Barack Obama picked Delaware Senator Joseph R. Biden as his Vice-Presidential running mate. The talking heads can parse and analyze the pros and cons of Obama’s choice and nitpick all they want, but I think it was a great choice--not because Biden is popular in Pennsylvania, or because he brings experience and foreign policy expertise to the Democratic ticket; but because he is honest.
Biden has been in the Senate for 35 years, and yet his net worth is listed as only $59,000-$366,000 (financial report as of June 2008, AP, 8/24/08). The Center for Responsive Politics ranks Biden as our nation’s poorest Senator--an honor you can not achieve by being on the take.
Like most Americans, Joe Biden knows what it means to make mortgage payments and owe money. He had to borrow money on the cash value of his life insurance policies to pay his son’s college expenses. He rides a commuter train each night, from Washington, DC to his home in Wilmington, DE (the poor guy only has one home), and he’s got a personal stake in ending the war in Iraq: his son is scheduled to deploy to Iraq in October.
Joe Biden can speak for ordinary Americans because, despite being a U.S. Senator, he has somehow managed to remain an ordinary American. In a political world filled with millionaires pretending to be to be “regular Joes”, Joe Biden is the real thing.
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