Biden: Losing 60th seat may be blessing

Democrats losing their 60-seat supermajority in the Senate may be a good thing, Vice President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday.

Speaking to a meeting of the Democratic National Committee's finance committee, Biden said that the supermajority came with excessively high expectations.

"Yes, it's had a practical impact, but I'm not so sure what a blessing 60 votes was. Not a joke, I mean it sincerely," he said, according to a pool report.

"When we had 60 votes there was the expectation left, right, and center that we could do everything we wanted to do, which was never realistic. Never," he explained.

Biden tried to buck up the audience after a series of setbacks for the party. He insisted that the administration is "not backing off a single thing we believe in."

"The reports of our demise are premature," he said. "It's time everybody take a deep breath, take a deep breath, let's put this in perspective. Yeah, we took a hit and the frustration was aggravated by the fact that Teddy's seat was lost," Biden said, but added that the emotional weight of losing Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat "makes it sound more profound than it is."