Smita Mishra
Senior US Senator from Delaware, Joseph Robinette Biden is the Democratic Party’s Vice Presidential candidate and Barack Obama’s running mate for 2008 election.
Having served as the chairman of Foreign Relations Committee in the past, Biden is holding the same position in the current Congress. Biden is Delaware’s longest serving senator and has served for the sixth longest period among all the current senators.
Born in Pennsylvania and having spent the major part of his life in Delaware, Biden got trained as an attorney and was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and became one of the youngest senators in US history. He was reelected to the Senate in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996 and 2002.
Biden was one of the voices that strongly supported the US intervention in the Bosnian war. He also voted in favour of Iraq war resolution but wanted some modifications in Bushes’ policy. He however had campaigned on withdrawal from Vietnam.
Just a few weeks after he won the 1972 Senate election, he lost his wife and one and a
half year old daughter to a fatal accident. He remained a single father to his two sons for almost five years.
In 1988 he had unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination. He again ran in 2008 but had to withdraw from caucuses from Iowa.
Biden’s experience, life of pain and sacrifice, his middle class roots may attract huge support from the working classes whose votes Obama may fail to manage.
A sworn supporter of India Biden has throughout voiced his support in favour of the Indo-US Nuke deal. In 2006 also he had played a significant role in the Congressional approval of the Hyde Act. He has throughout supported Bush building a strong diplomatic relation with India. He was a strong critic of the economic sanctions imposed on India after the 1998 nuclear tests.
