By Catharine Richert, CQ Staff

Ted Kaufman, a Democrat and a long-time adviser to Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. , has been tapped to fill his former boss’s soon-to-be-vacated seat in the Senate — an interim appointment that appears made with an eye toward a 2010 Senate bid by the incumbent’s son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden.

Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner , a Democrat, announcement her pick of Kaufman on Monday.

“I believe Ted Kaufman meets every test I set for this appointment,” Minner said. “He has a proven record of putting the interests of Delaware first. He shares Delaware’s values. His political views are close to Senator Biden’s, and he doesn’t need any on-the-job training. He’ll be an effective senator for Delaware from day one.”

The 69-year-old Kaufman does not, however, plan to run in 2010, when Delaware will hold a special election to fill the remaining four years of the six-year term that Biden won Nov. 4, when he was simultaneously elected vice president. Delaware is one of several states that allows a candidate on the national ticket to run for another office at the same time.

Kaufman’s willingness to serve a foreshortened tenure could pave the way for Beau Biden, the eldest son of the six-term senator, to seek the Senate seat in 2010 after he completes his current tour of duty in Iraq with the Delaware Army National Guard. Biden, who will turn 40 years old in February, was elected in 2006 to a four-year term as state Attorney General.

“It is no secret that I believe my son . . . would make a great United States senator,” said the elder Biden. He added, in reference to his son’s decision not to seek an appointment to the seat, “But Beau has made it clear from the moment he entered public life, that any office he sought, he would earn on his own.”

In making her pick of Kaufman, who does not plan to run in the upcoming special election, Minner “has made it clear that whoever seeks the office in 2010 will do so from a level playing field. The voters will make that decision. For now, my concern is with Beau’s safety, not his political future,” Biden added.

Biden also had high praise for Kaufman, a close associate since the beginning of his political career nearly four decades ago. “Serving Delaware as your United States senator has been the privilege of my life,” the elder Biden in a statement. “As I leave the Senate for the vice presidency, I believe Gov. Minner has appointed the very best person she could have chosen to serve Delaware at this time in the United States Senate.”

Starting out as Biden’s chief of staff just after he entered the Senate in 1973 and serving until 1994, Kaufman developed a relationship with Washington insiders and lawmakers. In 1995, he was appointed to be a charter member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Until this year, he operated Public Strategies, a political and management consulting firm based in Wilmington, Delaware’s largest city. He is currently co-chairman of Biden’s transition team and is a member of the advisory board of the new administration’s transition project.

Kaufman also has been a senior lecturing fellow at the Duke University School of Law since 1991.

“He is smart, level-headed and a master strategist,” said Podesta Group’s Paul Brathwaite, a Delaware native who studied under Kaufman at Duke and later became the executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus. “Ted understands policy and knows how to put the pieces together to get things done.”

Minner’s choice may, however, have disappointed some allies of Lt. Gov. John Carney, a favorite of many party insiders who narrowly lost the Democratic primary for governor to state Treasurer Jack Markell, the eventual winner of the Nov. 4 general election. Carney had figured prominently in the speculation about an interim replacement for Biden. But Carney may have aspirations for a long-term career in the Senate, which could have created an obstacle for the younger Biden to make his own play for the spot in 2010.

Democrat Thomas R. Carper , who was re-elected in 2006 to a second term and will become the state’s senior senator, said he looks forward to serving with Kaufman, a man he says is “a joy to work with.” But he said that Carney would have been a great pick, too.