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ANALYSIS: Biden is this year's 'Cheney'

By Joseph Curl (Contact) and Stephen Dinan (Contact) | Monday, August 25, 2008

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ANALYSIS:

DENVER | Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. is a lot of things — a seasoned Washington politician with an extensive legislative record, a familiar face in capitals across the world and a man with a compelling personal story.

In short, he's Barack Obama's Dick Cheney.

Mr. Biden joined the Senate at 30, the earliest age allowed by the Constitution, and has since spent 35 years battling in the heart of the government, and has been on both sides of some of the biggest issues out there, including free trade and the war in Iraq.

He can claim to have been a driving force to push President Clinton to use force in Bosnia, to have been a top supporter of the COPS program to put more police on the streets in the 1990s, and to have written the Violence Against Women Act.

When stacked up against the other options Mr. Obama had, and against past running mates, Mr. Biden is among the most qualified in recent elections the equivalent to President Bush's 2000 selection of Mr. Cheney, a longtime congressman and former defense secretary.

The best evidence for that comparison is that the word "gravitas" was being tossed around on the cable news programs Saturday, just as it was eight years ago when Mr. Bush, a relatively new political face with less than a decade in office, selected Mr. Cheney as his running mate.

Democratic strategist Bush Jackson said the point of the Biden pick is to go beyond Mr. Obama's "change" message since "Obama is already well-positioned in that area."

"Joe Biden complements Obama's change platform with stability by virtue of Biden's decades of experience in both national and international affairs. A change message doesn't resonate as loudly for some voters who are more concerned about stability and who may have had lingering concerns about Obama's experience. Biden will help soothe those voters' fears," he said. "In one sense, he is the Democratic version of adding a Dick Cheney to a George W. Bush ticket."

In other words, there's little question Mr. Biden brings the Washington credentials worthy of a vice-presidential nominee. But Mr. Obama's argument this year has been that Washington is exactly what's broken and needs fixing.