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Full Video and transcript at link:
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_036A8212AFA94893A7DA5907D8412F6E
Partial transcript below:
Semerjian:
Senator Biden, welcome to The Advocates.
Biden:
Thank you. Good to be here.
Lowenstein:
Senator Biden, it's nice to have you here, as the youngest member of the Senate, the one, therefore, who may expect the longest career there. I wonder if you'd say to us, since it's clear you're not corrupt, and you got elected, why should people think that the system produces corrupt results when there you are?
Biden:
Well, I'm not sure you should assume I'm not corrupt, but I thank you for that. The system does produce corruption—I think implicit in the system is corruption. In fact, whether or not you can run for public office—and it costs a great deal of money to run for the United States Senate, even for a small state like Delaware—you have to go to those people who have money. They always want something.
Lowenstein:
Well, I wonder whether you would feel that there's some virtue in forcing candidates to go out and try to raise money. I've heard people—probably people who didn't run for office—say that it's uplifting to go out and try to get money. Do you think that there's something un-uplifting about putting a limit to how much you can ask one man to give you?
Biden:
I think it's the most degrading experience in the world to have to go out and ask for money because you know that unless you accidentally agree with the position taken by the person or group that has the money, that you run the risk of deciding whether or not you're going to prostitute yourself to give the answer you know they want to hear in order to get funded to run for that office. And it's coincidental in many instances when in fact you happen to agree with where they are, and you run the risk, by the way, of rationalizing, of saying, "Well, if I compromise on this one—give them one—I get ninety percent of what I want, and I don't have to give in too much."
Lowenstein:
So you feel it's a difficult temptation not only for the candidate, not only for people who give the money, but for the people trying to raise it.
Biden:
Well, you know, we were told that we politicians, as the young kids say, rip off the American public. I think the American public in a way rips off we politicians by forcing us to run the way they do. To raise $300,000 is no mean feat, and unless you happen to be some sort of anomaly like myself, being a twenty-nine year old candidate, who can attract some attention beyond your own state, it's very difficult to raise that money from a large group of people.