Familiar Faces at Biden's Side

One person missing from the lineup is Biden's 1988 campaign manager, Tim Ridley, who died in October 2005 at age 50. Biden remained close to his old friend as he struggled with alcoholism in his final years, and he delivered the eulogy at Ridley's funeral.

Another is Pat Caddell, a member of the class of 1972, who vanished after the plagiarism meltdown. Many senior Biden aides blamed Caddell for leading the candidate astray, and the relationship is the only prominent one in the Biden narrative that ended in an ugly way.

"I hope he's doing okay," Biden said of Caddell, who lives in California and appears occasionally as a Fox News commentator. "I don't know anybody who sees him. I ask all the time, 'Anybody seen Pat?' "

'This Is All Personal'

Biden's inner circle refers to itself as "the family," and for better or worse, that's how it operates. The group meets about once a month for a marathon session and confers daily by phone and e-mail. They hash out big questions, such as how to spend Biden's limited resources, and prep the candidate for debates and important speeches.

"The strategy for this campaign is not particularly complicated," Marttila explained. As an established foreign policy expert, Biden aims to convince Democratic voters that he is the candidate best equipped to end the Iraq war and deal with its aftermath.

The longevity of the Biden campaign team appears to be highly unusual in politics. Jonathan Bernstein, a political scientist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, examined 90 campaign consultants who were named rising stars in 1988 by Campaigns & Elections magazine. Only 4 percent worked with a single candidate for 10 years or longer, and just 17 percent stuck it out for at least five years.

"I think it ended up this way because I started so young," Biden said. "A lot of people I started with were my age, and they became my friends." He thought for a moment and continued: "I kind of have to like the people I work with. When you get into this stuff, this is all personal. I admit, I rely on these guys a lot. I trust their judgment, mainly because they know me. They know me, warts and all."

Over the years, the Biden insiders have served up their share of questionable advice. The seeds of the Kinnock disaster were planted while the candidate and aides were driving to the 1987 debate. Biden told Wilhelm he was unhappy with his closing remarks, but rather than discouraging last-minute changes, the 30-year-old aide suggested that Biden substitute the Kinnock material that he had been using in recent speeches.

"One of my great moments," Wilhelm said wryly.

When the debate was over, Rasky, Donilon and Biden discussed the fact that he hadn't credited Kinnock and concluded that reporters would shrug it off as a harmless mistake. Not issuing a clarification would prove a fatal miscalculation, the beginning of the end of the campaign.

Nor has anyone managed to curb Biden's tendency to talk too much. Biden kept his answers notably tight during the first three Democratic debates this year, answering one question with a simple "yes" and another time stopping in mid-sentence when told his time was up. But those are rare exceptions.

Hours after his Jan. 31 announcement, Biden was forced to explain why he described Obama as the "first mainstream African American [presidential candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean."