Politics on the Hudson

Barack Obama announced this morning he has chosen Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as his running mate.

The text message was sent by Obama’s campaign shortly after 3 a.m.

“Joe and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois—the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago,’’ the message stated.

Gannett News Service reporter Nicole Gaudiano, who covers Biden, writes:

“Though Obama’s campaign has emphasized change, the presumptive Democratic nominee has turned to experience in the white-haired, 65-year-old Biden, who has represented Delaware since 1973.

“Biden’s tendency to make off-the-cuff remarks has been an asset in his career as well as a liability. He apologized last year after calling Obama the first ‘mainstream African American (presidential candidate) who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy’ in a newspaper story that ran the day he launched his own presidential campaign.

“Some interpreted the remark as racially offensive, but Obama didn’t take it personally and defended Biden’s commitment to racial equality, saying during a debate, `I have absolutely no doubt about what is in his heart.’

“During his campaign, Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, questioned Obama’s preparedness and his staff criticized Obama’s `Johnny-come-lately’ position on combating al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“He abandoned his second presidential bid in January, following a fifth-place showing in the Iowa caucuses.

“Pledging to support the Democratic nominee, he waited until the last primary to back Obama and has since been one of Obama’s chief surrogates.

“Biden has said previously that he likes his job and did not want to be vice president.
`I hope he doesn’t ask me,’ he told reporters in June. `But if he asks me, I would say yes.’

“Biden would bring Obama only three electoral votes for carrying his home state of Delaware, which has voted for a Democrat in the last two elections.

“But as a Roman Catholic, Biden could appeal to a key swing vote. He also has demonstrated an ability to connect with white, blue-collar workers and older voters.

“His ability to deliver a zinger also could be an asset to Obama on the campaign trail. In one of Biden’s most memorable debate moments, he said there are only three things former Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani mentions in a sentence: ‘A noun and a verb and 9/11.’

“Biden’s voting record has been described as moderate to liberal. Though he voted to authorize the war, he has been a sharp critic of Bush’s war policies. He opposed the troop surge and has set goals for withdrawal of all combat troops.

“Biden counts among his signature accomplishments the 1994 Crime Bill that put 100,000 more police on the street and the Violence Against Women Act, targeting domestic violence and rape. He also authored a Senate-passed resolution endorsing the air war in Kosovo.

“He supports the landmark abortion rights decision, Roe v. Wade, but was the only Democratic presidential candidate serving in the Senate in 2003 to have voted for a ban on late-term abortions.

“The first of four children, Biden was born in 1942 in Scranton, Pa., before the family moved to Delaware in 1953.

“Though he is known to be loquacious, he stuttered as a child. He overcame it by reciting Yeats and Emerson poetry while looking in the mirror.

“He was elected to the Senate at age 29, the fifth youngest senator ever to serve.

“Like Obama, Biden was seen as his party’s fresh face in 1987, when he first ran for president. That effort collapsed amid charges that he plagiarized a portion of a speech he said he forgot to attribute.

“Biden’s personal story has been touched by tragedy. A month after he was first elected to the Senate, his wife, Neilia, and infant daughter Naomi suffer fatal injuries in a car accident while Christmas shopping. His sons Beau and Hunter were critically injured but fully recovered.

“Beau Biden, the attorney general of Delaware, is scheduled to deploy with his Army National Guard unit to Iraq on Oct. 3, the day after the vice presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis. Beau Biden is a captain and judge advocate general’s corps officer with the 261st Signal Brigade.

“Joe Biden also survived near-fatal brain aneurysms in 1988 that kept him out of the Senate for seven months.

“Biden and his second wife, Jill, have a daughter, Ashley. He rides the train between Wilmington and Washington every day.”

For more on Sen. Joe Biden, go to www.delawareonline.com/biden

Ben Porritt, a spokesman for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, issued the following statement saying, “There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama’s lack of experience than Joe Biden. Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing—that Barack Obama is not ready to be President.”

The McCain campaign also has released a new TV highlighting Biden’s criticism of Obama during the early part of the campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, before Biden dropped out of the race.

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