Posted: Sept. 5, 2013

BREAKFAST WITH BEAU 

By Celia Cohen
Grapevine Political Writer

The planning is going on for a premier fund-raiser for Beau Biden at the vice presidential compound in Greenville later this month, and he is in the thick of it.

Biden showed up for a breakfast meeting with the host committee at the Wilmington Club off Rodney Square on Wednesday, also his first day back in the Attorney General's Office after the medical scare that sent him to Houston.

The breakfast was apparently Biden's first semi-public appearance since he returned to Delaware about two weeks ago.

There were about 35 people in the room for the meeting, which lasted about 45 minutes, according to participants who preferred not to be identified.

The event they were planning for is a fancy reception on Sept. 28 at $1,200 a ticket, the maximum contribution for statewide candidates. The host committee is supposed to drum up a crowd for it, not as hard a mission as it might be, not with Joe and Jill Biden scheduled to be there to hobnob with everyone.

Beau Biden was said to let his presence at the breakfast do the talking about his condition, which continues to be a closely held secret, when he spoke to the group and thanked people for their thoughts and prayers.

He was heard to say he had a really hard time for about 20 days, a timeframe that would date back to an emergency call reported by various news outlets for a stroke-like event in early August at the vice president's house. 

Biden also re-committed to running for a third term next year as the Democratic attorney general, so far without opposition, and rekindled the expectation the campaign could be a dress rehearsal for the governor's race in 2016.

"He did a little talk, and he was on. But for the fact I read about it in the newspaper, I wouldn't have known anything was wrong. He seemed to be doing fine. He seemed to have plenty of energy and seemed perfectly normal to me," one participant said.

"Beau spoke. He looked good. He looked thin, but he always looks thin to me. He really seemed like the old Beau. I don't know what his stamina was, what he was like afterwards," another participant said.

While Biden's appearance was a positive sign, even some close Democratic allies are saying privately he needs to part with more information for the voting public, because so far there is not enough to make the questions go away.

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