Castle: Biden will be ‘extremely feisty’

>> in addition to his uncontrolled verbosity, biden is a gaffe machine. can you reassure your voters in this country that you would have the discipline you need on the world stage, senator?

>> yes.

>> you will support the democratic nominee no matter who that nominee is.

>> hell, no. i wouldn't support any of these guys.

>> my dad used to have an expression. he said, champ, when you get knocked down, get up.

>>> i love that man. tonight he'll try to take a page from his dad's playbook and he'll sync under the president's lackluster performance. our next guest goes way back with joe biden and can give it to us straight. if joe biden is the biggest political name to come out of delaware in a generation, former congressman mike castle is likely the second biggest. he served as the state's governor for eight years and two terms as delaware 's lone congressman only to be defeated by one christine o'donnell. oh, yeah, remember her. former republican congressman and governor mike castle . thanks for being with us, governor.

>> thank you. it's a pleasure.

>> so what is your take? you've watched joe biden over a number of years. i'm sure you know him quite well. what do you expect out of him tonight?

>> well, i believe that joe is going to be extremely feisty tonight. i think he has followed all the press and the write-ups of the obama debate presentation which is viewed rather negatively by virtually everybody, and i think he's going to be amped up. i believe he is going to come hard on perhaps some of the issues that obama did not come hard on, but he is going to be dealing with another individual who is very qualified in a debate format. paul ryan is a bright guy. he probably knows the numbers dealing with the budgetary problems with this country better than any of the people running for office this year, either at the presidential level or even in the congressional or senatorial level. he will be, i think, ready for the game too. so it should be a very interesting debate. joe , i know, has been home here in delaware rehearsing, practicing the last three or four days. i assume that paul has been doing the same. i look forward to an interesting hour and a half.

>> governor, it feels a little weird not to call you congressman, i am used to that. governor is your higher title. we'll go with that.

>> whatever.

>> major. one of the things themes that mitt romney pressed is this idea that president obama failed on his promise to transform washington, failed to govern in a bipartisan way and was too partisan and polarizing. what struck me when i heard that from mitt romney last week was that this basically was the republican legislative strategy from the minute that obama became president, it was to oppose him sort of unilaterally on everything so that he would not have bipartisan successes, so that his actions would look controversial, so that his pole numbers would drop and so that the presidential nominee , mitt romney , would be able to stand up four years later and bemoney how barack obama failed to change washington. that is my read on what happened. i'm wondering, if romney ends up winning this election and republicans have a employed that strategy, won back the congress and the presidency, does that create a model to make governing impossible in this country?

>> well, the governing is going to be more difficult in the future. i think there's some truth to that. it needs to be a -- remember that when president obama became president he did have a democratic house and senate, perhaps not the 60 votes but he had, you know, the votes necessary to control things in the congress of the united states . he had some problems there as well. i mean, if i were to be critical of the president and maybe not be my place to do so, but if i were, it would be along those lines. i don't think that he has done a particularly good job of communicating with either party. i was there on the floor of the house when they were doing the obama care legislation and there was a lot of grumbling. i'm not talking about just those democrats that voted against it. there was a lot of grumbling from the other democrats that the white house had not been very flexible in terms of working things out with them. i can tell you as a moderate republican that i was at the white house and we had a session with rahm emanuel and the president told us he should communicate with us on these issues, particularly health care , and that never really happened either. i think that's a bit of a problem with this presidency. not just the president but the entire administration in terms of the not being flexible enough to reach out to the other side. i would hope if romney is elected or even if obama is elected to a second term that that particular president is going to reach out and try to pull together the diverse elements and govern better. it's not a question of republican or democrat, it's a question of what are we doing to help the people of the united states . that's the approach we have to take. it's the president that has to make that case. i theep will happen in the next term.

>> governor, i think it's a little difficult to blame the president for these things when on day one the republicans were saying we're going to obstruct him on everything from the postmaster general who will be nominated for that to the jobs bill. it seems as steve laid out there is a very clear strategy to keep this president from getting anything he wants and making everything take much longer with the express purpose of ruining people's feelings about congress and, thus, returning to the party that's anti-government. this is very difficult to blame on the president when they decided to do this before he even is fully inaugurated.

>> i just don't buy that argument. you're probably right that some of those things are articulated, but there are a number of republicans who did not necessarily believe that. it was not just simply a function of obstructionism by republicans, it was also, i believe, an administration which did not have the game plan to go and try and turn that around. there's not a single governor i know of in this country who's had a mixed legislature. most governors have who has not had to deal with that. many have been successful in terms of working with the other side and eventually turning them around or perhaps even going to the public, going to the media and saying, look, i'm going to give a speech and it's going to be about the need to cooperate and i feel republicans or democrats, whichever it may be, needs to do more to be helpful in this process. it just didn't take place. i'm not blaming the president solely. i believe there was too much opposition from some of the republican side but i don't think that president obama did a particularly good job of trying to turn it around and that, i think, handicapped his efforts to have a successful agenda.

>> governor, i want to bring it back to joe biden . you have some intell. do you think he's going to run in 2016 ?

>> yeah, that's a very good question. i've asked people and i wonder myself. i don't know if i've ever talked directly to joe about it. he'll be in his 70s. he, as far as i know, is in good health. i just simply don't know. i guess a lot of it depends upon this election. if he continues to be vice president, i would think he would be in a stronger position. maybe i'm wrong about that. maybe he's better off being out of office. he says he has not dismissed that possibility so i think it is distinctly a possibility. i really don't know who else the democrats would run. apparently hillary clinton is sort of talking in terms of not running. if that's the case, i just don't know who else would step up to compete with him. we'll see how it goes. but i'd call that one 50-50 at this point.

>> all right. thanks.

>> former congressman mike castle , thanks so much.

>>> straight ahead, you've heard of fantasy football . how about fantasy economic policy teams? oh, yeah, the nerding out never stops.

>>> and toure plays president of his dream team of economic