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WASHINGTON (AP) – — Joe Biden has lived a life of second chances, a cycle that’s been cruel and redemptive by turns. Now he’s starting over once again.
Deeply private yet in-your-face, collegial yet ideological, the Delaware senator brings a wealth of foreign policy experience to Barack Obama’s Democratic ticket, plus wisdom in the ways of Washington and an infectious enthusiasm for political donnybrooks.
He adds suspense, too, over the question of when – not if – he’ll put his foot in his mouth. Biden’s agile mind comes with a loose tongue that cannot always be properly restrained.
Back in his hometown of Scranton, Pa., Biden’s Catholic schoolmates nicknamed him Dash because he stuttered so much his speech sounded like Morse Code. Biden overcame that rip at his confidence, smoothed his talk and doesn’t seem to have quieted down since.
The strongest sign that Obama was seriously considering Biden for his running mate, despite some differences over national security, energy and more in their voting records, was Biden’s odd absence from the public in recent days. Normally he’s a sucker for a microphone.
And it was a sign of those Washington ways that when he told reporters, “I’m not the guy,’ no one believed him, just as no one believed him when he said of the vice presidential slot last year, “I would not accept it if anyone offered it to me.”
That’s how people talk in politics – a different sort of telegraphing code. And after more than a third of a century in Washington, and two short-lived presidential campaigns of his own, Biden has it down pat.
He came to Washington as a wunderkind, elected to the Senate in 1972 at age 29 – the earliest possible age – and just meeting the rule that one must be 30 when sworn in. The knock against him used to be that he was more sizzle than steak, articulate but perhaps not all that deep.
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