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August 24, 2008
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack
Obama's selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his
running mate reached a pivotal point in a
secret meeting on the night of Aug. 6. Sen.
Biden was whisked into a Minneapolis hotel
room through a back entrance before Sen. Obama
left for his Hawaii vacation. They talked
one-on-one for 90 minutes. "It was spirited
and pragmatic," says one adviser who was
briefed.
The rendezvous
capped weeks of pitching by Biden advisers. It
culminated in Sen. Obama's formal announcement
by text message around 3 a.m. Saturday that
Sen. Biden was the choice, and led to the big
question that now looms over the choice: Will
a 35-year veteran of Washington help or hurt a
political newcomer running on a message of
"change"?
As a 2008
presidential candidate, Sen. Biden got less
than 1% of the delegates in the opening
January Iowa caucus, and dropped out of the
race quickly. But as a candidate to be Sen.
Obama's running mate, the veteran Delaware
senator outcampaigned rivals by successfully
arguing that his benefits outweighed some
considerable baggage.
When the Obama
campaign's vice-presidential vetters sought
financial statements, political speeches and
medical records, Sen. Biden's team turned the
grueling task into an opportunity to sell
their man. Their most obvious pitch was his
strong experience in foreign policy at a time
of crisis, one of Sen. Obama's biggest weak
spots with voters. Sen. Biden's foreign-policy
director traveled with Sen. Obama to Iraq and
Afghanistan during his overseas tour in late
July, giving the presidential contender a
close-up sense of the expertise the Biden
circle could provide.
But Biden allies
also labored hard to turn one of his potential
liabilities -- his long career in Washington
-- into a strength. Point one: Sen. Biden took
the train out of Washington almost every night
to go home to Delaware. Two: his humble roots,
as the son of a car dealer in Scranton, Pa., a
pivotal state for Democrats. Biden aides
pushed the idea that their man could help with
working-class whites who eluded Sen. Obama
during the primaries.
Team Biden also
showed some sharp elbows against rivals for
the No. 2 slot. When news surfaced that the
wife of another leading vice-presidential
contender, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, made nearly
$1 million a year on corporate boards, Biden
backers quickly pointed out to friends and
former colleagues in the Obama camp that Jill
Biden made far less working as a teacher.
Meanwhile,
backers of Sen. Bayh and Virginia Gov. Tim
Kaine also were trying to put the best light
on their candidates. Gov. Kaine's aides, for
example, pointed to YouTube videos showing him
firing up crowds in Spanish, reaching a key
demographic in a swing state. Sen. Bayh's
partisans emphasized stature in Indiana,
potentially another key state.
On Thursday Sen.
Obama went to a tiny compartment in the middle
of his campaign bus and called Sen. Bayh and
other contenders to tell them they weren't his
choice. He then reached Sen. Biden at the
dentist's office where his wife was having a
root canal to give him the good news.
When the two men
appeared together Saturday afternoon, Sen.
Obama explained his choice by invoking the
talking points that Sen. Biden's allies had
pushed during the vetting process. "Joe Biden
is that rare mix," Sen. Obama told the crowd.
"For decades, he has brought change to
Washington, but Washington hasn't changed
him."
Republicans now
are quickly trying to tear that logic apart.
They're painting Sen. Biden as an old-style
insider, with longstanding ties to trial
lawyers and lobbyists and a taste for
pork-barrel spending, which their nominee,
Sen. John McCain, has opposed.
The pairing of
the two Democratic senators against Sen.
McCain carries some ironies. Sens. Biden and
Obama rarely have crossed paths in the Senate,
aside from Sen. Obama's presence on the
Foreign Relations Committee, where Sen. Biden
is chairman. Sens. Biden and McCain have
worked frequently together, and have much more
in common.
Each is a
foreign-policy heavyweight in the Senate and
has shown a special interest in Eastern
European affairs. In 2005, the pair worked
together on behalf of Kyrgyzstan and Moldova,
according to McCain Senate records. Sen.
McCain and Sen. Biden were co-authors of the
McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution in 1999 that
would have authorized President Bill Clinton
to use "all necessary force" to resolve the
conflict.
Sen. Biden and
Sen. McCain have acknowledged each other as
friends and on Saturday, they continued to
speak fondly of each other -- in between
attacks. "I've known John for 35 years, he
served our country with extraordinary
courage," Sen. Biden said during his
introduction rally in Springfield, Ill. "I
know he wants to do right by America."
At the same
event, Sen. Biden nevertheless got personal,
making fun of Sen. McCain's several homes --
saying that in contrast to how he and many
voters sit at their kitchen table to figure
out how to pay the household bills, Sen.
McCain will "have to figure out which of the
seven kitchen tables to sit at."
"Joe and I have
been friends for many, many years, and we know
each other very well," Sen. McCain told CBS
News over the weekend.
There are few
outward signs of Sens. Obama and Biden having
been close as colleagues. They give one
another scarce attention in their memoirs,
"The Audacity of Hope," by Sen. Obama, and
"Promises to Keep," by Sen. Biden.
While their
debate exchanges early in the primary campaign
were mostly friendly, Sen. Biden did draw
attention to Sen. Obama's limited
foreign-policy credentials, in comments which
Republicans have been swift to repeat. Sen.
Biden characterized the junior senator as a
"Johnny-come-lately" on Afghanistan, and
praised him for having adopted Sen. Biden's
own ideas.
In another quote
from the primary race quickly picked up by the
McCain campaign for a national commercial,
Sen. Biden called Sen. Obama "not ready" for
the presidency -- exactly the theme the McCain
camp increasingly has been striking.
Sen. Biden
proved to be a vocal campaigner for Sen. Obama
once he became the party's presumptive nominee
in June. When Republicans criticized Sen.
Obama last month for not holding any hearings
on Afghanistan in his Foreign Relations
subcommittee on the region, Sen. Biden stepped
in to defend his colleague, saying that as
chairman of the full committee, he had made a
policy of holding those hearings himself.
Both men usually
have voted the same way on issues which have
divided Senate Democrats in the last two
Congresses: in favor of immigration reform,
against the Central American Free Trade
Agreement and for tougher ethics rules. But in
the past year they have differed over key
votes on whether to withhold funding for the
war in Iraq -- Sen. Obama voted against
funding, Sen. Biden voted for it -- and the
renewal of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, which Sen. Obama eventually
supported, and Sen. Biden remains against.
Sen. Obama riled
many in the left of the Democratic party in
July by voting for the renewal of FISA, which
authorized the National Security Agency's
secret wiretapping program and included
immunity for participating telephone
companies. Ahead of the vote on the bill, Sen.
Biden issued a press release attacking Sen.
John McCain for his support of the program,
though many Democrats also voted for it. In
the release, he said, "Like President Bush,
Sen. McCain is presenting the American people
with a false choice: national security or
civil liberties. We need a president who
understands that we can have both."
Sen. Biden may
provide his old friend Sen. McCain more fodder
for attacks. Sen. Biden is one of the least
wealthy members of the Senate and proudly
cites his working-class roots. But he's also
collected $6.5 million in campaign
contributions from lobbyists, lawyers and law
firms since 1989, according to the nonpartisan
Center for Responsive Politics. That includes
$214,000 from executives of former credit-card
giant MBNA, now a unit of Bank of America
Corp., the center said. He's been a strong
supporter of the home-state bank, backing a
tough bankruptcy bill in 2005 that was one of
MBNA's top legislative priorities. Mr. Obama
opposed the bill, and criticizes Mr. McCain's
support for it.
Vetting the Candidates
None of Sen.
Biden's vulnerabilities was likely a surprise
to the Obama team, which conducted a thorough
vetting of the candidates. The team, led by
Caroline Kennedy and ex-Justice Department
official Eric Holder, initially cast a wide
net, but in the end focused more on Sens.
Biden and Bayh and Gov. Kaine.
Sen. Obama
sought private meetings with the three. Sen.
Biden's turn came in Minneapolis in early
August, when Sen. Obama was there for a $1,000
a person fund-raiser. He had Sen. Biden sneak
into a downtown hotel through the back door.
In the meeting,
Sen. Biden argued that his longtime experience
of working between the legislative and
executive branches would "help carry out
Obama's agenda of change in a broken
Washington," one aide said. He also talked
about his family's modest roots in Scranton.
Four days later,
Sen. Obama left for his Hawaii vacation --
just as the Russian-Georgian fighting erupted.
When Sen. Biden was invited by the Georgian
president to visit and offer advice, "we
welcomed his going," one Obama aide said.
"That was fortuitously well-timed," one Biden
adviser said.
To this point in
mid-August, at least as much speculation was
focused on Sen. Bayh and Gov. Kaine as on Sen.
Biden. But when TV footage began airing that
showed Sen. Biden with Georgia President
Mikheil Saakashvili, Sen. Bayh confided to a
friend that this hurt his chances to become
the vice-presidential pick.
In Hawaii, Sen.
Obama was leaning toward Sen. Biden, though
aides say the crisis in Georgia wasn't
decisive. They say Sen. Obama was equally
drawn to Sen. Biden's compelling personal
story of highs and lows.
Within weeks of
his election in 1972, Sen. Biden's wife and
daughter were killed in a car crash, and his
two sons injured. He was sworn into office
from the hospital room of his sons, both of
whom have made a complete recovery. He has
since remarried and had a daughter.
Once Sen. Obama
had settled in his own mind on Sen. Biden, "he
wanted to see how the decision sat with him"
for a while, an aide says. Meanwhile the
guessing game was in full swing. Sen. Obama's
first stop after his Hawaiian vacation was an
event where both he and Sen. McCain were asked
questions by pastor Rick Warren, the
nationally popular evangelical minister and
author. The event showed that Sen. Obama's
cool and cerebral style could be trumped by
Sen. McCain's forceful directness.
For example,
when asked, "At what point does a baby have
human rights?" Sen. Obama responded, "That's
above my pay grade" and then talked about
"theological perspective," "scientific
perspective" and "specificity." Sen. McCain's
immediate answer: "At the moment of
conception." Some Biden advisers called
friends in the Obama camp, arguing that Sen.
Biden, a Roman Catholic and more senior than
Sen. McCain in the Senate, could be an
effective attack dog against Sen. McCain on a
range of issues.
When they were
quizzed in return about Sen. Biden's
proclivity to make gaffes and be verbose, a
Biden adviser had a ready comeback. "After
having a president for eight years who can't
go beyond talking points, it's a good thing
that Biden can dig into the issues, even if he
occasionally goes overboard," he said.
'Joe Being Joe'
When Sen. Biden
returned to the U.S. from his overseas trip to
Georgia and faced reporters waiting on his
driveway, he called out from his car, "I'm not
the one." That gave some Bayh supporters hope
until an email was circulated among Bayh
supporters, "That's just Joe being Joe, being
funny."
On Thursday,
Sen. Obama made campaign appearances in
Virginia with Gov. Kaine, then still
considered to be in the running. The two men
didn't discuss his decision, an aide said.
Later that
afternoon on his private campaign bus, Sen.
Obama told his aides, "It's time to make some
phone calls." After receiving his, Sen. Biden
informed his family, who began gathering -- in
the glare of TV lights -- at his Wilmington,
Del., home. He waited until the next evening
to tell his senior advisers that he needed
their help to write a speech -- to accept Sen.
Obama's offer to become his running mate.
*Monica
Langley at
monica.langley@wsj.com
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