This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: August 23, 2008 - SPRINGFIELD – A crowd of 35,000 on Saturday got the nation's first glimpse at the man U.S. Sen. Barack Obama tapped as his running mate.
News broke early Saturday morning that U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., would join Obama on the Democratic ticket.
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The pair united hours later in Springfield, Ill., on the same stage that Obama used to launch his presidential campaign 19 months ago. Saturday's rally was the first of several stops that Obama will make through battleground states leading up to the Democratic National Convention, which starts Monday in Denver.
Biden's selection came after several weeks of speculation and anticipation in the national media. During the wait for Obama's vice presidential pick, his Republican opponent, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, erased the Illinois Democrat's edge in the national polls and pulled even with him this week.
Biden was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 when he was just 29 years old. He has since risen to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the most influential foreign policy figures in Congress.
During the campaign rally in Springfield, Obama described his running mate as a "scrappy kid" with a stutter from Scranton, Pa.
"He's that unique public servant who is at home in a bar in Cedar Rapids and the corridors of the Capitol, in the VFW hall in Concord, and at the center of an international crisis," Obama said.
Observers expect the Delaware Democrat to be able to parlay his blue-collar appeal to key voting blocs in swing states like Pennsylvania. Unlike his presidential running mate, Biden has been able to avoid the perception of being elitist. His Catholic roots also are expected to help Obama reach that voting bloc, which he lost badly to Hillary Clinton during the primaries.
Biden, 65, is by every definition a Washington insider – a label that Obama has slammed throughout his primary and general election campaigns. Yet that experience may complement one of Obama's perceived weaknesses.
"For decades, he has brought change to Washington, but Washington has not changed him," Obama told the crowd.
People may remember the Biden name from his short-lived presidential bid in 2008. He dropped out shortly after a fifth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. He also ran for president in 1988, but was forced to drop out when he was caught plagiarizing a speech by a British Labour Party leader.
When Biden was announced, the crowd waved the newly printed signs bearing his name under Obama's, and the seasoned senator quickly fell into step with the campaign's recent rhetoric. Earlier this week, McCain was unable to tell reporters how many houses he owned, and the Obama campaign jumped on the gaffe in a television commercial and again on Saturday.
Biden said he empathized with Americans who sit around the kitchen table wondering how to pay the bills.
"Well, ladies and gentleman, that's not a worry John McCain has to worry about," Biden said. "It's a pretty hard experience, he'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at."
As with every vice presidential candidate, Biden does not come without his share of negatives. Among his 36 years of votes in the Senate, Republicans are likely to attack his vote to authorize the Iraq invasion, despite having spoken strongly against it in recent years.
Also, his tendency to speak his mind has gotten him in trouble. He had to apologize to Obama early in the presidential campaign after describing him as "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" – setting off a firestorm of racist accusations. Another unguarded episode came when he said, "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."
Biden has been touched twice by tragedy. The first came five weeks after his election to the Senate. A tractor-trailer broadsided his first wife's station wagon as she and the children were driving home with the family Christmas tree. His first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter died in the accident. Biden's two sons, Beau and Hunter, were badly hurt. Both sons are now lawyers and Beau Biden serves as Delaware's attorney general.
Shortly after abandoning his first presidential bid, Biden nearly touched death himself when he was hospitalized with two brain aneurysms.
Obama said Biden's tragedies have shaped his character.
"Joe Biden is what so many others pretend to be – a statesman with sound judgment who doesn't have to hide behind bluster to keep America strong," he said.
Background
Find links to Joe Biden's biography, initial analysis (including the instant ad the McCain campaign put out attacking Obama-Biden) and more by clicking here .
Andrea Zimmermann is a freelance journalist living in Springfield. To reach her, contact Beacon issues and politics editor Susan Hegger.
Andrea Zimmermann special to the Beacon