The survivor brought in to 'babysit' Obama

Joe Biden, Senator Barack Obama's vice-presidential running mate, is a career politician who has taken big contributions from lobbyists, been mocked for his hair transplants and admitted plagiarising speeches and exaggerating his academic record. During 36 years in the United States Senate — a body notorious for its self-regarding windbags — he has become perhaps its most verbose member.

And his bid for the White House this year ended when he won less then 1 per cent of the vote in Iowa.

First elected to the Senate in 1972 he was sworn in a mere five weeks over the minimum age of 30. Now 65 he finds himself in the role of elder statesman.

Having framed his campaign around slogans about changing Washington and ushering in a new kind of politics, Obama has picked a running mate who is the ultimate Washington insider.

But Obama hardly helped himself last Saturday when he beckoned to the stage in Springfield, Illinois, and told the crowd: “So let me introduce to you the next president.''

That was immediately seized upon as a Freudian slip indicating that Biden is a grown-up brought in to babysit.

For his part, Biden appeared star-struck by Obama, whose candidacy he described as being like catching “lightning in a bottle''.

Despite the ammunition Biden supplies Republican operatives, he brings many important strengths to Obama's White House bid.

They include gravitas, deep foreign policy expertise, a willingness to attack Obama's Republican opponent John McCain, and an easy connection with blue-collar Americans.

His experience balances Obama's youth and national political career of less than four years.

In his autobiography, Biden wrote of playing a part in “the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis... the disintegration of the Soviet Union, 9/11, two wars in Iraq, a presidential impeachment and a presidential resignation''.

Biden's life has been marked by personal tragedy and political disasters — always followed by comebacks that mark him as a fighter and optimist, whose vulnerabilities and honesty have won him many friends across the partisan divide in Washington.

A month after his Senate win in 1972, his wife Neila and their baby daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash. Their two sons Beau and Hunter were injured and Biden was sworn into the Senate as he stood vigil beside a hospital bed.

He remarried after spotting a pretty blonde on a Department of Parks advertisement. A friend procured a telephone number and Biden invited Jill to dinner. They have a daughter, Ashley, now 27.

After dropping out of the 1988 presidential race when it emerged he had plagiarised a speech by Neil Kinnock, Biden suffered a brain aneurism.

He was given a 50-50 chance of survival, received the last rites and bid farewell to his family. After he came out of the operating theatre, his aide Ted Kaufman told him: “It's a much better story if you live. It's going to increase the legend.''