Beau Biden, son of the vice president, says he is considering running for his dad’s Senate seat but hasn’t made a decision yet.

“I’ve been away from my family for a year, first things first,” Biden said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” after returning from Iraq with the Army National Guard. “There’s time to make that decision.”

“Look, am I considering it? Absolutely. Absolutely,” Biden, who is Delaware’s attorney general, said. “But I’ll be making the decision in due course.”

President Barack Obama is still likely weeks away from a decision on a new Afghanistan strategy.

A BBC report last night created a bit of a stir in saying that the Obama administration had told the British government that it would soon announce a troop increase that “could exceed 40,000.”

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs roundly denied it — “I’ve seen the report. It’s not true, either generically or specifically.”

Beau Biden, the not-yet candidate for senator, had some wise words on the Iraq and Afghan wars: “Understand that they’re two different wars. What works in Iraq doesn’t necessarily mean it will work in Afghanistan. They are fundamentally different places.”

Closed-door meetings on healthcare legislation continue on Capitol Hill focused on resolving differences among the various bills.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Pool (Vice President Joe Biden talks with son Beau Biden in Iraq in July)

Republican Mike Castle ended months of speculation on Tuesday by saying he will run to fill U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s unexpired Senate term from Delaware.

The announcement raised again the questions: Will Biden’s son, Beau, run for it, too? And if so, when will Beau announce?

Beau Biden recently returned from a nearly year-long deployment in Iraq as a member of the Delaware National Guard. He is back at his job as Delaware’s elected attorney general.

The younger Biden has been widely expected to seek the Senate seat ever since his dad vacated it to become vice president. The seat is now held by Ted Kaufman, a former Joe Biden staffer, who has said he will not run to finish the term that expires in 2014.

A campaign between Beau Biden and Castle — a nine-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a former Delaware governor — would likely set up one of the most hotly contested and expensive Senate races in the nation.

Stakes are high.

The contest will help determine if Democrats retain their 60-vote majority in the 100-member Senate — one big enough to clear Republican procedural hurdles.

Thirty-eight Senate seats are up for re-election next year, 19 now held by Republicans, the other 19 by Democrats.

In announcing his intention to run, Castle said: “It has never been more important for Delaware to have the strongest and most experienced leadership to represent us in Washington.”

The non-partisan Cook Political Report lists the Senate race as a “tossup.”

But the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report, following Castle’s announcement, moved its classification of the contest from “safe for Democrats” to “lean takeover” by Republicans.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Biden at hearing when he was chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2007)

Vice President-elect Joe Biden expects that his oldest son Beau, who has been on a tour of Iraq with his Army National Guard unit, will be in Washington for Inauguration Day next Tuesday.

“God wiling and the creek not rise, as my grandfather would say, yes, I hope he’s here on inauguration. He has leave on Inauguration Day,” Biden said Friday outside the Senate, where he had just attended the swearing-in of his successor as senator from Delaware.

“I expect him (Beau) to be with me from early in the morning till late that night. I know he goes back shortly thereafter to Iraq,” Biden told reporters, adding that he was “looking forward” to seeing his son.

Biden’s son deployed to Iraq late last year. He is a captain in the 261st Signal Brigade of the Delaware Army National Guard.

He is also Delaware’s attorney general,  the state’s top law enforcement officer, and he introduced his father at the Democratic National Convention last year. There has been media speculation that Beau would run in 2010 to replace the elder Biden in the U.S. Senate. 

Meanwhile Biden’s longtime aide, Ted Kaufman, was sworn in to the Senate seat Friday by Vice President Dick Cheney, in one of Cheney’s last official acts before leaving office next week.

“He’s been my best friend for years and years and  years,” Biden said of Kaufman. “He’s going to be a great senator.”

Biden, a seven-term senator whose stepped down from that post Thursday, declared that he would miss the Senate “more than you can imagine.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Segar (Biden with son, Beau, at Democratic Convention in August)

WASHINGTON - Democrats came up just short of a winning a filibuster-proof majority of 60 in the 100-member Senate in last November’s election.  But they may do it in next year’s contest — thanks largely to a rising number of Senate Republicans calling it quits.

George Voinovich – a highly respected, two-term moderate — on Monday became the fourth Senate Republican to announce he won’t seek reelection in 2010.

Voinovich’s decision followed earlier such announcements by Republican Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Mel Martinez of Florida and Kit Bond of Missouri.

So far, there’s been no official word that any of the Democrats up for reelection next year won’t seek another term — though Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s pending Senate replacement is expected to step aside in 2010. That would open the way for an anticipated run by Biden’s son Beau Biden, Delaware’s attorney general.

Traditionally, Senate incumbents have a number of advantages over challengers, including name recognition and the ability to raise money.

Voinovich, who next year will mark his 74th birthday and 44th year in public office, said it’s time for him to move on.

“I still have the fire in my belly to do the work of our nation, but after serving the next two years, it will be time to step back,” Voinovich said in a statement.

Democrats now have 57 seats in the Senate, and may soon hit 59. A legal challenge is expected to be decided within weeks of Democrat Al Franken’s razor-close victory in Minnesota.

And Democrats hope to soon resolve a dispute over embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris to fill the seat vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama.

Democrats have resisted seating Burris because Blagojevich is accused of having earlier tried to sell the seat. But with the blessing of Obama, they seem to be determined to soon reach an “amicable solution.”

Photo Credit: Reuters/Mannie Garcia (Sen. George Voinovich with President George W. Bush in 2004)