Biden's Senate replacement

Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware), Vice President-elect has passed the baton on to a longtime aide, Huffington Post reports:

WILMINGTON, Del. — Edward "Ted" Kaufman, a former aide to Sen. Joe Biden, was named Monday by Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner to fill the Senate seat Biden is leaving for the vice presidency.

Kaufman, co-chair of Biden's transition team and an Obama-Biden transition project advisory board member, plans to serve until the 2010 election, when a new senator is elected. He said he is comfortable stepping down after two years in office.

"I don't think Delaware's appointed senator should spend the next two years running for office," Kaufman said. "I will do this job to the fullest of my ability, and spend my days focused on one thing and one thing only: serving Delaware."

Speculation on Biden's successor had centered in recent weeks on his son, Attorney General Beau Biden. But last week the younger Biden announced that he planned to fulfill his National Guard duties and wouldn't accept an appointment to his father's U.S. Senate seat.

Biden is a prosecutor for the 261st Signal Brigade, which left for Iraq last week. The unit is due back in September 2009, in time for Biden to run for his father's Senate seat.

The elder Biden said in a statement, "It is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General Beau Biden, would make a great United States Senator just as I believe he has been a great attorney general. But Beau has made it clear from the moment he entered public life that any office he sought he would earn on his own."

Just before announcing Kaufman as the appointee, Minner acknowledged speculation about the younger Biden being picked for the post and said she would have strongly considered him.

"The fact that Beau Biden is committed to fulfilling his obligation and not seeking appointment to this office tells us everything we need to know about his character," she said. "Should Beau choose to run for this office in 2010, he will _ as will whoever runs _ have to earn on his own the trust of the people of Delaware."

Click here for the full story from Huffington Post.

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Now, we are just waiting for other replacements:
--the Senator from Illinois to replace Obama
--the senator from New York to replace Hillary Clinton (if all goes as planned, for her taking the Secretary of State post)