Photograph of the Democratic ticket, Obama and Biden, taken last year at an AFL-CIO forum by Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has finally made his decision for his running mate and announced that he was selecting Senator Joseph Biden through a series of text messages that went out after 3:00 a.m. An e-mail--from Obama "himself"--later followed, saying, "I have some important news that I want to make official. I've chosen Joe Biden to be my running mate. Joe and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois -- the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago." (And then Obama asks for help with his campaign.)
Naturally, Joe Biden's personal website--www.joebiden.com--now directs to the Barack Obama website's page about the announcement. Of course, the cat seemed out of the bag when ABC News reported a Secret Service detail was stationed outside Biden's home in Delaware last night.
Biden had been on the apparently VP shortlist, but, as CNN reports, "the buzz surrounding him intensified after he returned earlier this week from a two-day trip to the Republic of Georgia after Russian troops invaded." A U.S. Senator since 1972 (he was 30 at the time), Biden brings the foreign policy and overall longtime political experience that Obama's critics have said the candidate lacks. The NY Times explains:
It reflected a critical strategic choice by Mr. Obama: To go with a running mate who could reassure voters about gaps in his résumé, 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.
The Washington Post points out Biden "has shown on numerous occasions a difficulty in maintaining the kind of message discipline at which Obama has excelled" and then brings up his remarks that Obama was "the first mainstream African American [presidential candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain has already come out swinging, by issuing a new ad that takes advantage of Biden's earlier criticism of Obama and flattering remarks Biden made about McCain. (Video after the jump)
