Jan. 31, 2006 - There are several ways we choose our presidents. During the primaries, we may vote for the person who looks as if he or she will perform best as a candidate—someone who “looks” presidential, who seems savvy with the media and who will represent our best interests. At the last moment, we might pick the candidate who seems to have the best head of steam—the person who could actually win. Others vote for the candidate they believe would make the best president, based on intellect, personal skills and public-service experience. Still others vote on single issues—abortion, taxes, defense, foreign policy, education, moral values, health or the environment. A final group casts its ballot for geographical reasons, the “home state” or regional candidate.

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As the Democrats cast about for a candidate who can win in 2008, I want to make the case for Joe Biden. After 34 years in the Senate, Biden can appeal to voters on nearly all of the above criteria. He’s familiar to many voters—from his (admittedly verbose) questioning during the Alito hearings to his passionate arguments in favor of U.S. intervention in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. In fact, Biden has held public office far longer than any of the new crop of possible presidential candidates (he was elected at the age of 29) and is an influential member and former chairman of both the Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committees.

The senior senator from Delaware has an appealing media persona: he’s not a bad-looking guy, and his performances seem real, not wooden like those of the last two Democratic nominees. Unlike Howard Dean, his outrage and passion is controlled, not manic. His voting record is appealing to centrist America: according to National Journal, his liberal-to-conservative voting on social and foreign issues is in the 60-30 range. As for geography, how about Delaware? It may be small, but it is a state stuck smack in the mid-Atlantic area, a gateway between the Northeast with its great metropolitan areas and the critical Southeast. Together, the region is the most populous in the country.

Biden’s tough, compassionate, experienced, left-of-center political profile may be just the answer for the Democrats and the country.

Of course, there’s the black mark. Twenty years ago, during another presidential campaign, Biden apparently lifted substantial portions of a speech by a popular British politician for an address of his own. Subsequently, Biden resigned from the race instead of battling the charge.

Are we still going to hold that against him? A far more important measure of his character happened in 1972, five months after he was elected to the Senate, when he lost his wife and daughter to a car crash. From then on, he commuted home by Amtrak every evening to raise his two boys. He was never linked with actresses, models or late-night carousing. Five years later, Biden remarried and had another daughter.

Now his family is fully grown and it’s Biden’s turn again. My prediction: the senator would make a formidable candidate for the Democrats and a great president for the nation.

The writer is a veteran of 10 Democratic presidential campaigns dating back to 1976. Today he is president of Free Media Inc in New York.

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