Biden choice reflects Obama campaign refocus

updated 1:46 p.m. ET Aug. 24, 2008

DENVER - Democrat Barack Obama got what he may need most when he chose Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate — a vice presidential candidate with encyclopedic foreign policy know-how and a political brawler ready to take on Republican John McCain's frontal assault on his opponent's newness on the national stage.

Through the month of August — in the days leading up to the national party conventions — McCain whittled away at Obama's slight lead in the polls with relentless attacks designed to paint the first-term Illinois senator as an inexperienced celebrity-seeking elitist not ready for the White House.

While the 47-year-old Obama fought back blow-for-blow and even adopted some negative tactics himself, his campaign has not adopted the kind of visceral sharpness he is facing from McCain's operation.

It will be hard to imagine Biden, who is 65, being as low-key as was Obama after McCain charged his opponent this summer with being ready to lose the Iraq war for the sake of winning the presidential election. Obama has sought, as he can, to moderate his responses — some say to avoid looking like an angry black man in an election contest that could put the first African American in the U.S. presidency.

Biden ready for battle
Biden, a working-class Irish Catholic with 35-years in the legislative cauldron of the U.S. Senate, shows none of Obama's reticence to go for the jugular.

Fresh from introducing Biden, Obama set his sights on the battleground states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Montana before he accepts the nomination on Thursday at a football stadium in Denver. The Democratic National Convention begins on Monday with speakers including Obama's wife, Michelle, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a video tribute to liberal icon Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling a malignant brain tumor.

Biden returned to Delaware after the ticket's first joint appearance Saturday in Springfield, Illinois, where Obama had begun his campaign in February 2007. Obama on Sunday headed to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a city of 65,000 about 85 miles east of St. Paul, Minnesota, site of the Republican convention which begins Sept. 1. He was expected to discuss ways to stimulate the economy and help middle-class families.

In introducing Biden as his running mate, Obama called him a man who is "ready to step in and be president." And, in a clear shot at McCain, added that the Delaware senator is "what many others pretend to be — a statesman with sound judgment who doesn't have to hide behind bluster to keep America strong."

Biden then took the microphone and showed his stuff, recalling McCain's recent inability to say how many homes he owns even as Americans are struggling not to lose theirs to mortgage bankers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine. You sit there at night ... after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's not a worry John McCain has to worry about. ... He'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at," Biden said.

No significant lead in the polls
Even though most polls predict Democrats making notable gains this year in Congress — given the unpopularity of President George W. Bush and Republican scandals — Obama has been unable, so far, to open a significant lead as the Democratic National Convention opens here Monday.

While he displayed phenomenal political skills, rocketing from the Illinois state legislature to his party's presidential nomination in four years, Democratic insiders believe that many Americans still feel they do not really know him.

Biden was clearly chosen over lesser-known Democrats to plug holes in Obama's relatively thin resume on the national political scene and to blunt McCain's relentless attacks on his lack of experience at a time when the United States is fighting two wars. McCain has also benefited from concerns raised by Russia's recent invasion of Georgia.

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