(NOTE: This article originally appeared in the October 8, 2008 edition of Central Michigan Life.)
While he’s not considered the most well-known or flashiest candidate, Joe Biden may be the best-suited Democrat to serve as vice president.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born Nov. 20, 1942 in Scranton, Pa., and is currently serving his sixth term as a Delaware U.S. Senator.
When Biden took office in January 1973, he became the fifth youngest senator in United States history. And with 36 years in the Senate, he now is the sixth-most senior member of the Senate.
Early political career
Biden’s rise to the Democratic vice presidential nomination and to being one of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate almost did not happen.
On Dec. 18, 1972, just weeks after his election to the Senate but before being sworn in, the Biden family station wagon – which was carrying Biden’s wife, Neilia; his one-year old daughter, Naomi; and his sons, Beau and Robert – was involved in an automobile accident.
The accident killed his wife and daughter and severely injured both of his sons. Joe Biden had to be talked into not resigning his Senate seat before ever accepting it. He took the Senate’s oath of office from beside his son’s hospital beds.
In a campaign where Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been constantly criticized for his lack of experience, Biden is the Obama campaign’s answer to their critics. Biden currently serves as chairman of Senate Foreign Relations committee and has been the senior Democrat on the committee since 1997.
Biden currently serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he was chairman from 1987 to 1995.
Vice Presidential nomination
His foreign policy experience is what makes Biden the most attractive candidate for Farmington Hills sophomore Nick George.
“Biden is the best possible choice Obama could have made to run as vice president on the Democratic ticket,” George said. “His political and foreign policy experience supports Obama’s campaign and shows that he is competent and ready for the job.”
Biden is no stranger to presidential politics. He has unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in both 1988 and 2008, both times failing to win a single primary contest. Many thought Obama’s primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., was the likely pick in an effort to unite a Democratic Party that had endured a long and divisive nominating process.
If one thing can be said about Obama’s selection of Biden, it is that he did not do it for the electoral votes of Biden’s home state. Delaware has only three electoral votes and has not voted for a Republican candidate since 1988.
Issues
Biden is pro-choice and publicly supports Roe v. Wade, though has voted in favor of banning “partial-birth abortions” in situations that do not endanger the health of the mother and opposes federal funding for abortion. Biden voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which was signed into law in 1996 by then President Bill Clinton and defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.
He voted against a Constitutional Amendment in 2004 that would have banned same-sex marriage, and he supports states’ rights to establish civil unions between same-sex couples. The National Journal rates Biden’s career voting record as 77.5 percent liberal, which places Biden in the ideological center of Senate Democrats, according to the Journal.
Biden’s bid for the vice president is not the only race in which he is a candidate in 2008. Biden is also seeking reelection to the Senate for a seventh term, against Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell. If Biden were to win both, he would be forced to resign from the Senate before he could be sworn in as vice president.
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