Obama Introduces Biden as Running Mate

“ Barack Obama sounded as though he turned over the top spot on the ticket today to his new mentor, when he introduced Joe Biden as the next president. The reality is that nothing has changed since Joe Biden first made his assessment that Barack Obama is not ready to lead,” McCain spokesman Ben Porritt said.

For his part, Biden went after McCain’s support of President Bush’s policies, including the Iraq war.

But Obama and Biden have not always seen eye-to-eye on Iraq, either. Biden voted for the resolution authorizing the use of force while Obama spoke against it, and Obama opposes Biden’s plan for dividing the nation into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions. But Biden’s criticism of the administration’s handling of the war has been fierce for most of the war’s duration.

His deep understanding of foreign affairs — and an approach that emphasizes both diplomacy and a strong military — could appeal to some independent voters. Like Obama, Biden did not serve in the military.

On the domestic front, Biden’s working-class Catholic background — he likes to tell the story of wearing nut-and-bolt cufflinks as a kid because he didn’t have fancier fasteners — could appeal to the working-class, white voters Obama had trouble recruiting during the Democratic primaries. Biden’s faith and his longtime support for more liberal immigration laws could appeal to Hispanic voters. Biden also has a long record, dating at least as far back as 1987, of opposing shipments of nuclear waste to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, a stance that could give Obama a boost in one of the most closely contested swing states.

Biden has diverged from liberal Democratic orthodoxy at times. For example, he supports some restrictions on abortion, has advocated for pushing welfare responsibilities down to the states, and can be a reliable vote for the financial services industry, which has a large presence in Delaware. Those differences will be seen as a strength among some voters, but also might put Biden at odds with influential blocs within the party.

First elected to the Senate just before his 30th birthday in 1972, Biden’s centrist tendencies on both foreign and domestic policy have been overshadowed at times by his fierce opposition to certain Supreme Court nominees and by two bids for the Democratic presidential nomination.

As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Biden led the successful Democratic charge against Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Robert H. Bork in 1987 but failed to derail Clarence Thomas ’ ascension to the high court four years later. His high-profile defense of civil rights and the Supreme Court’s abortion decision on Roe v. Wade, among other issues, gained him the trust of liberal interest groups. So has his support for most gun control measures, including the expired assault-weapons ban.

Though he has generally won high marks from civil rights groups, Biden was a virulent opponent of court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a divisive topic in Wilmington after the Supreme Court intervened to require a busing-based integration plan there. His sponsorship of amendments intended to curtail federal spending on busing plans — and to limit the court’s authority to implement such measures — aligned him with segregationists such as South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond and Mississippi Democrat John C. Stennis.

Lately, his voting record has shifted leftward. The 100 percent ratings he received from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action in 2005 and 2006 were a far cry from the 50 percent he received in 1978 and the 53 percent he got in 1979.

His support for the Roe v. Wade decision does not extend to opposing all abortion restrictions. He voted in favor of outlawing a late-term abortion procedure opponents refer to as “partial birth” abortion, and he backed legislation preventing federal funding for abortion.

At times, Biden has been an ardent free trader, backing fast track authority for presidents of both parties and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which remains a sore point for labor unions. However, he voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005.

Biden has demonstrated through his criticism of Supreme Court nominees and the administration’s execution of the Iraq war that he can deliver the kinds of attacks that vice presidential nominees typically launch against the opposition — so the party’s presidential nominee can appear to be above the partisan fray.

Obama Introduces Biden as Running Mate

But Biden’s storied loquaciousness has a tendency to get him in trouble, as it did in early 2007 when he described Obama’s candidacy by calling him the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

He has spent much of this year proving he can be an effective surrogate for Obama on the television talk show circuit, showing atypical reserve in discussing — or not discussing — his prospects for getting the vice-presidential nomination.

“I’m not the guy,” he told reporters Tuesday.

His 2008 presidential campaign did not make it much further than a brief bid in 1988 that ended after he was accused of plagiarism for repeating parts of a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock without attribution. In previous deliveries, Biden had credited Kinnock.

Biden also is one of the many lawmakers who have family members that make their living as Washington lobbyists. One of Biden’s sons R. Hunter Biden is a name partner at the firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair and is vice chairman of Amtrak’s board of directors. Biden’s other son, Joseph R. “Beau” Biden III, is Delaware’s attorney general and recently found out that he is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq later this year as a military lawyer with his unit in Delaware’s Army National Guard.