I had the great honor to sit next to Senator Biden as he addressed the lunch gathering at Steve Westly’s house this weekend:

Here’s a collection of Biden’s comments:

“In the last 8 years we have had the most significant redistribution of wealth since 1921. We have to help the middle class from sliding further back.

The campaign is going to get uglier. McCain is spending $60MM on robocalls spreading scurrilous messages and misinformation.

John McCain hired the very people that orchestrated the attacks on him when he was running against Bush. Literally the same people. Charlie Black was the architect of the smear campaign against McCain, and now McCain has hired him.

And Palin recently told the people of North Carolina that it’s good to be in a part of the country that’s patriotic. Now, I know here in California, you are a bunch of Commies.” (laughter)

And then he addressed a larger group. Biden downplayed the importance of the VP role versus the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, leading one fan in the audience to quip: “At least you know what the VP does!”

Biden chuckled: “Right now, our VP does too damn much.”

More quotables: “We’ve been here before – poised to win an important election. We can’t be complacent. How can you swiftboat a national hero? They did it.

America’s image in the world will be restored within 15 minutes of Obama being elected.

But the new President will face more challenges than FDR. Without a scintilla of hyperbole, I swear this is the most important election you have voted in ever, ever, ever. This administration will be tested, like JFK when he was elected. But we have an opportunity to unite the nation.

On the second day of the convention, my young granddaughter Finnegan came to me in the hotel and said “we need a sleepover.” I had promised her a tent and all when we got back, so I told her that it would have to wait a few days. “Well, no, I mean now. Barack’s kids have already talked to Barack. Can you pull the beds out of the room and we’ll put in mats, and have pizza and popcorn and Little Mermaid.” So Barack’s two daughters, two of Michelle’s brother’s children, my 11 year old nephew and two grandkids all had a sleepover. When I looked in the room and saw all those black and white children cuddled up together, it tells me more about what the core of this election is about. I knew we had made the right decision. We have become genuinely close friends.

John McCain used to be a close friend. (in Biden’s <a href="https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=DNC&w=44124348109@N01">DNC</a> speech, he still was a close friend)

He is attempting to win by appealing to cynicism of American people that the government cannot work.

Let me end by reciting an Irish poet. The Irish are the greatest poets in the world. I don't say that because I'm Irish; I say that because the Irish *are* the greatest poets in the world. (laughter) This is from Seamus Heany:

So hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge. Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.

But then, once in a lifetime

the longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up