A quick Biden primer...
Senator Joe Biden is a (pro-choice) Catholic with strong working-class roots in his hometown of Scranton, PA. He's got impeccable foreign policy credentials, having served several terms as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. During the Presidential primary, he often said he knows many foreign leaders by their first names -- "not because I'm important, but I've been there a long time." And Biden co-wrote the Violence Against Women Act, which created official support structures for victims of domestic violence and criminalized their batterers.
He was first elected to the Senate at age 29 (he's now 65). But before he even took office, his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident, leaving him the single father of two young sons. He married his current wife -- Jill, a teacher -- several years later, and they had another daughter.
Biden is an able and often funny debater with a reputation for verbosity (though he assured NBC's Brian Williams during an April 2007 primary debate that he is capable of verbal discipline). He also has an occasional tendency to stick his foot in his mouth. The gaffe we've already been reminded of several times this morning was his 2007 comment that Barack Obama is "the first mainstream African-American [to run for President] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Obama accepted an immediate apology for the inelegant remarks and went on to defend Biden's civil rights record during the Des Moines Register debate in December, saying, "I have absolutely no doubt about what is in his heart and the commitment that he's made with respect to racial equality in this country."
You can read more about Biden's life and times in this profile, courtesy of NPR's Jennifer Ludden.
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