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Biden: Obama's ambassador
13/10/2008 15:24 - (SA)
Scranton, Pennsylvania - Democrat Joseph Biden has worked tirelessly since becoming vice presidential pick to rally blue collar voters behind Barack Obama, a task made ever easier by the financial crisis.
When Biden, 65, a veteran senator from Delaware, was unveiled as Obama's choice for running mate in late August, analysts agreed he would prove a valuable ambassador for the Democratic ticket to connect with American workers.
In contrast to Obama, Biden is wedded to his white working class roots.
An Irish Catholic, he grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a former steel and mining town long-affected by industrial decline in the second half of the 20th century.
Speaking at an Obama campaign rally in Scranton on Sunday with his wife, Jill, and the Democratic heavy hitters Bill and Hillary Clinton, Biden told cheering throngs of supporters that it was "good to be home".
The November 4 election, Biden said, is the most important election in generations.
"In 23 days, nothing less than our prosperity and our security is on the ballot," he said.
Thick-skinned western Pennsylvania roots
Biden also relayed his thick-skinned western Pennsylvania roots to the crowd as he spoke about the recent spate of attacks from the campaign of Republican rival John McCain.
"Don't be distracted," Biden said. "These attacks don't hurt me, they don't hurt Barack Obama. They hurt the American people."
The Obama-Biden ticket, Biden said, "measure progress based in terms that I learned here in Scranton, in terms of dignity and respect".
"Dignity and respect for the middle class, people who work like hell to provide for themselves and their family."
A Roman Catholic, with a no-nonsense style, and an appeal to traditional grass roots Democrats, he appeals strongly to those working class voters with whom Obama has had a hard time connecting.
During the primary campaign, the blue collar voters rallied more strongly behind New York Senator Hillary Clinton, and not the Hawaii-born, Indonesia-raised Obama, who was viewed with some suspicion.
As chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Biden has met many of the leading actors on the world stage, and is an outspoken critic of the current administration's foreign policy.
Toned down
Although somewhat of an unknown quantity, he has tried hard to tone down his notoriously long winded speaking style and has managed to mostly steer clear of the verbal gaffes for which he is notorious while on the campaign trail.
The young Biden moved to Delaware at age 10 when his father relocated in search of employment.
On the campaign trail the senator does not hesitate to reflect on his childhood with stories culled from the streets on Scranton, which at times he had to walk barefoot as his family was so poor.
Growing up he was also hampered by a debilitating stutter, which was so bad that he was cruelly nick-named "Dash".
Biden has a compelling life story to match that of Obama - his years in the Senate have been tinged by tragedy and he has recovered from two brain aneurysms.
He has commuted to Washington daily by train from Delaware since the death of his first wife and infant daughter in a car crash just before Christmas 1972.
The crash left his two young sons badly injured, and Biden took his oath of office at their hospital bedside. Now although he rarely speaks in public about the tragedy, he invariably chokes up with emotion at the painful memories.
Biden has managed to reconnect Obama with workers
The day after taking part in the vice presidential debate against his Republican rival Sarah Palin, Biden was home in Delaware taking part in a ceremony to mark the deployment of his oldest son, Beau, to Iraq.
But sometimes the portrayal of Biden as a simple man who takes the train home every night to his family and second wife Jill loses its ring of authenticity.
During the vice presidential debate, Biden invited voters to accompany him back to a specific Katie's restaurant in Wilmington, Delaware. The restaurant closed down many years ago though.
And Biden's family is more comfortably middle class than his rhetoric lets on: his grandfather was a US senator.
Further still, the New York Times recently reported Biden's house is large, located on a scenic lake, and valued at three million dollars.
When he was first tapped for the Democratic ticket, Biden acknowledged his strengths in Midwest states might not be enough, admitting Clinton "might have been a better pick".
But in the wake of the financial crisis, Biden has managed to reconnect Obama with workers on issues such as unemployment and house foreclosures.
Polls now consistently show Obama-Biden have a strong, and widening, margin among workers, notably in Pennsylvania. This lead will be hard for the Republican ticket to overcome in the little there is left.
- AFP
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US Elections Special Report
