Just days before the Democratic Convention in Denver gets underway, Barack Obama has bitten the bullet and selected Joe Biden, the six-term senator from Delaware, as his running mate. The selection of the 65-year-old Biden ends weeks of speculation over the number two spot on the ticket and confirmed there is no place for Hillary Clinton.

The likeable Biden brings to the ticket a wealth of experience, especially in foreign policy in his current capacity as chairman of the influential Foreign Relations Committee. However more important to Obama's presidential ambitions, he has broad white working-class voter appeal. It also does not hurt that Biden was born in Pennyslvania, a vital swing state.

In selecting Biden, Obama has signaled clearly what this week's Democratic National Convention will be about: He intends to move aggressively to ease the problems that have worried so many Democrats in recent weeks -- problems, it turns out, that Obama is worried about, too.

One of them concerns the limits of Obama's appeal to the white working class. Biden's unveiling was one long ode to line workers, cops and firefighters, to hard work and struggling families, to shuttered steel mills and lost manufacturing jobs. [source]

Overseas the reaction has been generally muted, though supportive. The Financial Times has described Biden as a safe pair of hands with the message to voters that he will be a moderating influence on the Democratic campaign.

Mr Biden is a decades-in-Congress senator from Delaware, a reliably Democratic state, and one of the best-known politicians in the US. He brings no electoral-college dowry, and injects no great surge of excitement into the race. He signals instead a moderate course adjustment, and bolsters the Obama candidacy where it most needs support.[source]

So was the choice of Biden an attempt to shore up Obama's vote in areas where he is vulnerable? The Illinois senator, at one stage leading steadily in the opinion polls, has slipped in recent weeks in the aftermath of the Georgian crisis giving Republican McCain a slender advantage. Though other factors may have been involved, many pundits are positing that Americans took another look at the inexperienced senator in the wake of renewed Russian aggression in the Caucasus and didn't like what they saw.

Obama's seemingly more cautious and diplomatic tone contrasted with McCain's clever and opportunist sabre-rattling against old foe Russia which appears to have hit a chord with voters. The selection of the experienced and mature Biden seems to have been made partly to offset McCain's perceived advantages in these areas. His broad appeal to working-class white voters, whose support is essential if Obama is to become president, may also neutralise the losses Obama will make by not selecting Hillary Clinton as running mate.

But is the selection of Biden an admission that the inexperienced Obama is not ready to be president, as contended by the McCain camp? Though Biden brings a lot of positive qualities to the ticket, his selection does seem to be made for the wrong reasons -- to plug leaking holes in the Obama campaign. There are also some risks associated with the Biden nomination, how his Catholicism will play in the wider voting community and the fact that the country's south is not represented on the ticket.

With all the colour and movement of the fair (Democratic Convention) about to get underway, expect Obama/Biden to throw the switch to "it's the economy stupid" and concentrate more on the economy and those vital but elusive white, working class voters.

For a taster, here's an excerpt of Biden's acceptance speech:

"Your kitchen table's like mine," Biden said. "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're worried about being able to pay the bills. But ladies and gentlemen, that's not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It's a pretty hard experience -- he'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at...He [McCain] served our country with extraordinary courage, and I know he wants to do right by America," Biden said of McCain. "But the hard truth is ... you can't change America when you supported George Bush's policies 95 percent of the time." [source]

Your thoughts?

Image top: Senator Joe Biden. Credit: U.S. Congress

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