Obama says VP pick Biden 'ready to step in'

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The Obama-Biden rally was taking place at the old state Capitol in Springfield, where the Illinois senator kicked off his presidential campaign nearly 20 months ago. The two candidates will be be joined by Obama’s wife, Michelle; Biden’s wife, Jill; and the Bidens’ three adult children.

Biden, who has served in the Senate since being elected at the age of 29, is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

In recent years, Biden has traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan two times and to Iraq eight times. He returned Monday from a fact-finding trip to Georgia.

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Biden's straightforward style and working-class Catholic roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania, were also expected to help Obama appeal to middle- and working-class voters in battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania who favored Clinton in the primaries.

The Democratic National Convention opens on Monday in Denver and will formally anoint Obama as the party's presidential nominee and confirm Biden as his running mate later in the week.

McCain called Biden, his longtime Senate colleague and friend, to congratulate him, McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said. "It was a brief conversation. They've known each other for years," he said.

But McCain's campaign wasted no time trying to turn the selection to Obama's disadvantage.

It quickly produced a television ad featuring Biden's previous praise for McCain and comments critical of Obama. In an ABC News television interview last year, Biden had said he stood by an earlier statement that Obama was not yet ready to be president and "the presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."

"There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama's lack of experience than Joe Biden," McCain campaign 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."

Some of Biden's Republican colleagues in the Senate praised the Delaware Democrat, including Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska called Biden "the right partner for Barack Obama" and the decision "good news for Obama and America."

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