Biden has long harbored aspirations to be president himself. He ran this year, but dropped out of the Democratic presidential race in January after a lackluster showing in the Iowa caucuses. "I'm not a superstar," he said while stumping in Iowa. "People say they like me, people tell me they think I'd be a good president but that they just don't think I can win."
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Biden's the pick, sources confirm
His abundant foreign policy experience would bolster Obama
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, August 30, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 58 words Type of Material: Correction
Joe Biden: In some editions, an article about Joe Biden in Section A on Aug. 23 said that the vice presidential nominee's first wife and their infant daughter died in a car accident in 1972 as she was driving their three children from Delaware to Washington. They had been shopping for a Christmas tree when the accident happened.
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Along with his Senate Foreign Relations post, which recently took him on a trip to Georgia after the Russian invasion, Biden has been chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and has had a hand in legislation on crime, terrorism and drug policy.
At the same time, as a 36-year Senate veteran, Biden is a Washington insider, an image that is at odds with the theme of change Obama has promoted. Still, he is popular with many Democratic Party activists and may help Obama with less affluent voters who have been cool to him.
One issue that could prove problematic is that Biden supported the 2002 resolution in favor of military action in Iraq. Obama has made his opposition to the war a centerpiece of his campaign. But Biden has become a persistent critic of the handling of the war.
One of the main roles of the Democratic vice presidential nominee will be to attack McCain and his running mate. The Arizona senator is expected to name his No. 2 after the Democrats end their national convention in Denver on Thursday.
The McCain campaign responded quickly to media reports that Obama had picked Biden. "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," said McCain spokesman Ben Porritt.
In an August 2007 interview with Charlie Rose, Biden said that he believed Obama was "fully capable of being ready" to be president, but added: "He hasn't demonstrated it yet. This is early in the campaign." In other interviews, Biden demurred from criticizing Obama directly and emphasized his own extensive experience on the world stage.
In the Democratic debates, Biden also uttered some of the most stinging lines about the Republicans, calling Rudolph W. Giuliani "probably the most under-qualified person since George Bush to seek the presidency" and saying that the former New York mayor only used three words in a sentence -- "a noun and a verb and 9/11."
