What Biden Could Do for Obama

As the short list dwindles down and Republican attacks heat up, the arguments for Joe Biden as Barack Obama's running mate strengthen.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine is the flavor of the week in the media frenzy, but with less than three years in the position and no international experience, his choice would only underscore voter doubts about Obama's readiness to be president.

It is more than Biden's years in the Senate that recommend him. During the Democratic primary debates, the phrase "Joe is right" was heard so often that it became the theme of his ultimately failed campaign.

Since he entered the Senate in 1973 at the age of 30, Biden has embodied the kind of brains, character and compassion that national politics should have but rarely gets. Now, at 65, he would bring to Obama's ticket the good judgment and experience a change candidate needs to persuade wary voters that the best of the past would not be swept away in enthusiasm for the new.

Unlike Lyndon Johnson, who served that role for JFK in 1960, Biden has been no wheeler-dealer in the Senate but a champion of good causes now almost universally accepted--protection of women against domestic violence, a sane policy against drug abuse and, most of all, national security.

In 2001, he had doubts about Iraq yet eventually voted for the resolution but only, by Chuck Hagel's testimony, after working with Dick Lugar and others, in a bipartisan effort to limit the blank check the White House sought. Since then, he been in the forefront of efforts to limit US losses and end the disaster.

Perhaps most persuasive of all, Obama clearly respects Biden and would value him as a partner and, in the quest to convince the candidate's most elusive demographic--the white working class--the Delaware Senator's blue-collar, Catholic background would be a strong asset.

The Most Superdelegate of All?

A 90-year-old man may turn out to be a swing vote for the Democratic nomination. Robert Byrd is President Pro Tempore of the Senate, third in line of presidential succession behind Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi.

Tomorrow, if the polls are right, Hillary Clinton will defeat Barack Obama in his home state of West Virginia by more than 2 to 1, and in the past year, she has been wooing Byrd by cosponsoring with him a vain resolution to "deauthorize" the war in Iraq.

As a superdelegate, Sen. Byrd has not declared a preference as yet, but his choice may depend on how well his memory serves him.

In October 2002, he passionately opposed giving George W. Bush a blank check to invade Iraq, but Hillary Clinton took the Senate floor to disagree, "from the perspective of a Senator from New York who has seen all too closely the consequences of last year's terrible attacks on our Nation. In balancing the risks of action versus inaction, I think New Yorkers, who have gone through the fires of hell, may be more attuned to the risk of not acting. I know I am.

"So it is with conviction that I support this resolution as being in the best interests of our Nation."

The following March, just before bombs began falling in Baghdad, Byrd told the Senate chamber, "(T)oday I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart...We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance...There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11."

John McCain rose to disagree, and Hillary Clinton was silent. When he exercises his power as a superdelegate, will Robert Byrd remember that?