OBAMA Selects SEN. JOE BIDEN as V.P. Running Mate

[MegalosSkylaki]

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama named Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate early Saturday, balancing his ticket with a seasoned congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues

Biden, who has served in the Senate since being elected at the age of 29, is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Obama's decision leaked to the media several hours before his aides planned to send a text message announcing the running mate, negating a promise that people who turned over their phone numbers would be the first to know who Obama had chosen. The campaign scrambled to send the text message after the leak, sending phones buzzing at the inconvenient time of just after 3 a.m. on the East coast.

A statement on Obama's Web site said Biden "brings extensive foreign policy experience, an impressive record of collaborating across party lines, and a direct approach to getting the job done."

In selecting Biden, Obama passed over several other potential running mates, none more prominent than former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, his tenacious rival in dozens of primaries and caucuses.

The decision is intended to give the Democratic ticket depth in areas Obama was labeled as weak by his Republican opponents — foreign policy and global security.

In recent years, Biden has traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan two times and to Iraq eight times. He returned Monday from a fact-finding trip to Georgia.

The McCain camp was quick to react. "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," McCain spokesman Ben Porritt said early Saturday morning.

Biden’s voting record is in line with many Senate Democrats: He voted in 2003 to authorize President Bush to use military force in Iraq, and he also voted against the Bush tax cuts and against Republican Supreme Court nominees William Rehnquist, Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Borrowed speech
He has run twice for the Democratic presidential nomination, once in 1988 and again this year.

He was forced to exit the 1988 race after he was caught having borrowed portions of a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock — without giving him credit.

In 1987, as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden managed the Senate’s rejection of Bork, a conservative Supreme Court nominee by Ronald Reagan.

But some Democrats still blame Biden for allowing Thomas to win confirmation to the high court in 1991.

Biden has a reputation for verbosity. He often prefaces his questions to witnesses before his committee with remarks such as, “All kidding aside…” or “I don’t mean to be cute, but...”

He got less than glowing reviews in 2006 for his questioning of Alito during his confirmation hearings.

Personal
• Name: Joseph R. Biden
• Born: Nov. 20, 1942, Scranton, Pa.
• Education: University of Delaware, history and political science; Syracuse University College of Law
• Religion: Roman Catholic
• Occupation: U.S. Senator from Delaware since 1973

Source: msnbc.com wires and staff research • Print this

Hard to fathom the reason, yet might help with blue-collar ethic Catholics and
also add Foreign Relations gravatas --an area where Polls show McCain is far ahead of him -- to the Ticket.

MegalosSkylaki

[osprey4]

Biden has a reputation for verbosity.

Also known as "foot in mouth disease". Who doesn't remember Biden's description of Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Seriously, though, it's hard to imagine a less imaginative choice. One could call it the "prevent defense" of VP selections.

p.s. As I've stated numerous times, the presidency is Obama's to lose, and this choice, however it works out, is unlikely to change that probability.

[Chuckiechan]

Should add some humor to the race - there is miles of tape of Biden staying the dumbest things!

But he should still be at the top of the ticket.

[Pexster]

Anyone who has the stones to call "bullshit" on GWB is OK with me. Biden is going to shred the McCain campaign's constant lies and smears. He does not pull punches, and that is exactly what Obama needs; an attack dog.

[osprey4]

Originally Posted by Pexster

Biden is going to shred the McCain campaign's constant lies and smears.

Wishful thinking. Biden's mouth has historically only been guilty of "shredding" his own reputation (as anyone who's watched his last several presidential campaigns knows too well).

[Pexster]

I haven't found his comments out of line. It's that "liberal media" you all complain about that has shredded him (when they could be bothered to cover him at all).

[Pexster]

From Ron Fournier, AP --

And he talks too much.

link

Are the journalists who keep mentioning this joking? They complain that a politician (read "source") talks too much??? This is insane. If a politician doesn't talk to them, they complain. What is this? Goldilocks and the Three Bears?

[Atomic Rooster]

Biden speaks — and speaks — his own mind - Yahoo! News

Biden's occasional gaffes. He had apologized earlier for describing Obama as "articulate" and "clean" in one unguarded episode that was taken by some to have a racial overtone. And he'd had to defend his remark that "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."

Yup, this should be fun to watch.

[Pexster]

Especially since he and McCain are pretty close. I think his standard response to this will be that the John McCain who is campaigning is not the John McCain he knows (which rings true). "Will the real John McCain stand up, please."

[Atomic Rooster]

Aug. 2, 2005, "Daily Show" appearance in which Jon Stewart asked him of a potential 2008 run, “You may end up going against a Senate colleague, perhaps McCain, perhaps Frist?”

Biden replied, “John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off — be well off no matter who ...”

You know, Biden is 65. That's pretty old to have to suffer through the stress of being a vice president. I hope that at his advanced age he doesn't break down.