Obama picks Biden for veep, insiders say

Sen. Barack Obama has chosen Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware to be his running mate, turning to a leading authority on foreign policy and a longtime Washington hand to fill out the Democratic ticket, said officials informed of the decision.

Obama's selection ended a two-month search that was conducted almost entirely in secret. It reflected a critical strategic choice by Obama: to go with a running mate who could reassure voters about gaps in his resume, rather than pick someone who could deliver a state or reinforce Obama's message of change.

Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world. Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq - Obama opposed it from the start - Biden became a persistent critic of President Bush's policies in Iraq.

The selection was disclosed as Obama moves into a critical part of his campaign, preparing for the party's four-day convention in Denver starting Monday.

Obama's aides viewed the introduction of his vice presidential choice - including an afternoon rally today at the old state Capitol in Springfield, Ill., the same place where Obama announced his candidacy on a freezing winter morning almost two years ago, and a tour of swing states - as the beginning of a weeklong stretch in which Obama hopes to dominate the stage and position himself for the fall campaign.

Word of Obama's decision leaked to the Associated Press and the New York Times hours before his campaign was scheduled to inform supporters via text and e-mail messages and hours after informing two other top contenders for the vice presidential nomination - Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia - that they had not been chosen.

As the selection process moved to an end, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, whom Obama had defeated in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, had slipped out of contention - to the degree that Obama had ever seriously considered her.

Biden is Roman Catholic, giving him appeal to that important voting bloc, though he favors abortion rights. He was born in a working-class family in Scranton, Pa., a swing state where he remains well-known. Biden is up for re-election to the Senate this year and he would presumably run simultaneously for both seats.

Biden is known for being both talkative and prone to making the kind of statements that get him in trouble. In 2007, when he was competing with Obama for the presidential nomination, he declared that Obama was "not yet ready" for the presidency, a line certain to show up in Republican attack ads.

Although Biden is not exactly a household name, he is probably the best-known of all the Democrats who were in contention for running mate, given his political and personal history (not to mention his regular appearances on the Sunday morning television news shows). He first ran for the Senate from Delaware when he was 29 years old.

Biden has run twice for the presidency himself, once in 1988 and again in 2008, dropping out early in both cases. He was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during two of the most contentious Supreme Court nomination battles of the past 50 years: the confirmation proceedings for Robert Bork, who was defeated, and Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed after an explosive hearing in which Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment. Biden led the opposition to both nominations, although he came under criticism from some feminists for not immediately disclosing what were at first closed-door accusations by Hill against Thomas.

At age 65, Biden adds a few years and gray hair to a ticket that otherwise might seem a bit young (Obama is 47). He is, as Obama's advisers were quick to argue, someone who appears by every measure prepared to take over as president, setting a standard that appears intended to at least somewhat hamstring McCain should he be tempted to go for a more adventurous choice for No. 2.

Biden grew up in the suburbs of Wilmington, Del., and went to Syracuse Law School. He also was, as a young man, in the center of a gripping family drama: Barely a month after he was elected to the Senate, his wife and their three children were in a car accident with a drunken driver that resulted in the death of his wife and daughter. His two sons survived, and Biden remarried five years later.