CHICAGO: Barack Obama yesterday named veteran Senate colleague Joseph Biden as his vice presidential running mate, adding foreign policy heft - but also a loose tongue - to his ticket in the battle against Republican John McCain. After hours of media leaks, the 47-year-old Democratic White House hopeful confirmed that he was picking the Delaware senator, 65, in an early-hours email and text message sent out to millions of signed-up supporters.
I've chosen Joe Biden to be my running mate," Obama said in the email. "I'm excited about hitting the campaign trail with Joe, but the two of us can't do this alone. We need your help to keep building this movement for change." The new running mates later appeared together for their first rally in Springfield, Illinois, president Abraham Lincoln's hometown where Obama began his White House quest in February 2007.
Above all I searched for a leader who is ready to step in and be president. Today I have come back to Springfield to tell you I have found that leader," Obama told a cheering crowd at the rally in Illinois. "A man with a distinguished record, a man with fundamental decency, and that man is Joe Biden." Thousands of newly printed signs bearing the words Obama/Biden sprouted in the crowd, waiting in anticipation in 32-degree Celsius temperatures. Obama then brought Biden on stage with his rousing introductio n to the strains of Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising". The newly named running mate moved center stage in shirt-sleeves at a brisk 65-year-old man's trot, embracing Obama. "I'm glad to be here," he said.
Biden was then likely to join Obama on a tour of four states to the west before ending up in Denver for the coming week's Democratic convention. He will speak on Wednesday, followed by Obama on Thursday. The official campaign website already read "Obama-Biden" and it invited supporters to send a welcome note to Biden, an experienced Washington insider first elected to Congress in 1972 at the age of 29.
The chairman of the Senate's foreign relations committee has twice run for the presidency himself, including a shot at the Democratic nomination when he had some unflattering things to say about Obama's inexperience. "There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama's lack of experience than Joe Biden," McCain spokesman Ben Porritt said in a statement. "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," he said.
In turning to Biden, Obama is banking that the veteran's expertise on national security will blunt McCain's attacks and that his personal background will keep wavering Democrats in the fold. A Catholic native of Pennsylvania, Biden brings appeal to the kind of working-class voters with whom the African-American Obama has struggled to connect, and who backed his primary rival Hillary Clinton. Obama calculated that Biden can do as much to reach out to those voters without needing to handle the political bagg age of the former first lady and her husband Bill.
Hillary Clinton quickly supported the move, saying in a statement that Obama "has continued in the best traditions for the vice presidency by selecting an exceptionally strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant. "Senator Biden will be a purposeful and dynamic vice president who will help Senator Obama both win the presidency and govern this great country," Clinton said.
Obama had said this week that he was looking for a principled running mate who was unafraid to speak his mind and tell his boss if policy was veering off-track. Biden fits that bill. But Biden's long experience could also detract from Obama's promise to sweep away the Washington old guard. Biden also has a long record of verbal missteps. Launching his ill-fated shot at the Democratic nomination last year, he said of Obama: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.
Biden apologized and Obama said he took no offence, but the Delaware senator then went on to make another remark that has already become fodder for Republican attacks. Ahead of a debate among the Democratic presidential contenders, he had said Obama "can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training." At the debate in Iowa, he said: "I think I stand by the statement.
Biden emerged on top after Obama reportedly broke the news to two other leading contenders - Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine - that they were no longer under consideration. Obama's campaign had promised to release the VP pick in an electronic blizzard to registered supporters, but that plan was trumped by leaks to the media.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll out yesterday suggested that the choice of Biden would not shake up the tight presidential race. Three-quarters of those polled just before Obama chose Biden said the choice would not sway their votes one way or the other. The Biden choice will feed into McCain's decision-making as he prepares to announce his own VP pick late next week, just before the Republican convention in Minneapolis-St Paul. Two front-runners for the 71-year-old Arizona senator are former Massachusett s governor Mitt Romney and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. - AFP
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