Joseph Biden Joseph Biden Jr. is a senator from Delaware. When he was sworn into office in January of 1973, he was one of the five youngest persons to ever serve in the U.S. Senate at 30 years old. He was born on November 20, 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was first elected to the United States Senate in 1972 and re-elected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, and 2002. Currently, he is serving his sixth term and is Delaware’s longest-serving senator. He is the chairman of both the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drug in the 110th Congress. Also, he has been teaching a seminar on Constitutional Law at Widener University School of Law since 1991. He graduated from University of Delaware in 1965 with a double major in History and Political Science and Syracuse University College of Law, J.D. in 1968. Prior to the Senate, he was a council of New Castle County, Delaware from 1970 to 1972 and attorney in Wilmington, Delaware from 1968 to 1972. Senator Biden expressed his presidential ambition in the 1988 Presidential Campaign. However, during the 1988 Presidential campaign he was accused of having plagiarized a speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock’s life that was not true in Biden's case. He was also accused of plagiarism while in law school. In a first-year legal writing class, unfamiliar with correct standards for legal briefs at the beginning of his legal training, he used a single footnote rather than multiple citations required to cite five pages from a legal article. However, both Syracuse University Law School and the Delaware State Bar Association cleared Biden of plagiarism charges. In 2003, Biden considered joining the Democratic field of candidates for the 2004 presidential race but he did not have enough time to cultivate a sufficient fundraising base. Also, he was a possible running mate for presidential candidate John Kerry and widely discussed as a possible U.S. Secretary of State in a Democratic administration. Since the last Presidential Election, Senator Biden has repeatedly expressed his intention to become a Presidential candidate for Election 2008. After placing fifth in the Iowa caucuses, Biden dropped out of the Democratic presidential nomination process. On August 23, 2008, Senator Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate in the presidential race. He married Neilia Hunter while he was in law school (1966) and had three children, Beau, Hunger, and Naomi. However, soon after his first election in 1972, he lost his wife, Neilia and his thirteen-month-old daughter, Naomi, due to a car accident (a tractor trailer plowed into their car). He is currently married to Jill Tracy Biden (formerly Jill Jacobs) and married her in 1977 while she was a student teacher. They have one daughter together, Ashley Biden, and five grandchildren. When Senator Joe Biden was a kid, he stuttered and his classmates teased him calling him Bi-Bi-Biden. Senator Biden enjoys spending his time by drawing houses – a cottage for his widowed mother, a playhouse out by the pond for his grandkids, and a vacation home for him and his brother. His home in Wilmington is a permanent construction site. Thus, the house sketching and home renovating is one of his hobby while he commutes. He has taken the commuter train from Wilmington to Washington D.C. everyday and back while the Senate is in session since he was sworn into office. He is a Roman-Catholic, does not drink or smoke, and is a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Compiled by Jisun "Sunny" Kim
Updated by Kimberly Bellows Official campaign website for Obama-Biden: http://www.barackobama.com/
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