[Melissa Block:] And we're going to leave Michele on the convention floor there and go back in time a bit. Earlier today, Michele spoke with Washington D.C. lawyer Eric Holder. He was co-chair of Obama's vice-presidential selection committee. Holder said that 26 candidates were considered and the final group of six or seven was vetted by a team, including lawyers and accountant and a doctor. In the end, the committee decided that Joseph Biden brought the whole package of experience, policy beliefs and ability. Here's Michele's interview with Eric Holder.
[Michele Norris:] Joe Biden's name was always, you know, within the possibilities when people talked about the short list that the Obama campaign might be looking at, but it was widely assumed that he was perhaps at the back of the pack. Was his role in the situation in Georgia a game-changer, his decision to get on a plane and go and get on the ground and take a look at the situation there?
[Eric Holder:] No, it really wasn't, and that was actually, I think, one of the surprises that we had, at least that I had. At one of our first meetings in Chicago, Senator Obama discussed people who he thought were going to be finalists and potentially the vice president. Senator Biden was among those people. There was a chemistry between them. He said he liked Joe Biden and liked the interaction they'd had on the campaign trail. And so, he was always among that relatively small group of people throughout the process, and the Georgia trip really wasn't a factor.
[Michele Norris:] Joe Biden, Senator Biden, does have obvious vulnerabilities though. His penchant to speak sometimes without filters. There are charges of plagiarism that go back several years. There are women who still are have a lingering anger at Senator Biden over his handling of the Anita Hill hearings. How is the campaign prepared to deal with these issues? Because the Republicans will go after him on this.
[Eric Holder:] Right, and these are all issues that we talked about with people in Congress and with the various constituent groups. Women, for instance, talked about, you know, you have to look at the totality of Joe Biden's experience and talked about, you know, his role in passing the Violence Against Women Act. His ability to speak and speak directly, sometimes using maybe more words than people would like, is in some in many ways, we think a strength. We think that's something that will connect him to the American people. This is a guy who comes from Scranton, from modest roots.
[Michele Norris:] No worries, though, that he'll go off-script?
[Eric Holder:] No, I think that one of the things you also have to understand is that you look at the way in which he conducted his presidential campaign this time, there was a degree of discipline that you saw there in the way in which he answered questions. I mean, that famous line that he had in describing, you know, Rudy Giuliani, coming up with sentences a noun, a verb and 911. Brian Williams asked him about his ability to restrict his verbal output, and he simply said yes, you know? But I want to make clear that we don't want to restrict him. We want Joe Biden to be Joe Biden. The ability to connect with working-class people will only come if we let him be himself, and so we're not worried about that.
[Michele Norris:] Now, I've talked with voters, even people who are Democratic voters, even people who are very happy about the choice, but they scratch their heads a bit and they say but this campaign is all about change. Joe Biden doesn't necessarily reflect change. This is someone who's been in the Senate for decades.
[Eric Holder:] Yeah, been in the senate for decades, but not necessary a Washington. This is a guy who, as a result of a very, you know, unfortunate and compelling, you know, accident that took his wife and his young daughter away from him, has gone home every night. You know, every night that he's in D.C., he gets on the Amtrak Acela or the other one, the Metroliner, and goes home and sleeps in his bed in Delaware. But he's also seen as a person who has the ability to reach across the aisle. He's one of those few senators, I think, though he is a senior senator, who is seen as somebody who can move things in D.C. So I think he'll be fine in that regard.
[Michele Norris:] He can be tough. He knows how to throw an elbow when he has to. Is that part of his role, and will we see that this evening?
[Eric Holder:] No question about that. He has known John McCain probably longer than anybody in this campaign, and I think that he'll talk about why he thinks John McCain would not make a good president, why Senator Obama would be a much better president. You know, he's not a person who's shy and retiring. He knows how to throw elbows, as you said, and I bet we'll see, you know, some of that tonight and throughout the campaign.
[Michele Norris:] Eric Holder, thank you very much for speaking with us.
[Eric Holder:] Thanks for having me.
[Melissa Block:] Eric Holder co-chaired the vice-presidential selection committee. He was speaking with our co-host, Michele Norris.