UPDATED:
Mr. Biden got the call from Mr. Obama on Thursday night with the offer of the No. 2 spot on the ticket.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden plan to part ways after the Springfield rally and not hit the campaign trail as a team until after next week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Mr. Obama plans to fly home to Chicago for the night before campaigning Sunday in Wisconsin. Mr. Biden is scheduled to fly back to his home in Wilmington, Del., later Saturday.
His next stop is Denver to boost the ticket during the convention, where Mr. Obama is expected to arrive Wednesday and accept the nomination Thursday.
Mr. Biden is slated to address the convention Wednesday.
Sen. Barack Obama chose foreign policy muscle to help him shore up his presidential ticket, selecting Sen. Joe Biden as a running mate early Saturday morning.
Mr. Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee with 36 years of experience in Washington, was quickly added to the BarackObama.com home page following the text message announcing the decision.
“Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3 p.m. ET” at BarackObama.com, the text stated, adding: “Spread the word.”
Republicans worked quickly to paint the selection as proving Mr. Obama of Illinois is not experienced enough to be president, and Sen. John McCain’s Republican rival put out a new ad to reinforce that point.
“What does Barack Obama’s running mate say about Barack Obama?” the ad asks,
The ad stars Mr. Biden telling a debate moderator during the Democratic primary that he would “stand by” a statement that his younger Senate colleague was not yet ready to be president.
It also includes the senator from Delaware praising Mr. McCain: “I would be honored to run with or against John McCain.”
Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden will appear together for the first time Saturday afternoon in Springfield, Illinois, where the Democrat announced his candidacy in February 2007.
Some Democrats groaned that the Biden pick opens them up to the possibility of damaging verbal gaffes, but others cheered the decision as helping Mr. Obama attract working-class voters and Catholics.
The new Obama homepage showed the two men smiling next to one another and solicited donations for the Nov. 4 election.
The new Web site declared, “Barack has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the leaders who will bring the change our country needs. But they can’t do it alone. Show your support for the Obama-Biden ticket by making a donation today.”
It also asked voters to write Mr. Biden a welcome note.
Republicans also are expected to seize on Mr. Biden’s 1988 presidential bid, which ended when his Democratic opponents provided reporters with a video tape that in one instance he had quoted British politician Neil Kinnock without attribution.
He had been using Kinnock quotes on the trail for months, with citation.
After he dropped out of the race, Mr. Biden suffered a brain aneurysm that nearly killed him, and he and his wife Jill agreed perhaps it was better he was not still seeking the presidency.
His 2008 bid ended in early January when he placed fifth in the Iowa caucus.
See related stories on Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware:
Christina Bellantoni: Biden against all odds
Bellantoni on the Democrats blog: Running coverage of Obama, Biden and the Democrats in Denver
Biden speaks — and speaks — his own mind
Biden, who has twice sought the White House, is a Catholic with blue-collar roots, a generally liberal voting record and a reputation as a long-winded orator.
Across more than 30 years in the Senate, he has served at various times not only as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, but also as head of the Judiciary Committee, with its jurisdiction over anti-crime legislation, Supreme Court nominees and Constitutional issues.
The Democratic National Convention meets next week in Denver to hand Obama his long-sought presidential nomination, and then confirm Biden. In selecting Biden, Obama passed over former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, his tenacious rival across months of primaries and caucuses.
Even so, Obama has gone to great lengths to gain the confidence of her primary voters, agreeing to allow her name to be placed in nomination at the convention and permitting a roll call vote that threatens to expose lingering divisions.
Among those on the short list, Biden brought the most experience in defense or foreign policy areas in which Obama is rated relatively poorly in the polls compared with Republican Sen. John McCain. While the war in Iraq has been supplanted as the campaign’s top issues by the economy in recent months, the recent Russian invasion of Georgia has returned foreign policy to the forefront.
A native of Scranton, Pa., Biden also has working-class roots that could benefit Obama, who lost the blue-collar vote to Clinton during their competition for the presidential nomination.
Biden was elected to the Senate at the age of 29 in 1973.
He spent the day at his home in Delaware with friends and family. The normally loquacious lawmaker maintained a low profile as associates said they believed but did not know he would be tapped. They added they had been asked to stand by in case their help was needed.
No sooner had word spread of his selection than McCain’s campaign unleashed its first volley. Spokesman Ben Porritt said in a statement that Biden had “denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing that Barack Obama is not ready to be president.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.