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Friday, August 22, 2008

The VP Nominee is Joe B!

CNN is confirming that Barack Obama has offered the Democratic nomination for Vice President to Senator Joseph Biden, 65, D-Delaware. Biden has accepted.

From Wikipedia:
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Delaware. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and is currently serving his sixth term. Biden has served for the sixth-longest period among current Senators (fourth among Democrats) and is Delaware's longest-serving Senator. He is the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in the 110th Congress. Biden has served in that position in the past, and he has served as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election, but dropped out after the caucuses in Iowa on January 3, 2008.

On August 22, ABC News reported that the Secret Service had "dispatched a protective detail to assume the immediate protection" of Biden and that "in all likelihood, Biden has been officially notified that" he had been selected by presumptive Democratic nominee for president Barack Obama to be his running mate.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said:

Damn, you're fast!

August 22, 2008 9:47 PM  

Blogger Michael Higby said:

In 1987, Joe Biden ran as a Democratic presidential candidate, formally declaring his candidacy at the Wilmington train station on June 9, 1987. In Biden's speech, he challenged Americans to step beyond the materialism of the Reagan years. When the campaign began, Biden was considered a potentially strong candidate because of his moderate image, his supposed appeal to Baby Boomers, his fundraising appeal[23] (Biden's $1.7 million raised in the first quarter of 1987 was more than any other candidate, including the then front-runner, Gary Hart), his high profile position as chair of the Senate Judiciary committee during the Robert Bork confirmation hearings, and, perhaps above all, his soaring oratory. Biden often seemed to try to inspire the same hope and idealism assoicated with 1960s liberals such as Robert Kennedy, especially as related to civil rights. He received considerable attention in the summer of 1986 when he excoriated Secretary of State George Shultz at a Senate Hearing because of the Reagan administration's support of South Africa, which continued to support a system of Apartheid. By August 1987, however, Biden's campaign had already begun to lag behind those of Michael Dukakis and Richard Gephardt.[23]

Then in September 1987, the campaign ran into serious trouble when he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by Neil Kinnock, then-leader of the British Labour Party.[24] Though Biden had correctly credited the original author in all speeches but one, the one where he failed to make mention of the originator was caught on video.[25] Within days, it was also discovered that, while at Syracuse Law School, Biden had plagiarized a law review article in a class paper he wrote. Biden said the act was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and Biden was permitted to retake the course after receiving a grade of F in the course. Biden also released at the same time the record of his grades as an undergraduate which were C's and D's with the exception of two A's in physical education, one B in a course on English writers and an F in ROTC during his first three semesters. His grades improved later in his undergraduate career but were not exceptional.[26] Further, when questioned by a New Hampshire resident about his grades in law school Biden had claimed falsely to have graduated in the "top half" of his class, (when he actually graduated 76th in a class of 85) that he had attended on a full scholarship, and had received three degrees. In fact he had received a single B.A. in history and political science and had not received a full scholarship.[27]

Faced with these revelations, Biden withdrew from the nomination race on September 23, 1987, saying his candidacy had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his mistakes.[28] After Biden withdrew from the race it was learned that the Dukakis campaign had secretly made a video showcasing the Biden/Kinnock comparison and distributed it to news outlets. Dukakis fired John Sasso, his campaign manager and long-time Chief of Staff.[29][30]

August 22, 2008 9:48 PM  

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