Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. (born 20 November 1942) is the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in the 110th Congress. He is the senior U.S. Senator from Delaware and a member of the Democratic Party.
Biden declared his candidacy for President on January 31, 2007 after months of prior discussions, but later withdrew after the Iowa Caucus [1]. He is a self-described northeast liberal.
United States Senate
Biden took office on January 3, 1973, at age 30, becoming the fifth-youngest U.S. Senator in United States history. He was later reelected five times. Biden calls himself pro-choice and opposed president George W. Bush's two nominees to the U.S. Supreme court. However, he has voted in support of banning partial birth abortions and was given a 36% rating from the pro-abortion group NARAL, indicating a mixed voting record. In 1998 he voted for a Balanced-budget constitutional amendment and the GOP budget. Biden is a strong opponent of 2nd-amendment rights. He was rated F by the National Rifle Association. Biden has also voted to give Social Security benefits and citizenship to illegal aliens.
On the War in Iraq, Senator Biden is to the right of his fellow Democratic opponents for the 2008 Presidential Election. He voted for the war in 2002, but is now a war critic. He has voted against setting a timetable for troop withdrawal and is against cutting off funding for the troops on the ground. However, he opposed President Bush's plan to send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq in January 2007. Biden is a long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which he chaired from 1987 until 1995 and served as ranking minority member from 1981 until 1987 and again from 1995 until 1997. He almost never supports a supreme court nominee who's not in his party and presided over two of the more contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings ever, Robert Bork in 1987 and Clarence Thomas in 1991. Biden is also long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, currently the chairman.
Plagiarism controversy
Controversy helped derail Biden's candidacy for the U.S. presidency in the 1988 Presidential campaign. He was found to have plagiarized a speech from British Labour Party (UK) leader Neil Kinnock. The plagiarism was considered all the more serious, because it included details of Kinnock's life which were not true in Biden's case.
Controversial comments
Joe Biden has been the subject of many controversial comments that many claim to be racist.
- Indian-Americans
While speaking to a group of Indian-Americans in Delaware, Biden stated, "You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." His comment was caught on C-SPAN.
- "My state was a slave state"
In August of 2006, Biden was on Fox News Sunday and said "You don't know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a northeast liberal state.
Talking about his fellow Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama he said, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, ... I mean, that's a storybook, man."
Presidential Campaign
Joseph Biden entered the race for the 2008 election to the White House on January 31, 2007. His first steps at going into the presidential campaign were overshadowed by his comments about other candidates. He ran on his foreign policy experience and credentials. On November 15, 2007, during the CNN presidential debate "This is not about experience. It's not about change. It's about action. Who among us is going to be able to, on Day 1, step in and end the war?". Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race on January 3, after coming 5th in the Iowa caucus, receiving only 1% of the votes.