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What Biden Brings to the Party

Delaware senator has what Barack lacks

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 23, 2008 7:51 AM CDT

(Newser) – Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as a running mate looks like fairly simple calculus, notes Massimo Calabres in Time: his strengths bolster Obama’s weak points. Biden has logged six terms in the Senate; he’s a foreign-policy expert; and he’s a Catholic popular with blue-collar white voters. Perhaps most importantly, he’s a political firebrand.

"Biden''s biggest edge in the homestretch may have come, paradoxically, from his greatest liability: his personality," Calabres writes. "Obama is charismatic, but in tough political confrontations he can be cautious and reserved. A running mate who can add passion to the coming battles, Biden has a fire-in-the-belly quality Obama lacks."

[Images (5)]

[Quotes (1)]

When it comes to politics, Biden is a fighter. (AP Photo/Greg Gibson)

Sen. Joe Biden, left, talks with Sen. Barack Obama prior to the start of the first Democratic presidential primary debate of the 2008 election April 26, 2007. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Sen. Barack Obama huddles with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden on Capitol Hill in this Jan. 31, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., speaks with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., at the Sisters on Target banquet in Des Moines, Iowa, in this Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/Kevin Sanders)

In this Dec. 13, 1972 file photo, the newly-elected Democratic senator from Delaware, Joe Biden, is shown in Washington. (AP Photo)

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Where Obama is reserved and cautious in a political knife-fight, Biden comes out swinging. Tapping Biden is a signal that the Obama campaign is ready for a battle — and to take the risks that come with it. - Massimo Calabres

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What Biden Brings to the Party