israel, with Biden speaking to three of its most senior politicians: Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Defense Minister (and former prime minister) Ehud Barak and Likud Party leader (and former Prime Minister) Binyamin Netanyahu.

The country’s Jerusalem Post reports that Livni told Biden to keep up the pressure on Iran’s nuclear program and to continue to fight against extremists in the region. Livni is running against both Netanyahu and Barak in Israel’s February elections to succeed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Biden is expected to play an instrumental role in foreign policy in the Obama administration when they are sworn on January 20. When Republicans accused Obama during the campaign of not wholeheartedly supporting Israel, Biden beat back the accusations with his own friendship with the country during his 35-year tenure in the Senate.

“My support for Israel begins in my stomach, goes to my heart and ends up in my head,” Biden said to a Jewish group in late September. “I guarantee you, I would not have joined Barack Obama’s ticket as vice president, were [there] any doubt, even the slightest doubt, that he shares the same commitment to Israel that I share.”

The transition office has been regularly releasing the names of foreign leaders that President-elect Barack Obama has spoken with, evidence of Obama and Biden’s campaign pledge to “restore America’s standing in the world,” as Biden regularly put it on the stump.

Joe Biden spoke at his home state's Veterans Day ceremony Tuesday.

NEW CASTLE, Delaware (CNN) – Vice President-elect Joe Biden spoke at his home state’s Veterans Day ceremony Tuesday morning, thanking the veterans present for their service and re-iterating his campaign’s promise to care for those coming back from foreign battlefields “in this war that we ignore in everyday life.”

“We are a nation at war,” said Biden “Sometimes, you would not recognize that because such a small percentage of our population is serving. But as I speak, it is probable that some young American has been felled by a bullet, or a IED, or a bomb or a terrorist attack somewhere in Afghanistan or in Iraq.”

As he regularly did on the campaign trail, Biden praised the National Guard for the role they’ve played in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the way they have joined in the fight with regular forces is “seamless.”

“I am astounded, I am moved to the point of pride that is hard to explain with the professionalism, the high morale and the unquestioned capability of our military forces now,” said Biden. “Regular in addition to our National Guard and Reserve. You cannot tell the distinction, it’s seamless.” (Biden’s son Beau is a captain in Delaware’s National Guard, deploying to Iraq at the end of the month.)

The future VP noted that post-traumatic stress levels, traumatic brain injury numbers, divorce and suicide rates are higher than in any other war. He added that he feels uncomfortable calling November 11 a holiday, saying it’s more a “holy day” because of the sacred obligation to those making sacrifices "in this war that we ignore in everyday life."

“The only sacred, sacred obligation this nation has is to care for those who we sent to war and prepare them and equip them with the best is available in the world and care for them when they come home,” said Biden. “The homecoming does not end with the homecoming parade.”

At the beginning of his remarks, Biden thanked his introducer for taking note of his new title but said nothing will give him more honor that being a senator from Delaware. He also shared with the crowd that he and his wife Jill will be visiting the Vice President’s residence at the Naval Observatory on Friday, as the Obamas visited the White House Monday.

Joe Biden went to the Eagles-Giants game Sunday and got booed.

(CNN) – People sure to draw the ire of Philadelphia sports fans: Cowboys players. Supporters of any visiting team. Presidential running mates.

Weeks after Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin got a brutal greeting at the rink, football fans gave a similar reception to Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

As Eagles fans watched their team lose to the New York Giants Sunday night, a shot of Biden on the big screen elicited boos from the notoriously tough home crowd, the Associated Press reports.

Biden sat in Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie's box, taking in the game during his first weekend off since Tuesday's election.

Sarah Palin was booed when she dropped the puck at the Philadelphia Flyers season opener in October. But Philadelphia is a heavily Democratic city, and Palin is not a Pennsylvania native. (Eagles fans also infamously threw snowballs at Santa Claus at a December 1968 game.)

Born in Scranton and now a resident of nearby Wilmington, Delaware, Biden calls himself an Eagles fan but emphasizes that his wife Jill, raised in the Philadelphia suburbs, is the real fan in the family.

"My wife is a die-hard Eagles fan, so we watch every Eagles game," Biden told reporters during a tour of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in September.

"I'm not allowed to say this," he added, whispering to the reporters, "but I also like the Giants."

So maybe it was the fact that Biden had no real allegiance to either team Sunday night that drew Philadelphians' ire, or perhaps it was simply the risk one takes attending a game in the City of Brotherly Love.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden rides in a horse drawn carriage during Delaware’s Return Day.

GEORGETOWN, Delaware (CNN) – Wearing a long dark coat to keep the cold rain off of him, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill rode around the streets of this small town in their home state Thursday afternoon in a white horse-drawn carriage as part of the biennial 200 year-old Delaware tradition known as ‘Return Day.’

“Thank you!” Biden repeatedly called out to the cheering crowds as he drove past, ducking in and out of the carriage to wave to voters who on Tuesday elected the Delaware senator to his seventh term in the U.S. Senate. (Deleware's governor will soon name a replacement Biden.)

“No matter what office I hold, I’m still Delaware,” Biden later said to loud cheers from the shivering masses in front of Georgetown’s courthouse. “There was Joe the plumber, well, I’m Joe from Delaware. And folks, it’s been an honor, it’s been a great honor representing you as a United States Senator since the first time I stood on this platform…”

“The bad news for you is Jill and I are not leaving Delaware,” he continued. “I may be the Vice President-elect but we’re going to be home every weekend so you know where we live.

“I’m still at this moment – and continue to be – Senator Joe Biden, the proudest title I’ve ever had, representing the state of Delaware,” he added. “I love you, thank you very, very, very, very much.”

Biden stood for two hours at the front of a review stand watching floats, marching bands and cars carrying past and current elected officials go by, chatting all the while with his wife and longtime friend Rep. Mike Castle.

“This is the coolest event in the entire United States of America,” Biden told a small group of reporters on the flight to Delaware Thursday morning, proceeding to spend the bulk of a 40-minute chat at the back of the plane recounting the history of the day and discussing state politics.

Return Day culminates with Republican and Democratic Party representatives jointly burying a tomahawk from the Nanticoke Indian tribe in a glass aquarium full of sand from Delaware’s Lewis Beach. The bi-partisan tradition is meant to symbolize the end of hard-fought campaigns.

The candidates from the state's races are also meant ride in the carriages together in a show of unity, the victor facing forward, the loser backwards. However, Biden’s Republican opponent, Christine O’Donnell, appeared to not have gotten the memo, leaving Biden alone in his carriage with Mrs. Biden,

Asked where O'Donnell was, Biden pointed to the carriage seat in front of him and told CNN, "I don't know, she was supposed to be here." Biden staffers said they did see her at the event but it is unclear why she didn’t join the Delaware senator in his carriage.

The future vice president's schedule forced him to leave before the actual burying of the hatchet, he is now back in Chicago and will hold a press conference with President-elect Obama on Friday, their first since winning the election.

Vice President-elect Biden said Thursday that he has not spoken to Sen. McCain since the election but also said he was still friends with McCain.

GEORGETOWN, Delaware (CNN) – As he headed back to Delaware to ceremonially “bury the hatchet” Thursday as part of a state tradition, Vice President-elect Joe Biden told reporters that John McCain was “still my friend.”

He also said that he and President-elect Obama had begun meeting daily to “flesh out the transition” – and did not deny speculation that Sen. John Kerry could be under consideration for a position in the new administration.

Last week, Biden had told reporters he was not sure if the friendship could be saved. “I don’t know, I hope [the friendship] is intact, John and I have not had a chance to speak,” Biden said. “I hope [it’s] intact because I still admire him, I still like him. ... I believe when this is over, win or lose, John and I are likely to be around in one form or another, in one job or another, and I hope, my hope is we can work together.”

The Delaware native said he hasn’t spoken to McCain – his friend of over three decades – since the Democratic ticket’s victory. Asked what he’d say to McCain and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin if they were on hand, Biden seemed to reach out to his Senate colleague, but did not seem as eager to make peace with the Arizona senator’s running mate.

“I’d say John, we’re still friends,” he said, adding “I don’t know Sarah Palin. I’m not being a wiseguy, you know, it’s over. I mean, I think it’s pretty remarkable, for the all the ups and downs, [a] pretty remarkable run for her. I mean, here’s a woman who is out of Wasilla as a mayor and then governor for two years. I think it’s pretty remarkable, pretty remarkable.

“But John’s still my friend. I say, John, I need you. We need you. This is an opportunity. We really mean what we said.... Barack and I met yesterday, and we’ll be meeting every day for a while until we flesh out this cabinet and everybody else. But we really mean it. We’ve got to reach out, man. You can’t get from here to there with just Democrats, you can’t do it. And I, and I’m…well anyway, when I talk to John, that is, that’s my, that’s what I’m going to tell him.”

Biden returned to Delaware on Thursday to participate in the state’s tradition of Returns Day, the Thursday after Election Day when state party officials literally bury a hatchet while the winning and losing candidates ride in carriages together in a parade.

On the flight from Chicago, he regaled a small group of reporters with stories about the day and discussed the transition.

“There’s a sense of excitement about it because yesterday we really did, five of us in a room, seven of us in a room, really actually beginning to put together a government,” said Biden, who said he and Obama planned to meet every day. “We’ve thought a lot about it but it was the first time - he’s as superstitious as I was - and the first time we actually started talking about names and places and organizations and it’s…there’s a sense of we both know it’s going to be a very difficult road.

“...I think the world is looking to us - not Barack and me - looking to America in the same way the public’s looking to us. They sense there’s a need for immediate help, immediate help for people drowning,” said Biden. “Not a new form of our government but a new international architecture.

“We need some really good thinking and what I’m excited about is there’s an awful lot of talented people out there, an awful lot of talented people who are ready, who are thinking this way,” he added. “Thinking around the curve rather than just beginning to try to catch up.”

Asked if Sen. John Kerry - whose name has been floated for Secretary of State - is one of those people, Biden agreed but didn’t reveal anything more. “Senator Kerry’s one of those guys, sure.”

Democratic Sen. Joe Biden was re-elected to his seventh term in the U.S. Senate Tuesday night.

CHICAGO (CNN) - If things don't turn out well for the Democratic ticket tonight, Joe Biden can be comforted by the fact that he won't be out of a job.

In a race that was essentially a foregone conclusion, Biden was re-elected to his seventh term in the U.S. Senate Tuesday night, beating 39-year-old Republican challenger Christine O'Donnell.

Biden hasn't campaigned for re-election since becoming the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket, but he did release a one-minute campaign ad and mention his re-election at Delaware's Jefferson-Jackson dinner on October 13.

"Just remember folks, I am on the ballot. Don't be carried away with this vice president stuff. I am on the ballot running for my seventh term," said Biden. "So don't forget, don't stop at the top of that ticket, walk your way down. You can vote twice for the first time in your life for the same guy and it be legal."

O'Donnell is a conservative activist and marketing consultant who has never held political office and who has complained that Biden hasn't come home to campaign against her.

"If he was a true servant of the people, he would honor the office of U.S. Senate ... at least feign an attempt of running," O'Donnell told Politico.

Around Wilmington, Biden doesn't have the usual 'for Senate' campaign signs, instead his simply read "Delaware's Joe Biden," and he has said in the past that Delaware voters simply know him as "Joe."

If Biden becomes the vice president-elect, the duty falls to the state's governor to name a replacement when Biden resigns, which he said he would do when sworn in as vice president. The new Democratic governor, Jack Markell, would name someone to serve until 2010 at which point an election will be held.

There is strong speculation that Biden's son Beau, the state's attorney general and a captain in Delaware's National Guard awaiting deployment to Iraq, would run for his father's seat.

Sen. Joe Biden voted Tuesday morning with his wife and mother.

WILMINGTON, Delaware (CNN) – With his wife, daughter and 91-year-old mother in tow, Joe Biden headed to the polls to vote Tuesday shortly before 9 a.m., about the same time Barack Obama cast his own ballot in Chicago.

The foursome walked into a local school minutes away from the Bidens’ home to cast their ballots at the spacious polling station void of the long lines seen elsewhere Tuesday.

Biden’s mother, Jean Finnegan Biden, showed an election official her ID. After her granddaughter Ashley asked “Ready, girlfriend?”, walked into one of the three booths.

Watch: Biden votes with his wife and mother

The senator and Mrs. Biden took the other two booths, and the Democratic vice presidential nominee emerged seconds later with a wide smile, flashing a thumbs-up for the cameras.

Mrs. Biden came over and gave her husband a big hug. As his mother emerged from behind the blue curtain he told her, to loud laughs, “Don’t tell them who you voted for.”

Moments earlier, Biden told an election official, “Mom said ‘It's the most important election of your life, but not because of you, Joe.’"

Asked by a reporter how he’s feeling, Biden responded, “Feel good, feel good.”

The Delaware senator was on the ballot twice Tuesday, as he runs for his seventh term in the U.S. Senate against Republican challenger Christine O’Donnell. With a significant lead in the polls, however, his re-election bid is essentially a foregone conclusion.

Election Day is shaping up as a family affair in the Biden household: 36 relatives will travel with the senator to Chicago Tuesday, ahead of the Democratic ticket’s evening rally in the city’ Grant Park . On his way, Biden will stop at a polling station in Richmond, Virginia. The Democratic ticket heads into Election Day with a small lead in that traditionally-Republican state.

Sen. Biden admitted he is superstitious and denied any gaffes Monday.

ZANESVILLE, Ohio (CNN) – For the first time in almost two months, Joe Biden came back on his campaign plane to talk to reporters, denying that he has ever made a ‘gaffe’ that has harmed the campaign.

“For all the stuff about gaffes, I don't think there have been any real gaffes,” Biden told reporters, taken aback by the rare appearance, who crowded around him in the aisle of the plane. “I mean I don't see anything in your polling data demonstrating any of that stuff you guys love to write about.”

When the talkative senator was asked if he’s relieved he has stayed relatively away from any big gaffes, he countered that he has never made any.

“You guys love saying that about me but I tell you what, just look at the numbers,” Biden argued. “I don't have any problem with what I've said, and there's nothing I've said that I would back off of.”

Republicans have been quick to jump on Biden’s off-message comments in the past two months, quickly blasting them out by e-mail to reporters and labeling them ‘gaffes.’ Former Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that Biden has been one of the GOP’s best surrogates.

The Delaware senator said he would not comment on winning or losing, blaming longtime superstition (“from the time I was a young athlete,” he said). But asked about Pennsylvania, he quickly added that he knows the state well and if he had to, would bet on winning it.

What about Ohio, Missouri and Indiana, all states where polls are tighter?

“Indiana, I don't want to bet you on either. I mean, I think we can win all three. Am I ready to bet my daughter's graduate school tuition on it? Nope. If I had to bet you on Pennsylvania, I'd bet it,” said Biden.

“Democrats have not done well in those states, but there's something in the air, guys...there’s pace on the ball.

“...Have you ever seen an election with this much intensity? I don't mean the candidates. I mean the people. I've never seen anything with this much intensity,” he said. “The issues are on our side. Presumptuous to say this, I think we've run a really good campaign, he said, adding later: “But I'm superstitious, and I'm getting the hell out of here.”

Biden occasionally slips off-message.

GAINESVILLE, Florida (CNN) – If you listen carefully, every so often Joe Biden will slip a few words into his speech not intended for those he’s giving the speech to.

“Stop moving the prompter.”

He’s talking about the two glass panels on either side of his podium - the teleprompter with his speech scrolling down that - controlled by Biden’s speechwriter and an assistant.

Typically, he can slip the line in without his supporters noticing - but Sunday, afternoon when the crowd laughed, Biden revealed the goal isn’t just to help him remember his remarks, but to keep him on message.

“I believe the possibilities for this country are absolutely amazing, and stop moving the prompter,” Biden told a laughing crowd of over 4,000 on the University of Florida campus. “There’s a prompter I hardly ever read here. They don’t want you to know that. They put it up to make me sound disciplined.”

Discipline is exactly what the Obama campaign would like of Biden - a man prone to long-windedness and frank comments during his vice preidential run that have occasionally been off-message.

“Rhetorical flourishes,” Barack Obama called Biden’s guarantee to donors at fundraiser in Seattle that Obama would face an international crisis in his first six months in office. Was it modesty when he told a voter in New Hampshire that Hillary Clinton may have been a better pick for VP?

The Delaware senator has a teleprompter at every speech and in recent weeks seems to have been reading it very carefully, staying close to the script and reducing the number of colorful Biden moments.

The combination of his newfound restraint and a lack of press conferences with the traveling press for almost two months led many in the press to accuse him of being 'muzzled.' (Biden took questions from his traveling press corps on Friday night for the first time in over seven weeks, and denied he'd been told to hold back.)

But then something will catch his eye.

“Now look, folks,” Biden said Thursday, intending to launch into a criticism of John McCain. “Hey, I didn’t even see the band up there. Hey, folks, how you guys doing? Thanks for being here. That’s really nice of you. Thank you. Um, that’s what you call getting off-message. But I tell ya, you guys look good.”

“The stakes by the way, the stakes [in this election] could not be higher,” he said later that day. “You all know, you students here…and by the way, I love your mascot, I call it a donkey you call it a mule, I like the look of it. You know what I mean? It’s a mule, I know a mule. And man, does it have a lot of kick.”

For reporters who have been listening to Biden's stump speeches several times a day for months, the next undisciplined moment is eagerly awaited.

(CNN) – At his last rally before the election, Joe Biden will appear with players from the World Series champions Philadelphia Phillies, his campaign announced Sunday afternoon.

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and a longtime resident of Wilmington, Delaware, Biden is a big Phillies fan. Though his love for the team seems to be outmatched by his wife Jill’s, who attended the final games, and whom Biden describes as a ‘rabid’ fan of all Philadelphia teams.

It is unclear which Phillies will attend the late-night rally in Philadelphia, his final campaign rally before heading home to Wilmington, Delaware to vote Tuesday morning.

Biden campaigned in Florida Sunday.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) – Just two days after completing a three-day bus tour of central and southern Florida, Joe Biden is back in the state for three events Sunday, this time in the north as part of campaign’s final battleground state push before Tuesday’s election.

On the campus of Florida State University Sunday morning, Biden continued to deliver the campaign’s ‘closing arguments’ that include a plea to supporters to reach out to Republicans after the election in order to bridge the partisan divide.

For the first time since being named the Democratic vice presidential nominee, a small group of McCain and Palin supporters tried to interrupt the Delaware senator’s remarks from the public sidewalk about 150 yards from the podium. Their chants inaudible through a megaphone, they took to using the device’s siren to disrupt.

Biden referred to “the people in the parking lot” four times, using them as an example of those that Democrats will have to reach out to after Tuesday.

“I mean it literally. Not a joke. I know you find some of that obnoxious,” said Biden. “We gotta end this. Somebody's got to be big enough to stand up and end this.”

There’s also a practical reason, Biden argued, legislation won't be able to pass without bi-partisan support.

“You think we're going to get education reform? You think we're going to re-establish and end this war and re-establish our place in the world without getting a significant portion of Republicans to agree with us as well? No one party can do this.”

Barack Obama and Biden have been targeting McCain and Palin over the past two days for the endorsement they received from Dick Cheney on Saturday, asking if any more proof is needed that this Republican ticket would be a continuation of the Bush-Cheney administration.

“Folks, John McCain and Sarah Palin can have Dick Cheney’s endorsement,” said Biden, We’ll settle for people like Warren Buffett and Colin Powell.”

After Sunday in Florida, Biden continues the swing state tour in the campaign’s final hours, heading to Missouri Monday morning, Ohio in the afternoon and Philadelphia at night. After voting at home in Wilmington Tuesday morning, he will visit at least one more swing state before joining Barack Obama in Chicago.

Sen. Biden took a shot at Sen. McCain during a campaign stop in Indiana Saturday.

EVANSVILLE, Indiana (CNN) – The morning after Joe Biden told reporters he hoped John McCain would finish the campaign with a positive tone - “his strength” - the Delaware senator said he doesn’t remember a presidential campaign ending so viciously.

“In my view, over the last few weeks, John McCain’s campaign has gone way over the top,” said Biden Saturday at an outdoor rally on Evansville’s Main Street. “They are trying to take the low road to the highest office in the land. It’s not only George Bush’s economic policies that John McCain has bought hook, line and sinker. He’s also bought Karl Rove’s brand of political tactics.”

“It is disappointing, I never thought I’d see this from a McCain campaign,” Biden continued. “They’re calling Barack Obama every name in the book. They are going out in a way that I don’t recall it being more personally vicious.”

As a supporter yelled, “They’re scared!” the Delaware senator predicted that the tone would get worse in the last three days.

Stopping in Indiana for a morning rally in the middle of a two-day bus tour through Ohio, Biden said he and his wife Jill rose early Saturday. Mrs. Biden went running along the Ohio river while the senator was “walking and running.”

“I tell you, it's getting harder to keep up with her,” he told the crowd.

On her run, Mrs. Biden met a nun who was running and going to mass early so she could make it to the vice presidential nominee’s rally. Returning to the hotel, Mrs. Biden reminded her husband, a devout Catholic, that he hadn’t yet gone to All-Saints Day mass.

“Sister Jean-Michelle, I made 9:00. I made 9:00 mass. I just want to thank you,” said Biden, scanning the crowd for the nun. “I'll call my mom some time during the day and the first thing she'll ask me, 'Joey did you go to mass?' So you saved me, sister. You saved me.”

Mrs. Biden introduced her husband, taking off her coat at the podium to reveal an elegant, bright red dress that got a roar of approval from the audience.

“I didn’t think it would cause that much of a stir,” she responded.

Biden invited questions from traveling reporters for the first time in weeks.

LIMA, Ohio (CNN) – Joe Biden invited questions from his traveling press corps for the first time in almost eight weeks on Friday night, rejecting reports that the campaign has muzzled his famous talkative behavior and saying he hopes that he and John McCain will still be friends after this contentious election is over.

“I don’t know, I hope [the friendship] is intact, John and I have not had a chance to speak,” Biden said, standing in a burger joint with his wife and one of his granddaughters. “I hope [it’s] intact because I still admire him, I still like him.”

“We have strong, strong, fundamental disagreements on policy, and we have our whole political life together. I mean, we've been arguing about everything from Amtrak to Afghanistan for, you know, as long as we've been together,” he continued. “I believe when this is over, win or lose, John and I are likely to be around in one form or another, in one job or another, and I hope, my hope is we can work together.”

Biden roundly criticizes his friend of over three decades for the “scurrilous” attacks Republicans have launched on Barack Obama at the end of this election season. Friday night he accused the Republican nominee of being wrong on “every single foreign policy judgment,” but said he was pleased to see that McCain’s latest television ad is a positive one.

“I hope John ends this campaign with his strength,” said Biden. “Win or lose, it's not a good thing to end in sort of this bitter tone. No matter what happens.”

Until Friday night, reports of a ‘muzzling’ from the Delaware senator’s campaign were widespread, as he avoided speaking to the handful of reporters that travel with him for almost two months, ignored questions reporters asked during photo-ops at local stops, strayed very little from the scripts of his campaign speeches and kept them brief.

“Well, I’ve had over 200 interviews,” Biden countered, referring to appearances he’s made with mostly local media since joining the ticket. “I’ve been doing half a dozen to a dozen satellite feeds everyday. I’m doing shows, I mean, so, no one said anything to me about it.”

Biden said he feels good about the state of the race in its final days, quickly adding that he’s felt the same way in the last two elections that Democrats lost. A reporter noted that he’s campaigning in several of Ohio’s Republican strongholds, to which Biden responded that the campaign believes they can compete everywhere and have to because the election “is going to be a lot closer than everybody thinks.”

Pressed on which battleground states he believes will be close, he rattled off Florida, North Carolina, Missouri and Ohio but noted “I feel very good about Pennsylvania” and “Virginia feels really good.” In CNN’s latest poll of polls, Obama leads McCain by 11 percent in Pennsylvania and seven in Virginia.

Biden says GOP attacks are over the top.

KETTERING, Ohio (CNN) – Joe Biden always closes his speeches by telling supporters that once the election is over, they have to reach out to Republicans, even those who have conducted “scurrilous” attacks against Obama. The same critics, Biden said Friday afternoon, will be calling Barack Obama “the 44th President of the United States of America” after November 4.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we need to move past the politics of division and attack,” Biden told supporters at rally, the first stop on a two day bus-tour through Ohio.

“Over the past weeks, the Republicans have gone way over the top in my view, calling Barack Obama every name in the book, and it probably will get worse in the next three and a half to four days.”

“If you look at who he is, what he's done, and what he plans to do for this country,” Biden continued, “if you work for us in the closing days and choose hope over fear, after next Tuesday the very critics he has now and the rest of America will be calling him something else. They will be calling him the 44th president of the United States of America, our commander-in-chief Barack Obama!”

John McCain released an ad Friday that was void of any negativity or direct mention of Obama, but tells voters, "don't hope for a stronger America, vote for one." McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis told reporters Friday morning that their campaign would outspend Obama's in the closing days.

Biden delivered his campaign’s “closing arguments” in a high school gym in central Ohio, a swing state where CNN’s poll of polls suggests Obama leads John McCain by 5 percentage points, 49 to 44 percent, with 7 percent of the state’s voters still undecided. The Delaware senator's battleground state tour continues over the weekend, with more stops in Ohio, Indiana and Florida.

Biden visited his alma mater, the University of Delaware .

NEWARK, Delaware (CNN) - Joe Biden, University of Delaware '65, had a warm homecoming at his alma mater Friday morning, mixing nostalgia and reflection before thousands of students on the quad.

"It's an honor to be back on campus," said Biden. "A campus that literally, not figuratively, played such a significant role in shaping my life. During my years on campus here, some of the most transformative events of my generation took place."

Biden recalled late-night debates with friends about Vietnam and the death of John F. Kennedy. He thanked professors for their guidance, and extolled the university's academics that have impacted this year's election by educating not only Biden and Obama-Biden campaign manager David Plouffe, but McCain-Palin chief strategist Steve Schmidt.

"Now let that be a cautionary tale. Blue hens can go astray occasionally," joked Biden, failing to mention that of the three, he is the only actual graduate.

The Delaware senator criticized John McCain less than he typically does in his stump speeches, but towards the end of his remarks Friday, once again tied the Arizona senator to President George Bush while praising his own running mate.

"I believe that John McCain through the conduct through this campaign, unfortunately, continues to think that the way you win is to divide," said Biden "I believe Barack Obama will revitalize the middle class, the backbone of the nation. I believe John McCain is stubbornly clinging to failed policies of the past because if he acknowledges the failure, what does he talk about?"

Delawareans won't just be able to vote for Biden as part of the Democratic ticket on Tuesday - he's also running for his seventh term in the Senate. (Though campaign regulations prohibited Biden from mentioning his re-election bid at the rally.) Friday's event was the campaign's first in Delaware since the end of the primaries, and a served as a call for students to volunteer in the neighboring battleground state of Pennyslvania.

Biden was introduced by his wife Jill, a fellow Blue Hen, and the vice presidential nominee told his supporters that crowds had transformed the Republicans' 'Drill, baby, drill' chant into 'Jill, baby, Jill."

"Well, Jill baby, I love you kid," said Biden.

Biden claims that the Republican ticket's economic policies are 'upside down.'

ARNOLD, Missouri (CNN) – Thursday’s news of a shrinking GDP and record quarterly profits for ExxonMobil have added fuel to Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s attacks on John McCain’s economic proposals in the election’s closing days. The developments are evidence, Biden says, that the Republican ticket has their economic priorities “upside down.”

“Here the entire economy of America is shrinking, and the oil companies are, this one in fact, made the largest profit in its history in a quarter,” said Biden. It was reported Thursday morning that Exxon Mobil made $14.83 billion in this year's third quarter.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what more evidence do we need that the Exxon Mobils of the world don't need a tax break?” he asked, speaking to supporters in a half-empty high school gym. “That $4 billion should go to middle class taxpayers, people who need the money. John and Governor Palin have this upside down. They literally have it upside down.”

As he regularly does, the Delaware senator said the election is ultimately about jobs and pointed to a closing Chrysler plant in nearby Fenton where production has halted indefinitely and 1,700 workers lost their jobs after rolling out the last 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan.

“These workers, at that Chrysler minivan plant took pride to the very, very, very end to produce the best product,” said Biden as the crowd applauded.

He added a personal touch, saying that he stood in the parking lot of a Delaware General Motors plant, greeting workers as it closed. “My plant,” he called it. (Biden noted the plant re-opened a year later.)

In the first few minutes of his speech, Biden had lighter moment that was straight out of last weekend’s Saturday Night Live open that made fun of him for going off-message and recognizing people in the crowd during his speeches.

“Now look folks,” he said, preparing to launch into a criticism of McCain before spotting Fox High School’s band. “Hey, I didn’t even see the band up there. Hey, folks, how you guys doing? Thanks for being here. That’s really nice of you. Thank you.

“That’s what you call getting off-message. But I tell ya, you guys look good.”

Biden's focus turned to Israel in his stump speech this morning in Florida.

JUPITER, Florida (CNN) – If you didn’t know where in the country Joe Biden was speaking Wednesday morning, the additions to his stump speech would have provided easy clues.

In a speech that has seen little variation in recent days, here in southeast Florida, Biden accused John McCain of supporting the privatization of Social Security as well as adding a section on the Democratic ticket’s plans to work closely with Israel.

“I got elected when I was 29 years old to the Senate,” said Biden, “and I’ve worked with every prime minister of Israel from Golda Meir right through to the present prime minister.

“That’s why Barack and I know, we know what the Israelis know and all our friends know,” Biden continued, speaking to supporters in the spring training ballpark that serves as the spring training home to the St. Louis Cardinals and Florida Marlins. “The greater the respect for America, the stronger America is in the world, the more secure Israel and the rest of our friends are in the world. So folks, this is a direct connection.”

The mention of support for Israel comes as the McCain camp pushes a new line of attack that looks to link Obama to a prominent Palestinian-American activist. In the closing days of the campaign, McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have seized on Obama’s 2003 praise of Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian scholar and professor at Columbia University whom the Republican ticket is calling a spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Khalidi has denied the charge.

The Delaware also senator put forward his and Obama’s platform to help seniors, while tying McCain to President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security.

“Can you imagine if in fact Social Security had been in the stock market?” Biden asked. “Can you imagine now the last couple months if Bush and McCain had succeeded in privatizing Social Security?”

“We believe there should be no privatization of Social Security. No raising of the retirement age. And we believe, we believe there should be no income taxes for seniors for who have an income of less than $50,000 a year. Zero.”

After a three-day Florida bus tour, Biden joins Obama Wednesday night for a final rally in the state before heading to Missouri.

Biden went off script to attack McCain Tuesday.

MELBOURNE, Florida (CNN) – After sticking uncharacteristically close to his prepared remarks in recent days, Joe Biden veered off Tuesday night while speaking near Cape Canaveral to play up his ticket’s support for the space industry, and to hit John McCain over his health care plan - which the Democratic VP nominee called “the ultimate bridge to nowhere.”

The Obama-Biden campaign has argued that McCain would tax health care as income which would cause employers to drop coverage for 20 million working Americans. Instead, McCain would offer $5,000 in credit to find a new plan on the open market - far less, Democrats say, than the $12,000 they believe a plan costs on average.

On CNN Tuesday morning, McCain economic adviser Dough Holtz-Eakin countered, “Why would they leave? What they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit.”

Biden seized on the remark Tuesday. “We had a refreshing bit of 'straight talk' from John McCain’s top economic adviser about John’s health care plan,” said Biden, after calling it “the ultimate bridge to nowhere.”

“It’s surprising, a bit of truth coming out of the campaign at the end here,” he added. “They want to take the one part of the health care system that’s not broke and break it. Folks, they’ve broken everything else over the last eight years.”

Holtz-Eakin fired back, saying his quote was deliberately taken out of context.

Despite rushing through his stump speeches in the last few days, the Delaware senator took time while speaking 25 miles down the Florida’s Atlantic coast from the famed space center to promote $2 billion of additional investment in the space program.

“The Bush administration has left our space program in a very difficult position, and John McCain as chairman of the commerce committee has not helped,” said Biden. “He oversaw the plans to retire the space shuttle before a replacement was ready.”

“We want to reinvigorate our national space program. And that includes creating an environment for a vibrant commercial space program,” he continued. “[John F. Kennedy] said, “Now is the time to take longer strides, for this nation to take a leading role in space achievement.” Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s as true today as it was then.”

The McCain campaign responded by calling the Democratic ticket’s stance ‘political expediency,’ pointing to an early-August position change by Obama, who had supported delaying NASA’s Constellation program to pay for early education but then decided to back the $2 billion congressional package.

Wednesday will be the last of Biden’s three-day bus tour through Florida. Each of his events is called an “Early Vote for Change Rally,” and in addition to asking Floridians Tuesday night to vote early, Biden noted that Florida’s governor – and McCain backer – Charlie Crist had extended the hours for early voting, declaring a state of emergency as voters turn out in record numbers.

Biden warned against the McCain campaign's divisive tactics this morning.

GREENVILLE, North Carolina (CNN) – As his running mate geared up to deliver his “closing argument” to voters, Joe Biden continued to criticize the McCain campaign’s attacks on Barack Obama, comparing them to those faced by Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy in their campaigns.

“The purpose of it is to deliberately further divide the country, cause they concluded the only way they can win is if they divide us,” Biden told supporters Monday morning at an outdoor rally at East Carolina University.

“Look, let me share a little bit of history with you,” he continued. “The defenders of the status quo have always tried to tear down those who would change our nation for the better.”

“They said Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a real a real Christian. That was the essence of the campaign against him. Well does that sound familiar?” Biden asked. “They said Abraham Lincoln, they said he wanted to take away individual rights. Ladies and gentlemen, they said Franklin Roosevelt would destroy the American system of life. Sound familiar? And ladies and gentlemen, they said that John F. Kennedy was, quote, ‘a dangerous choice in difficult times.’ That’s what they said, they said John F. Kennedy was a dangerous choice in difficult times. Sound familiar?

“Well ladies and gentlemen, new ideas and new leaders are often met with new attacks and almost always negative attacks built on lies which are the last resort of those who have nothing new to offer. And that’s where we find ourselves.”

The Delaware senator pointed to a contentious interview he had with a Florida television station last week, when the anchor asked if Obama was a “Marxist” because he had told Joe the Plumber, “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

“Are you joking? Is this a joke? Is that a question?” Biden replied incredulously at the time. The anchor assured him it was.

“This stuff you're hearing in this campaign, some of it's pretty ugly,” Biden said Monday. “And some of the innuendo is pretty ugly."

The McCain campaign responded by noting that McCain was interviewed by the same anchor Monday, and criticized the Obama-Biden campaign for “now attacking any reporter who challenges Barack Obama’s economic plan to raise taxes.”

Biden has one more rally in North Carolina where the two tickets are neck and neck in the polls. He then flies to Florida for three days of campaigning.

Biden defended his comments that Obama will face an international crisis, saying Obama is better prepared than McCain.

DANVILLE, Virginia (CNN) – Barack Obama is ready for any crisis and better prepared than John McCain, said Joe Biden, defending his Sunday comments that the Democrat would be tested by an international crisis in his first few months in the White House.

“Every new president is tested, Democrat or Republican,” Biden argued in a Univision interview, adding that he doesn’t regret his remarks. “I don’t know where John’s been the last 20 years, number one.  Number two, I’ve watched Barack Obama, I’ve tested his mettle.  I’ve seen him, he’s ready to handle any crisis and based upon the major crises we’ve had, he’s been right, John’s been wrong.”

Biden spoke to Denver’s Univision station in Colorado Springs on Wednesday, pointing to Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea as examples of foreign policy decisions where McCain has been wrong.

“My point was, Barack is much better prepared to deal with upcoming crises whichever they may be than John is,” he said.

“Secondly, John we have a crisis on our hands already.  It’s an economic crisis,” Biden continued. “John is nowhere.  John McCain’s offering up the same warmed up ideas.  He bounces from pillar to post with new ideas.  Barack has had a steady hand, laid out what he’s going to do, and that’s why so many people are rallying to him.”

The Delaware senator told donors at a Seattle fundraiser Sunday that he guarantees Obama will face “an international crisis, a generated crisis” early into his term in office.

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy,” said Biden. “The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year old senator president of the United States of America.

“Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he’s going to have to make some really tough - I don’t know what the decision’s going to be, but I promise you it will occur.”

Obama dismissed Biden’s comments as “rhetorical flourishes," as McCain seized on them as evidence that Obama’s running mate was acknowledging the Illinois senator’s lack of experience.

“We don’t want a president who invites testing from the world at a time when our economy is in crisis and Americans are already fighting in two wars,” McCain told supporters Wednesday in Ormond Beach, Florida. “Senator Obama tried to explain away this by warning – by saying that his running mate sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes. Really? Really? That’s another way of saying he accidentally delivered some straight talk to America.”

The Arizona senator’s campaign put out a 30-second ad Friday featuring audio of Biden’s words, saying, “It doesn’t have to happen. Vote John McCain.”

The usually talkative Biden ignored a reporter’s question about the ad Friday.  A campaign spokesman said he has no plans to address his remarks on the trail.

The senator's defense of his comments went unnoticed for two days in part because unlike Obama, McCain, and Palin, Biden’s staff doesn’t inform reporters traveling with the campaign what local interviews he does.

Biden questioned the McCain campaign's likening of Obama to President Bush.

CHARLESTON, West Virginia (CNN) – Joe Biden laughed off John McCain’s Thursday statement that Barack Obama is “doubling down” on President George Bush’s economic policies, saying “This is as crazy as Butch Cassidy attacking the Sundance Kid!”

“Yesterday, literally, John McCain actually went so far as to try to compare Barack Obama to George W. Bush,” said Biden to supporters at an outdoor rally in the streets of West Virginia’s capital.

“John McCain is now attacking the Bush budget and Bush fiscal policies, which he voted for I might add. But folks, this is as crazy as, you know, Butch Cassidy attacking the Sundance Kid! I mean that’s a team! These guys have been a team.

“I know Halloween is coming,” he went on to say. “but John McCain as a candidate of change? Whoa, come on! John McCain and change? He needs a costume for that, folks, The American people aren't going to buy this.”

In the middle of coal country, Biden called for an additional $200 million in coal sequestration research and accused McCain of not wholeheartedly supporting clean coal, pointing to comments McCain made to the Sierra Club in 2000 when he said, “in a perfect world we would like to transition away from coal entirely.” The McCain camp has leveled the same charge at the Delaware senator.

“Let me get something straight because you watch these McCain ads, you wonder what planet are they coming from, John McCain does not believe that clean coal is part of our future. Don't take my word for it. Take his word for it,” said Biden, reading the quote.

“So John, if you're listening. Stop this malarkey about who's for clean coal,” he added. Make no mistake about it. The oil companies have placed their bets on Sarah Palin and John McCain, not on Barack Obama and Joe Biden. That's why Appalachia can't afford to go with McCain and must go with Obama.”

The McCain camp shot back, again arguing that Obama and Biden are against coal, pointing to video of Biden in Ohio telling an environmentalist, “We're not supporting 'clean coal.’”

“Barack Obama and his running mate are against coal, against off-shore drilling, and against nuclear energy,” wrote McCain spokesman Ben Porritt. “These plans would not only kill jobs in America - they would destroy the nucleus of West Virginia’s economy."

Attending Biden’s rally Friday was Chaylee Cole, the former employee of a public relations firm that was hired by the RNC to make calls to voters and read statements attacking Obama. She quit instead.
“She said she would not do it. And they fired her,” said Biden. “She said, ‘Democrat or Republican I wouldn't have done this.’ End of quote. Ladies and gentlemen, Chaylee recognized that regardless of your personal politics, attacks like that, attacks like that are out of bounds.”

Biden was introduced by 90 year-old ailing Senator Robert Byrd, who read his remarks from a lowered lecturn while seated in a wheelchair. At the end of his speech, Biden paid tribute to the longtime senator from West Virginia, “to learn the ways of the Senate from Bob Byrd is like getting a trumpet lesson from the Angel Gabriel.”

Sen. Biden told John McCain to stop the robo-calls Tuesday.

GREELEY, Colorado (CNN) –- Joe Biden spoke directly to John McCain during a speech Tuesday afternoon, demanding that his campaign end robo-calls that attack Barack Obamas character.

“You've heard a lot of scurrilous ads and phone calls lately which lie about Barack Obama and also raise unfair questions about his character,” said Biden to a crowd of several thousand in rural Colorado. “A lot of Democrats are angry. But folks: if, God willing, we win this, when we win, we have to reach out. We have to isolate those extremes. We have to reach out to Democrats and Republicans and Independents.”

“And I say to my friend John McCain, if he's really serious when he said this morning on one of the shows that this election is all about the economy, then I say, John, stop your ads!” said Biden, raising his voice over the applause of the supporters. “Bring down those robo-calls. If it's about the economy, argue about the economy. Not about Barack Obama's character. Not about these scurrilous ads. John, stop these calls!”

On CBS’s Early Show Tuesday morning, anchor Harry Smith pressed McCain on comments made by a campaign advisor that the election isn’t about issues, but character.

“That's simply not true, responded McCain. “We've been focusing on the economy. Listen to me, I'm the candidate. And this - this campaign is about the economy.”

Colorado is one of several battleground states where the Arizona senator’s campaign is making robocalls that tie Barack Obama to 1960s radical William Ayers.

“These attacks don’t hurt Barack Obama, they hurt you, they divide the country,” Biden continued at his Colorado event Tuesday. “They distract people, or attempt to distract you, from things that are affecting people’s everyday lives.”

“Barack Obama and I can take two more weeks of these attacks, but our country cannot take four more years of this policy and these politics. It must, it must end, it must stop now!”

The Obama-Biden campaign will release Joe Biden's medical history.

SEATTLE (CNN) – The Obama-Biden campaign will release Joe Biden’s medical records to the press Monday for review as well as hold a conference call with a doctor briefed on Biden’s medical history.

Reporters will have around five hours to sift through the records, which will include medical documents from 1988 when Biden suffered two brain aneurysms and a blood clot in his lung.

Biden collapsed in his Rochester, New York hotel room on February 9, writing in his autobiography ‘Promises to Keep’ that it felt like “lightning flashing inside my head, a powerful electric surge – and then a rip of pain like I’d never felt before.”

The Delaware senator – who had just ended his 1988 presidential bid – flew home to Wilmington, where he was rushed to the hospital by his wife Jill, where doctors discovered an aneurysm. A practicing Catholic, Biden was given his last rites, but surgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center saved his life.

After the discovery of a blot clot in his lung and another surgery for a second aneurysm, Biden recovered and returned to the Senate seven months later.

The New York Times was given an advance look at Biden’s records Monday, and is reporting that they don’t indicate any current medical problems. A letter from the senator’s doctor – Dr. Eisold, the Capitol physician - said that Biden has “recovered fully without continued effects” from the aneurysm.

The article says that approximately 5 percent or less of those who have had “berry aneurysms” get them again. The big question the report raised: when was the last time Biden had a bran scan?

Eisold will not speak to the press, but has briefed Dr. Matthew Parker, who will be on the conference call. The Times article reports that Parker says Eisold told him “it’s a non-issue” and “was very definitive about” not doing brain scan tests now.

Sarah Palin will now be the lone candidate to have not released any information from her medical records, though Barack Obama only released a one-page letter from his doctor attesting to his “excellent health.” John McCain, who had skin cancer, allowed reporters to view extensive medical records in May.

Biden predicts Obama will have to make some unpopular decisions in his first six months in office.

SEATTLE (CNN) - Joe Biden told Democratic fundraisers Sunday night that there is no doubt in his mind a crisis will occur during Barack Obama's first six months in office that will test his mettle and force him to make unpopular decisions.

"Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy," said Biden to a roomful of donors. "The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America."

"Remember I said it standing here, if you don't remember anything else I said," Biden continued. "Watch, we're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

"I promise you it will occur. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it's going happen. I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate."

The Delaware senator spoke at two Seattle fundraises Sunday night, expected to bring in $1 million for the campaign. Biden told the supporters that when Obama will need them to stand with the administration on the difficult calls - not financially, but by using their influence within their communities to convince others that the right decisions are being made.

"I promise you, you all are going to be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls, why is the polling so down, why is this thing so tough?' We're going have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years," said Biden. "I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."

Telling the crowd to "gird their loins" for a bumpy beginning to the next presidential term, Biden said it wouldn't be initially apparent that the correct decisions are being made because "they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."

Fundraisers are generally closed to the media's cameras, though print journalists are usually allowed in. Biden appeared to forget Sunday night's fundraiser wasn't closed to reporters, saying, "I probably shouldn't have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here." Moments later, he ended his remarks.

TACOMA, Washington (CNN) – Joe Biden thanked Colin Powell for endorsing Barack Obama Sunday, saying that with his choice of Obama over John McCain, questions about the Illinois senator’s ability to be commander-in-chief will be put to rest.

“From the very beginning, this Republican party has tried to suggest that Barack Obama, Senator Barack Obama, wasn’t ready to be commander-in-chief,” said the Delaware senator to more than 11,000 supporters in a minor league ballpark, his biggest crowd to date when campaigning without Obama.

“With all the three and four star generals, with the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the former National Security Adviser, the former Secretary of State, one of the most respected men who have ever worn the uniform, endorsing Barack Obama over John McCain today, no more questions! Barack Obama will be a commander-in-chief we can all respect!”

Biden later noted that an agreement between the US and Iraq on a timetable for withdrawal of US troops is close to being signed, something Obama has long called for.

“John McCain talks about leadership,” said Biden, “Let me remind you, whose idea was that? Barack Obama's. John McCain's the only odd man out now, along with Governor Palin.”

Biden invoked the troops when targeting Sarah Palin’s recent comments in North Carolina that she likes to visit “pro-America” parts of the country, saying that Washington, like every state, has “sons and daughters” who have died while serving the country. He did acknowledge that Palin has since clarified her remarks.

“North Carolina is pro-American but Tacoma is not or Wilmington, Delaware is not?” asked Biden.

“So don’t anyone even indirectly imply to me that there’s one more patriotic part of the country than another part of the country!” Biden thundered to loud applause from the crowd. It doesn’t matter where you live, it doesn’t matter your color, it doesn’t matter your religion, we are all Americans! We’re all Americans! Governor Palin may have stepped back from some of the divisive rhetoric she’s been using, but the Republican Party has stepped up their attacks that are just as divisive.”

Biden will spend most of his week in Colorado, North Carolina and West Virginia, three battleground states where the Democratic ticket has recently climbed in the polls.

Biden campaigned in Nevada Saturday.

HENDERSON, Nevada (CNN) – Joe Biden warned supporters Friday night to not get comfortable with the Democratic ticket’s current lead in the polls, saying Republicans may have thrown the kitchen sink but “other parts of the bathroom are coming.”

“We cannot be complacent about this, man. You know what these guys are going to do,” Biden said to a crowd of several thousand outside of Las Vegas.

“You know, as that old saying goes, I thought they already threw the kitchen sink, but I think more is to come. I think other parts of the bathroom are coming. I don’t know, man, they’re going up and getting the bathroom sink. So look, we have a lot of reason to be encouraged but it is far, far from over.”

The Delaware senator addressed comments made by Sarah Palin Thursday night that she enjoys visiting “pro-America” parts of the country. He acknowledged that CNN had told him during an interview that she had clarified her remarks, but Biden argued the divisive tone is still present.

“It doesn’t matter where you live, We all love our country Governor Palin, we all love our country!” Biden bellowed. “Barack Obama puts his country first! I put my country first! These people put their country first!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Gov. Palin may have stepped back from some of the divisive rhetoric today. But the Republican campaign has stepped up its attacks that are just as divisive.”

Biden slammed Palin's comments on 'pro-America' areas.

MESILLA, New Mexico (CNN) – In his strongest attack on Sarah Palin to date, Joe Biden let loose on Sarah Palin’s comments about “pro-America” parts of the country. “We are all patriotic!” he shouted, adding that he’s tired of Republicans insinuating that Barack Obama isn’t patriotic.

Watch: 'We all love this country,' says Biden

“It’s disappointing, and I hope it was just a slip on her part and she doesn’t really mean it,” said Biden to several hundred supporters at an outdoor rally in this sleepy southern New Mexico town. “But she said, it was reported she said, that she likes to visit “pro-American” parts of the country."

At a fundraiser in Greensboro, North Carolina Thursday night, Palin told donors, “We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.”

The Delaware senator said no matter where people live, everyone loves America, pointing to the fact that he’s never been to a state that hasn’t sent its sons and daughters to serve the country.

“One of the reasons why Barack and I are running is that we know how damaging the politics of division [is] that continues to be practiced by the McCain campaign, how damaging this policy of division has been for Americans over the last decade,” said Biden.” It’s time to put this behind us.”

“We are one nation, under God, indivisible. We are all patriotic!” he shouted above the applause of the crowd. “We all love our country in every part of this nation! And I'm tired. I am tired, tired, tired, tired of the implications about patriotism.”

Palin later walked back her comments with reporters on her campaign plane, saying “Every area, every area across this great country where we're stopping and where also the other ticket is stopping and getting to speak at these rallies and speak with the good Americans, it's all pro-America.”

“She’s right. Every crowd we get is pro-American, every crowd she gets pro-American,” Biden told CNN’s Gary Tuchman after being read her quote, adding that he accepts her “clarification.”

Friday’s rally was Biden’s first since the Wednesday night debate between Obama and John McCain when the Arizona senator shot back at the Democratic nominee’s attempts to link him to George Bush by saying, “If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”

Biden responded Friday with a quote from his mother, saying, “She said, 'Honey if it looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, it’s a duck.'"

“Well ladies and gentlemen, in these last three debates it looked like a duck to me, folks," said Biden.

He also told his supporters there’s reason to be encouraged by the Democratic ticket's lead in the polls, but “this election is very, very, very, very, far from over.”

“This administration is, has bequeathed, I think, the tactics of Karl Rove to the McCain [campaign],” Biden said. “You’re going to see some pretty tough stuff, pretty tough stuff in these last two weeks, so we cannot let up.”

Sen. Biden took on Sen. McCain's recent attacks on Sen. Obama during a campaign event in Ohio Wednesday.

LANCASTER, Ohio (CNN) – Joe Biden told supporters that John McCain has heightened attacks on Barack Obama because the Arizona senator is ‘drowning.’

Watch: Biden on McCain's attacks

“When you're drowning, you've got to try a new method to stay above the water,” Biden told a small Ohio University audience seated in a field on the edge of campus. “John McCain's offering nothing new and that's why I think John McCain's campaign is becoming so erratic. Political stunts instead of offering significant solutions.”

Later in his speech, the Delaware senator pointed to a cartoon in the local newspaper picturing bankers jumping off a bank while McCain and running mate Sarah Palin look on and remark, “Barack Obama pals around with a terrorist, you know.”

“I think it best captures anything I have seen,” said the Delaware senator holding up the paper.

“While the economy is going to hell in a handbasket, while people are losing their jobs, while things are going under, they’re running the most scurrilous campaign in modern history trying to tie a decent honorable man raised by his grandparents and his mother who worked his way up, who fought in a way that few people have to fight to make something of himself.”

Biden has one more stop on his two-day bus tour of Ohio before heading west to raise money and campaign in California, along with the battleground states of New Mexico and Nevada.

Biden was arrested during college for entering an all women's dormitory.

ATHENS, Ohio (CNN) – Speaking to supporters near Ohio University's campus, Joe Biden said it was good to be back in Athens after visiting for a football game over 40 years ago. This time, however, chances are he’ll leave without getting arrested.

“I went to the University of Delaware and we came out here to play Ohio University,” said Biden. “The thing I loved about the university was that it was such a beautiful town and we all hung around out afterwards.”

“Now I made a little mistake here that day, I made a little mistake. I wandered in, I met this lovely group of Ohio University students,” he said to cheers from the crowd. “I thought that we were gonna go get something to eat.”

Biden recalled the two “young women I had met” told him they’d be right back. “I said well I’ll come with you, and they said okay, and I walked into their dormitory and was immediately accosted by a cop who arrested me because back in those days men were not allowed in women’s dormitories.”

“But I promise you I never breached the first floor and it was only a temporary detention. But that’s what I most remember about Athens. So folks look, it’s good to be back here.”

Sen. Biden said Tuesday that he is disappointed with some of the tactics planned by his longtime friend Sen. John McCain.

LISBON, Ohio (CNN) – Joe Biden told reporters Tuesday afternoon he is disappointed John McCain is planning to bring up Barack Obama's acquaintance with 1960s radical Bill Ayers at Wednesday night’s debate, but said all Obama has to do to win is repeat his last two performances.

“I think what the debate has shown, the last two debates, is a guy who's confident and steady, and a guy who's not quite sure of where he wants to take the country,” said Biden, waiting for a cheeseburger and shake at Lisbon’s Steel Trolley Diner. “I think all Barack's got to do is repeat the performance he's had the last two times out. I feel good about it, I have total confidence in him.”

Asked how he feels about news that McCain said Ayers will come up, Biden seemed to hope his old friend the Arizona senator would change his mind.

“I'm disappointed, but we'll see. Let's see what, what he does.”

In every campaign speech, Biden makes sure to tell supporters that he and McCain have been friends for decades, and just disagree on policy. He likes to tell a story from the 2000 campaign when McCain and his family were being personally attacked by supporters of then-Texas Gov. George Bush, Biden called McCain and offered to hit the trail to vouch for his character.

So why doesn’t he call McCain now about the character attacks the Arizona senator is launching against Obama?

“I know John knows my views. I know he knows my views. I expressed them in a – in a slightly different way earlier,” said Biden after explaining he tried to call McCain around 9/11.

“I was proud that John decided to take on some of that attitude that was expressed at his, one of his campaign rallies. And I hope he keeps it up,” Biden said, but added he thinks McCain’s ads featuring Ayers are over the top.

“I think the average person looks out there and sees this guy who they say is a known terrorist, and I think they – the vast majority of the American people associate terrorism with, you know, radical Islamic groups and al Qaeda. I just think it's – I think it's over the top.”

Biden has done a number of national and local interviews since being tapped as Obama’s running mate, but his staff has kept him sequestered from the reporters that travel on his campaign plane. The impromptu Q&A in Lisbon was the first time Biden has spoken to the press traveling with his campaign in over five weeks.

Biden was honored at a Jefferson-Jackson dinner Monday night where he told supporters not to wonder about Obama.

DOVER, Delaware (CNN) – Joe Biden told supporters Monday night that they had nothing to wonder about with Barack Obama, pounding the podium and jabbing his finger into his chest, shouting, "he's like me!"

"For those of you who wonder about Barack Obama, don't wonder," said Biden to a friendly crowd at his home state's Jefferson-Jackson dinner. "I guarantee you, he feels as passionately about this as I do. He has the same measure, the same respect. Look folks, this is a guy who is the American dream."

"I'm getting tired of this stuff about Barack Obama," he added. "I know the guy and I know his family. And let me tell you something, this guy knows how much he owes this great country. And he knows it couldn't have happened anywhere else but the United States of America. So I don't want to hear about how different he is. I don't want to hear it. He's like me. He's like me! And all of you."

The senior senator from Delaware also reminded his supporters that he is running for re-election in the Senate - and that they shouldn't get caught up in the general election vote, just in case things don't work out.

"Just remember, folks, I am on the ballot. Don't be carried away with this vice president stuff. I am on the ballot running for my seventh term," said Biden. "So don't forget, don't stop at the top of that ticket, walk your way down. You can vote twice for the first time in your life for the same guy and have it be legal."

Clearly more at ease in front of the hometown crowd, Biden jabbed his opponent Sarah Palin for her debate performance and its subsequent spoof on 'Saturday Night Live.'

"In my debate with Gov. Palin – at least I think it was a debate – I saw it on 'Saturday Night Live'," said Biden to laughs from crowd. "She said in the middle of that debate as she was winking at y'all, she said she'd been listening to my speeches since she was in second grade. Well, I guess, just like she can see Russia from Alaska, she can see Delaware from Alaska. She's got great eyesight."

Biden left the dinner guests with a tip for Wednesday's debate between McCain and Obama: watch part of it with the sound off.

"Literally, turn the sound off, and just watch," said Biden. "Watch the body language of both men. You can sense it, folks. You know it, when there's a [commanding] presence. You know it when someone has the confidence and the certitude about himself and what he believes in."

Biden calls McCain out on his negative attacks.

ROCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) – Shortly before John McCain set to lay out his new stump speech Monday morning, Joe Biden said it looked like the address would be “attack, attack, attack, attack” in contrast with Barack Obama’s plans to lay out his vision for the economy later in the day.

Watch: What is McCain really offering?

“Barack is going to make a major speech on economic policy, going to further outline what he’s going to do and how he’s going to deal with it,” said the Democratic vice presidential nominee. “It looks like John McCain’s entire speech is going to be attack, attack, attack, attack.”

“It couldn’t be clearer to me what’s going on here. John McCain wants to attack Barack Obama, and Barack Obama wants to [attack] the problems that face America today,” he said.

The McCain campaign shot back, calling Obama’s economic plan "plagiarism" of President Herbert Hoover’s during the Great Depression and championing their own “bold” proposal.

"The Obama-Biden ticket’s call for higher taxes on American businesses and isolationist trade policies mirrors the proposals that President Hoover implemented at the onset of the Great Depression, spurring a complete economic collapse," McCain spokesman Ben Porritt wrote in an e-mail. "It's plagiarism of the very worst economic policies in American history."

The Delaware senator said McCain had an advantage in the campaign has a war hero and people assumed that as a result, he would have “certain hands” in a crisis.

“We need more than a war hero, we need more than a great soldier, we need a wise leader,” said Biden. “John's hands have been anything but certain in the last year. They've been uncertain. And the McCain administration would be uncertain, clinging to the past, lurching from one bad idea to another.”

The Clintons and the Bidens campaigned together Sunday.

SCRANTON, Pennsylvania (CNN) – The most powerful couple in Democratic politics came out to campaign with Joe Biden on Sunday - the first joint rally the Clintons have done for the Obama-Biden ticket, and the first time Bill Clinton has campaigned with either of the nominees.

Both Clintons sung the praises of the Delaware senator to a crowd of 6,000, pointing to his accomplishments in his 35-year Senate career and to his roots in this hardscrabble Pennsylvania town that has become synonymous with the blue-collar working class electorate.

“If you had a secret ballot of all the Republicans and Democrats in the Congress,” said former President Bill Clinton, “and you asked them to put two or three names down of the people in the entire Congress who know the most about the economic, political and security challenges of America and the world, his name would be on every single secret ballot.”

Missing from much of Clinton’s eight-minute introduction was Barack Obama himself, the latest in a series of lukewarm statements of support from the former president. Clinton said he would spend the rest of his life thanking those who supported his wife in the primary, and said that she had done more to support Obama than any of the other Democratic runner-ups combined.

Praise for Obama came in the last sentence of his remarks, when he said Obama is the best candidate in the race.

“If you ask yourself who has the best ideas, who’s got the best instincts, who’s got the best ability to understand these challenges, who’s got the best supporting cast, the answer is Barack Obama,” said Clinton. “And that’s why Hillary’s here, that’s why I’m here, that’s why you’re here.”

Senator Hillary Clinton made her message clear in the first minute of her remarks, saying “we must elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden on November 4th.”

“This election is too important to sit on the sidelines of history,” she said to applause from the crowd. “I haven't spend 35 years in the trenches fighting for universal health care, for children, for families, for women, for middle class people to see another Republican in the White House squander the promise of our nation and the hopes of our people.”

She continued to slam Republicans for the country’s economic downturn and accused them of thinking the middle class “isn’t fundamental, it’s ornamental.”

“That's why,” she continued, “sending the Republicans to solve this economic crisis is like sending the bull to clean up the china closet. They broke it and we're not buying it anymore.”

Both Sens. Clinton and Biden have roots in Scranton. Biden spent his early childhood here. Clinton’s father was born in Scranton; growing up, she spent summers in the area.

Biden stuck mostly to his stump speech, but played up those northeastern Pennsylvania roots, telling the crowd that before the speech he visited his childhood home in the Green Ridge part of town. He joked that he wasn’t sure whether “it came from this valley,” but the thing he admires most about Hillary Clinton is her lifelong fight against the abuse of power.

“One thing I find about this city is what we learned in our faith and our family. There is the one most serious abuse a man or a woman or a government can engage in, is to abuse power,” said Biden. “Everything she's devoted her life to has been on the side of people who have been on the other side of power.”

Aides say the Clintons will be more visible on the trail in the final few weeks of the campaign. President Clinton was expected at two rallies in Virginia later Sunday afternoon so he left the stage as soon as he was done speaking. Sen. Clinton will spend time in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other swing states. Biden campaigns in New Hampshire on Monday before embarking on a two day bus tour of Ohio.

Sen. Biden told Palin not to lecture him Thursday night.

JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri (CNN) – Joe Biden Thursday night told Sarah Palin not to lecture him on patriotism, after weeks of attacks mocking him for his statement the wealthy should be patriotic and pay higher taxes because not enough has been asked of them.

"Sarah Palin had great fun saying Joe Biden thinks paying taxes is patriotic. Well, let me tell you what Joe Biden thinks," the Delaware senator said at an outdoor rally. "Joe Biden thinks that anybody who takes millions of dollars offshore to avoid paying their fair share is unpatriotic."

The Obama-Biden campaign has accused John McCain of saying publicly he would close offshore banking loopholes, but saying otherwise in private.

"That is not patriotic and it will stop, it will stop in an Obama-Biden administration! Enough! I've had it up to here! Don't lecture me on patriotism," shouted Biden, getting drowned out by the applause of his supporters. "I'm dead tired of being taken advantage of. I'm getting tired of it."

Biden also said he's had enough of the McCain camp's personal attacks on Obama, slamming the Arizona senator for violating the "ethics" of the old neighborhood for not having the courage to go after Obama's character in their debates the way he has in speeches and in television ads.

"In my neighborhood you want to say something about me, look me in the eye and tell me," said Biden. "Say it to me straight up. Say it to me head on. That's the code, that's the ethics! Say it to me! Ladies and gentlemen, I'm tired of losing, I'm tired of taking this stuff, I've had enough."

There has been a perceptible shift this week in Biden's approach to attacking the opposing ticket. Since Wednesday, he has been increasingly willing to take on Sarah Palin individually, instead of his earlier approach of lumping her in with McCain or ignoring her altogether.

Biden's comments on patriotism were the second time he returned Palin's fire Thursday. Earlier, in Liberty, Missouri, Biden attacked McCain's new mortgage plan, using Palin's quip from last week that she has been listening to Biden's speeches since the second grade, which was intended to paint him as a Washington insider.

"That's true," Biden responded. "But she was in sixth grade the last time John had a new idea."

However, in the second use of that line here in Jefferson City, Biden incorrectly said Palin had made those comments directly to him at their debate in St. Louis last Thursday, rather than at a Columbus, Ohio rally three days prior.

Biden campaigned in Missouri Thursday.

ST. JOSEPH, Missouri (CNN) – Joe Biden railed against the McCain camp’s recent character attacks on Barack Obama Wednesday, saying, “when you've got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him!”

Watch: 'Look him in the eye and say it," Biden says of McCain

The Delaware senator on Wednesday called the strategy “the lowest road to the highest office in the land” and asked a small crowd at Missouri Western State University, “beyond these attacks, what’s John McCain really offering?”

“Every single false charge, every baseless accusation is an attempt to get you to stop paying attention to what's going on in this country and what's going on in your lives,” said Biden, telling supporters to not be distracted by the Republican tone.

“John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him,” he added. “Well in my neighborhood, when you've got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him!”

Biden was referring to the presidential candidate’ first debate when the Arizona senator appeared to avoid Obama’s gaze as well as the fact that McCain avoided going after Obama’s character in the second debate Tuesday despite numerous attacks in campaign speeches and television ads.

In that second debate, McCain proposed a plan for the government to buy back bad mortgages from the banks. Initially he suggested buying them at a discount, but Wednesday said the government should pay full value – a plan Biden also attacked.

“In a matter of months, days, even hours, John McCain has gone from first cutting regulation consumer protections from banks,” said Biden. “Then ignoring the banks and lenders, and not even talking about it. Now to talking about banks and lenders. And now he’s gone to the point of actually wanting to reward banks and lenders for their greedy behavior. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a steady hand.”

Biden’s rally Wednesday’s was the first in a two-day swing through Missouri where Obama and McCain are neck and neck in the polls. He flies to Chicago Friday for a fundraiser with Oprah Winfrey and then home to Delaware for a day off.

Joe Biden said in Tampa Wednesday that the McCain camp has 'chosen to appeal to fear'.

TAMPA, Florida (CNN) – Joe Biden said in Tampa Wednesday that the McCain camp has “chosen to appeal to fear” in the wake of the economic downturn and called recent comments by Sarah Palin about Barack Obama “outrageous inferences.”

Holding his first campaign rally in a week and a half, Biden said the McCain camp is trying “to take the low road to the highest office in the land,” and that they chose to ignore the “intellectually honest” options of dealing with the economic crisis.

“The one they have chosen is to appeal to fear with a veiled question, who is the real Barack Obama?” said Biden in the University of South Flordia’s Sun Dome arena. “To have a Vice Presidential candidate raise the most outrageous inferences – the ones that John McCain’s campaign is condoning – is simply wrong.”

Palin this week has repeatedly attacked Obama’s character, accusing him of “palling around with terrorists,” referring to Obama’s connection with the Weather Underground’s William Ayers.

“Folks, don’t be distracted, those attacks don’t hurt Barack Obama or me, they hurt you,” said Biden. “Every single false charge and baseless accusation is an attempt to get you to stop paying attention to what’s going on in this country. Beyond the attacks, what is John McCain really offering?”

The Delaware senator called McCain “an angry man lurching from one position to another” and applauded questioners at Tuesday night’s town hall debate for ignoring recent attacks by Republicans on Obama.

“You didn’t hear a single question about the ugly inferences and the unbecoming personal attacks launched by the McCain campaign on Barack Obama,” said Biden. “Barack Obama showed again last night that he understands that these debates aren’t about Governor Palin and me, they aren’t about Barack Obama and John McCain, these debates, this election is about you.”

The McCain campaign responded with a statement saying Obama and Biden lack a record of reform, and the credibility to call for it.

“During their combined 39 years in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama nor his running mate have ever challenged their own party,” wrote spokesman Ben Porritt. “Their ‘run with the herd’ mentality, radical associations, and partisan proposals have made them the most liberal ticket in political history.”

Biden joked about his face-off against Sarah Palin - “at least I think it was a debate” - and said that if Wednesday night’s presidential debate featuring the top of the ticket had been part of a “best of five series, it’d be over. It’d be done!”

Joe Biden sends off his son's National Guard unit.

DOVER, Delaware (CNN) – Joe Biden spoke briefly but emotionally Friday morning at the deployment ceremony for his son Beau’s Iraq-bound National Guard unit.

“I’ve come here many times before,” Biden told the 261st Signal Brigade as they stood in formation. “As a Delawarean, as a United States senator. But today I come as you prepare to deploy as a father. A father who got some sage advice from his son this morning. “Dad, keep it short, we’re in formation.

Watch: Biden sends off son, troops

“I always listen to my general,” he continued. “So let me simply say, like all of the family members that are here today gathered on this green, my heart is full of love and pride.”

Biden didn’t get as choked up as he has in the past when talking about his family, but did show the emotion often seen on the campaign trail; his two-and-a-half minute remarks were filled with pregnant pauses, and delivered with a shaky voice. Biden wore his trademark aviator sunglasses during the entire event, except when speaking.

Related: Biden addresses ceremony

Thirty-nine-year-old Beau - a captain in the National Guard, and Delaware’s attorney general — is not immediately leaving for Iraq. He spends Friday and Saturday at home with his family before heading to Fort Bliss, Texas for additional training with his unit that will ship out for a year-long tour of duty in six to eight weeks.

Once in Iraq, Beau will be a prosecutor enforcing the Unified Code of Military Conduct in a unit that will provide communications for U.S. forces in the country.

Sarah Palin’s son Track deployed to Iraq September 11, a fact that Biden referenced in his closing remarks at Thursday night’s debate: "For both of us, selfishly, may God protect our troops."

Sen. Biden said he's 'feeling good' about Thursday night's debate.

WASHINGTON (CNN) –- Boarding the train home to Delaware Wednesday night after voting for the Senate bailout bill, Biden told reporters, “I’m feeling good” about Thursday night’s debate with Sarah Palin.

His campaign agrees. “He’s ready” said spokesman David Wade as Biden stepped out for lunch in at a local burger joint on Tuesday afternoon in Wilmington.

It was a rare admission of strength amid efforts by Biden advisers to raise expectations of Palin’s debating skills. On Sunday Wade called Palin an undefeated “leviathan of forensics.”

Watch: VP debate follies

After campaigning last weekend with Barack Obama, Biden cleared his schedule for debate prep. He spent the first two-and-a-half days of the week at a downtown Wilmington hotel, holed up with senior advisors and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who played Palin in mock debates.

The campaign sealed off the second floor, converting the hotel’s gym into a debate prep room complete with a makeshift stage.

Wednesday afternoon, Biden called an end to debate prep, going home to see his family before taking the train to Washington to cast his vote in favor of the financial rescue package.

The Delaware senator flies to St. Louis Thursday afternoon for the eagerly-anticipated debate. He will be accompanied by his wife Jill, son Hunter, sister Valerie and niece (and campaign staffer) Missy Owens. Biden’s eldest son Beau will stay at home in Wilmington ahead of his deployment on Friday for a year-long tour in Iraq with the Delaware National Guard.

Sen. Joe Biden will see his son Beau off on Friday at the deployment ceremony.

WILMINGTON, Delaware (CNN) –- It will be a very public good-bye for Joe Biden and his eldest son, Beau: on Friday, the Delaware senator will address the deployment ceremony of his son’s National Guard unit as they prepare to leave for a tour of duty in Iraq.

Following Thursday night’s debate with Sarah Palin in St. Louis, Biden will fly back to Delaware to spend one last day with his 39 year-old son before his deployment to Iraq as a trial counselor in the 261st Signal Brigade, a unit that specializes in providing communications for the military in Iraq.

Friday morning, Biden will join the rest of Delaware’s congressional delegation and Gov. Ruth Ann Minner in speaking to the 110 members of the unit. Despite increased interest and security because Biden is now a vice presidential nominee, the public affairs officer for the unit insists the ceremony will be no different, and not political.

“Our ceremony will be the same as any other unit leaving,” said Lt. Col. Len Grattieri. “We’re not planning anything different or special, it’s going to be a nice respectful ceremony.”

Grattieri said that the last time Biden — who has often spoken at deployment ceremonies - addressed a departing unit was 18 months ago, and that he usually roots his remarks in foreign policy, offering his perspective on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Beau Biden – a captain in the National Guard and Delaware’s attorney general – doesn’t ship out right away. Instead he heads to Fort Bliss, Texas this weekend where his unit completes assigned tasks and receives additional training specific to the conditions in Iraq. Then in six to eight weeks they ship out to Iraq.

Grattieri couldn't say where Beau will be based but his role will be that of a prosecutor enforcing the  Uniform Code of Military Justice. He added that positions aren't clearly defined, the unit will do whatever the Army needs them to.

The Democratic VP nominee has been trying to balance debate prep with family time. Tuesday afternoon, Biden took a break and went out to lunch with Beau, Beau’s wife Hallie and the couple’s young daughter.

Aides say it’s been a tough week for Biden, with Beau’s departure weighing on him. Biden said in an interview Tuesday that he is proud of his son, but wishes he weren’t going.

Palin’s 19 year-old son Track, an infantry soldier, deployed to Iraq with his Army unit on September 11.

If all goes as planned, Beau Biden’s tour will last a year, and he will return home in September 2009.

WILMINGTON, Delaware (CNN) – As Joe Biden settles into debate prep mode this week ahead of Thursday night’s debate in St. Louis, campaign aides are actively playing up Sarah Palin’s debating skills. Biden’s spokesman called Palin “a leviathan of forensics,” a classic example of the campaign tactic of raising the expectations of their opponent and lowering their own.

“She's very skilled and she'll be well-prepared,” said Barack Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod Sunday night, flying with Biden back to Delaware to help him get ready.

“As you saw at the convention she can be very good. So, I think it would be foolish to assume that this isn’t going to be a really challenging debate. We're preparing for that, on that assumption.”

Taking it one step farther, Biden spokesman David Wade later added, “He's going in here to debate a leviathan of forensics, who has debated five times and she's undefeated.”

Biden has a difficult task on his hands – not coming across as condescending with his decades of experience and not adopting a tone that could appear as though he’s treating Palin differently because she’s a woman.

“I think Governor Palin is a skilled politician,” said Axelrod. “She got elected in a very tough political arena against tough opponents and we're going to treat her with the respect that she deserves. And I think that she would expect that, I think voters should expect that.”

Axelrod argued that at the end of the day, the choice voters make is between the candidates at the top of the ticket and not the vice presidential candidates. However, he said VP nominees have a harder time preparing because they need to not only defend their own positions but those of their running mate, as well as knowing where both candidates on the opposing ticket stand.

“I will say is this,” Axelrod added, “I think that there are very few decisions that you make during the course of a presidential campaign that are presidential decisions.”

“But picking the vice presidential candidate is one and all I can say is that, you know, we're very happy with our choice.”

Asked what the choice of Palin says about McCain, Axelrod demurred. Pressed for why he refuses to criticize the pick, he responded, “I'm not reluctant to be critical. I'm just prudently sticking to my theme.”

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm flew with Biden from Michigan to Delaware Sunday to play Palin in mock debates in the coming days. In an interview on Thursday she said, “I want to beat him up a little bit, so he does well.”

WILMINGTON, Delaware (CNN) – As Joe Biden settles into debate prep mode this week ahead of Thursday night’s debate, campaign aides are actively playing up Sarah Palin’s debating skills. Biden’s spokesman called Palin “a leviathan of forensics,” a classic example of the campaign tactic of raising the expectations of an opponent and lowering your own.

“She's very skilled and she'll be well-prepared,” said Barack Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod Sunday night, flying with Biden back to Delaware to help him get ready.

“As you saw at the convention she can be very good. So, I think it would be foolish to assume that this isn’t going to be a really challenging debate. We're preparing for that, on that assumption.”

Taking it one step farther, Biden spokesman David Wade later added, “he's going in here to debate a leviathan of forensics, who has debated five times and she's undefeated.”

Biden has a difficult task on his hands – not coming across as condescending with his decades of experience and not adopting a tone that could appear as though he’s treating Palin differently because she’s a woman.

“I think Governor Palin is a skilled politician,” said Axelrod. “She got elected in a very tough political arena against tough opponents and we're going to treat her with the respect that she deserves. And I think that she would expect that, I think voters should expect that.”

Axelrod argued that at the end of the day, the choice voters make is between the candidates at the top of the ticket and not the vice presidential candidates. However, he said VP nominees have a harder time preparing because they need to not only defend their own positions but those of their running mate, as well as knowing where both candidates on the opposing ticket stand.

“I will say is this,” Axelrod added, “I think that there are very few decisions that you make during the course of a presidential campaign that are presidential decisions.”

“But picking the vice presidential candidate is one and all I can say is that, you know, we're very happy with our choice.”

Asked what the choice of Palin says about McCain, Axelrod demurred. Pressed for why he refuses to criticize the pick, he responded, “I'm not reluctant to be critical. I'm just prudently sticking to my theme.”

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm flew with Biden from Michigan to Delaware Sunday to play Palin in mock debates in the coming days. In an interview on Thursday she said, ““I want to beat him up a little bit, so he does well.”

Sens. Obama and Biden head to a Detroit rally Sunday.

DETROIT (CNN) – Following a rally in Detroit with Barack Obama Sunday afternoon, Joe Biden will return home to Wilmington, Delaware to prepare for his Thursday night debate with Sarah Palin.

The Delaware senator’s schedule is blank until he flies to St. Louis for the debate, though he will head to Washington to vote on the bailout package when the vote is scheduled in the Senate.

Spokesman David Wade says the only preparation Biden has done up to this point is reading and talking to a wide range of colleagues, among them senators Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm will fly to Wilmington this week to play the role of Palin in sparring sessions with Biden. In a recent interview on NBC’s Today Show she said, “I want to beat him up a little bit, so he does well.”

Biden never talks directly about Palin on the stump, only in the context of the Republican ticket as a whole. He regularly tells audiences he doesn't know anything about her.

"I’m not being a wise guy," Biden told a laughing crowd Friday in Wisconsin, "I don’t know. I’m assuming she agrees with [McCain's] position. I’m being deadly earnest. I don’t know. I don’t know."

Biden will fly back to Delaware after the debate for his son Beau's deployment to Iraq on Friday as part of a Delaware National Guard unit. Beau Biden is Delaware’s attorney general. Palin's eldest son, Track, is also serving in Iraq.