Obama-Biden Could Be the Ticket

Joe Biden, the Delaware senator who sputtered out of the primaries in Iowa, may be the ideal VP for Barack Obama, writes Walter Shapiro in Slate. The 65-year-old chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee has international policy cred, a son heading to Iraq, a pull with Catholic voters, a "just-plain-Joe political style," and a compelling personal story—his wife and daughter died in a car crash in 1972.

"In choosing a vice president, you want somebody who can be on the campaign trail day after day, taking the pressure off the candidate," says a former DNC chair. "One of the things that this campaign showed is that Joe Biden is a good retail politician."  And Biden's proposal to divide Iraq into three regions—Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish—may appeal to Obama as he looks for a reasonable resolution of the war. Biden has said he will "of course...say yes" to the VP spot if asked. (More Joe Biden stories.)