Biden talks transition
Posted: Thursday, November 06, 2008 3:14 PM by Carrie Dann
Filed Under:
Joe Biden
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
GEORGETOWN, Del. – Vice President-elect
Biden said that he and President-elect
Barack Obama have begun to form a new administration with an eye to the “precarious position” he nation and the world find itself in.
“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,” he said. “They sense there’s a need for immediate help, immediate help for people who are drowning. … 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.”
Biden, speaking with reporters as he flew to Delaware for the first time since Tuesday’s election, talked about the “sense of excitement” he felt yesterday as he and Obama sat together “actually beginning to put together a government.”
“We’ve thought a lot about it, but it was the first time -- he’s as superstitious as I was -- the first time we actually started talking about names and places and organizations,” he said. “We both know it’s going to be a very difficult road.”
Biden said that he has not yet spoken with John McCain, but that he intends to reach out to his friend to say, “We need you.”
“We really mean it. We’ve got to reach out,” he said. “You can’t, you can’t get from here to there with just Democrats. You can’t do it.”
Biden is returning to Delaware briefly to participate in the centuries-old “Return Day” tradition, where winners and losers of state elections parade through this small town and, literally, bury a hatchet. He excitedly talked about the event’s history, and also spoke at length about the circumstances that led to his election to the Senate in 1972.
“To me, it’s not so much emotional today. Today’s just a celebratory day,” he said. “This is more sort of a pride of my state kind of day. … We really do have a kind of Delaware way.”
Biden will be joined on a carriage ride through Georgetown by Christine O’Donnell, who challenged him for re-election. Asked what he would have said if Sarah Palin were with him, he simply described her rise as “remarkable.”
“I think it’s, you know, pretty remarkable, for the all the ups and downs, [a] pretty remarkable run for her,” he said. “I mean, here’s a woman who is out of … Wasilla, as a mayor and then Governor for two years.”
