Joe Biden has nothing to do anymore

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Remember back in the campaign when Obama couldn’t get enough of Joe Biden? It was all like, Joe Biden is so awesome! There’s no way we’ll change up our Vice President! Don’t you just love him and theabsolutely f***ing hilarious things he says? He’s like that uncle that everyone has that no one likes but it’s totally fine because you only see him once a year and he never brings anything to dinner anyway!

Well, for every compliment lavished on Joe Everyman during the course of the 2012 election, there’s an equal number of pointless jobs on Joe Biden’s second term to-do list. During the first term, he was the arm of the administration in Congress. And now, as the Fiscal Cliff looms, Joe’s biggest job seems to be late-night beer runs.

It’s a stark shift in responsibilities for the vice president, who has been asked to hold off — for now — on leveraging his Capitol Hill connections and to leave the negotiating to his boss.

Biden’s new role is a product of President Barack Obama’s decision to streamline fiscal cliff negotiations between himself and House Speaker John Boehner, the two sides’ clear sticking points and Obama’s increased post-election political clout.

The vice president worked on the Hill for decades and led the bipartisan 2011 debt ceiling group that laid much of the groundwork for the fiscal cliff talks. Now he waits for his moment as Obama leads the White House public relations battle at campaign-style stops in Pennsylvania and Michigan as well we the private talks with Boehner.