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Obama chooses veteran Biden as running mate

US Democratic Senator Joe Biden of Delaware addresses the 75th winter meeting of the US Conference of Mayors in Washington on Jan. 24 last year. PHOTO: AFP

Democratic presidential candidate 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 for November’s election 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 e-mail 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 e-mail. “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 were expected to appear together for their first rally after 3pm in Springfield, Illinois, president Abraham Lincoln’s hometown where Obama began his White House quest in February last year.

Biden was then likely to join Obama on a tour of four states to the west before ending up in Denver, Colorado, for the coming week’s Democratic convention. He will speak on Wednesday, followed by Obama on Thursday.

The official campaign Web site already read “Obama-Biden” and it invited supporters to send a welcome note to Biden, who is a hugely experienced Washington insider, having entered Congress at the age of 29 in 1972.

The chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations committee has twice run for the presidency himself, including a shot at the Democratic nomination this time around 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.

But in turning to the loquacious and pugnacious 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.

In snubbing Clinton for the VP slot, Obama has calculated that Biden can do as much to reach out to those voters without the need to bring the political baggage of the former first lady and her husband Bill on board his campaign.

Obama had said last 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 length of experience could also detract from Obama’s promise to sweep away the Washington old guard and Biden 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.”
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