Obama's opponents continue to accuse the junior Senator from Illinois as lacking crucial foreign policy experience. That America is currently engaged in two protracted wars makes this a 'War-Time' election, the type that has proven harsh to foreign policy newbies in the past.
Biden, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has foreign policy experience in spades, making him an appealing candidate. In fact, as the Georgia and Russia conflict reached its peak, Biden travelled to the region at the request of President Mikhail Saakashvili.
Another slam against Obama is lack of Washington experience, his newness to national politics. Biden, however, has been in the US Senate since 1972, a decade before even McCain was first elected to Congress.
Of course, conservatives would likely spin Obama's selecting Biden as a lack of confidence in his own foreign policy credentials, signalling to the Republicans to keep attacking him there. Additionally, in an election that could well boil down to closely contested 'swing states', Biden brings little to the table geographically. Delaware, with just three electoral votes and already considered a firm Democratic lean, might not be a tasty enough prize to warrant the offer.
Furthermore, Biden, 65, has some well-known skeletons in his closet. In Law School, he was caught plagiarising a paper, causing him to fail a class. Had that been the end of the Senator's sticky fingers, we might never have heard of it again. Unfortunately for Biden, during his unsuccessful attempt at the 1988 Democratic nomination, he was undone after being caught plagiarizing once again, this time in a campaign speech where he used lines lifted directly from a British politician's speech.
He's also fared poorly as a presidential contender in recent time; he threw his hat into the ring this year, but failed to make a splash and withdrew early.
US Senator Evan Bayh, 52, presents an interesting scenario. As the son of a former political (US Senator Birch Bayh), he has credibility with the Middle America vote, owing to his family name. But his relative youth has also mobilised younger segments of the electorate, and he enjoys overall popularity in India across all demographics, thanks to two successful terms as governor there.
Image: Barack Obama speaks as Biden listens during the Des Moines Register Republican Presidential Debate at the Iowa Public Television studios in 2007 in Johnston, Iowa.
Photographs: Chris Gannon/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: McCain, Hillary win Florida primaries
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