Obama chooses Biden as running mate
by Adam NAGOURNEY and Jeff ZELENY
WASHINGTON - Senator Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joseph R.
Biden Jr. of Delaware to be his running mate, turning to a leading
authority on foreign policy and a longtime Washington hand to fill out
the Democratic ticket, people told of the decision said.
Obama’s selection ended a two-month search that was conducted almost
entirely in secret. It reflected a critical strategic choice by Mr.
Obama: To go with a running mate who could reassure voters about gaps in
his resume, rather than to pick someone who could deliver a state or
reinforce Mr. Obama’s message of change.
Mr. Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world.
Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq - Mr. Obama
opposed it from the start - Mr. Biden became a persistent critic of
President George W. Bush’s policies in Iraq.
After the news was leaked, the Obama campaign sent out a text message
to supporters during the overnight hours: “Barack has chosen Senator Joe
Biden to be our VP nominee.
” The selection was disclosed as Mr. Obama moves into a critical part
of his campaign, preparing for the party’s four-day convention in Denver
starting on Monday. Mr. Obama’s aides viewed the introduction of his
vice presidential choice - including an afternoon rally Saturday at the
old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., the same place where Mr. Obama
announced his candidacy on a freezing winter morning almost two years
ago - and a tour of swing states as the beginning of a week-long stretch
in which Mr. Obama hopes to dominate the stage and position himself for
the fall campaign.
Word of Mr. Obama’s decision leaked out hours before his campaign was
scheduled to inform supporters via text and e-mail messages, and hours
after informing two other top contenders for the vice presidential
nomination - Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia
- that they had not been chosen.
As the selection process moved to an end, Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton of New York, who Mr. Obama had defeated in his bid for the
Democratic presidential nomination, had slipped out of contention - to
the degree that Mr. Obama had never seriously considered her.
Mr. Biden is Roman Catholic, giving him appeal to that important
voting bloc, though he favours abortion rights. He was born in a
working-class family in Scranton, Pa., a swing state where he remains
well-known. Mr. Biden is up for re-election to the Senate this year and
he would presumably run simultaneously for both seats.
Mr. Biden is known for being both talkative and prone to making the
kind of statements that get him in trouble. In 2007, when he was
competing for Mr. Obama for the presidential nomination, he declared
that Mr. Obama was “not yet ready” for the presidency.
The McCain campaign jumped on that early Saturday, as it responded to
the selection, offering a glimpse into the line of criticism that awaits
the Democratic ticket.
“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 Ben Porritt, a spokesman for Mr. McCain.
Although Mr. Biden is not exactly a household name, he is probably
the best known of all the Democrats who were in contention for the spot,
given his political and personal history (not to mention his regular
appearances on the Sunday morning television news shows.) He first ran
for the Senate from Delaware when he was just 29.
Mr. Biden has run twice for the presidency himself, once in 1988 and
again in 2008, dropping out early in both cases. He was also the
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during two of the most
contentious Supreme Court nomination battles of the past 50 years: the
confirmation proceedings for Robert H. Bork, who was defeated, and
Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed after an explosive hearing in which
Anita Hill accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment. Mr. Biden led the
opposition to both nominations, though he came under criticism from some
feminists for not immediately disclosing what were at first Ms. Hill’s
closed-door accusations against Mr. Thomas.
Mr. Obama’s choice of Mr. Biden suggested some of the weaknesses the
Obama campaign is trying to address at a time when national polls
suggest that his race with Senator John McCain, the presumptive
Republican nominee, is tightening.
Chief among Mr. Biden’s strengths is his familiarity with foreign
policy and national security issues, highlighted just this past weekend
with the invitation he received from the embattled president of Georgia,
Mikheil Saakashvili, to visit Georgia in the midst of its tense faceoff
with Russia. From the moment he dropped out of the presidential race, he
had been mentioned as a potential Secretary of State should either Mr.
Obama or Mrs. Clinton win the election.
He is also something of a fixture in Washington, and would bring to
the campaign - and the White House - a familiarity with the way the city
and Congress works that Mr. Obama cannot match after his relatively
short stint in Washington.
At 65, Mr. Biden adds a few years and gray hair to a ticket that
otherwise might seem a bit young (Mr. Obama is 47). He is, as Mr.
Obama’s advisers were quick to argue, someone who appears by every
measure prepared to take over as president, setting a standard that
appears intended to at least somewhat hamstring Mr. McCain should he be
tempted to go for a more adventurous choice for No. 2.
He has a long history of making statements that get him in trouble.
He was forced to apologize to Mr. Obama almost the moment he entered the
race for president after he was quoted as describing Mr. Obama as “the
first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean
and a nice-looking guy,” a remark that drew criticism for being racially
insensitive. While campaigning in New Hampshire, Mr. Biden said that
“you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a
slight Indian accent.”
Mr. Biden quit the presidential race this year after barely making a
mark; he came in fifth in Iowa. He was forced to quit the 1988
presidential race in the face of accusations that he had plagiarized
part of a speech from Neil Kinnock, the British Labour Party leader.
Shortly afterward, he was found to have suffered two aneurysms.
He is also, at least arguably, a Washington insider, having worked
there for so long, though he still commutes home to Wilmington every
night by train.
The choice by Mr. Obama in some ways mirrors the choice by Mr. Bush
of Dick Cheney as his running mate in 2000; at his age, it appears
unlikely that Mr. Biden would be in a position to run for president
should Mr. Obama win and serve two terms.
Shorn of any remaining ambition to run for president on his own, he
could find himself in a less complex political relationship with Mr.
Obama than most vice president have with their presidents. Mr. Biden was
born in Scranton, grew up in the suburbs of Wilmington, Del., and went
to Syracuse Law School. As a young man, he was in the center of a
gripping family drama: barely a month after he was elected to the
Senate, his wife and their three children were in a car accident with a
drunken driver resulted in the death of his wife and daughter.
His two sons survived and Mr. Biden remarried five years later.
- NY Times |
