(Photo by Michael Fischer) U.S. Sen. Joe Biden makes an impassioned stump speech to a tightly-packed crowd near the Clay County Democrats booth during the 2007 Clay County Fair.

U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware hoped for the top spot on the ticket less than a year ago when he stopped at the Clay County Fair.

Friday he was selected as presumptive nominee Barack Obama's running mate. Democrats hope Biden's expertise in foreign policy and his blue-collar appeal will be a draw for voters in the Nov. 4 general election.

"I caucused for Joe Biden," said Jack Kibbie, an Emmetsburg Democrat who is President of the Iowa Senate. "He stayed over at our house overnight and I got to know him, his wife and his sister pretty well. I was very pleased with Obama's pick."

Bob Whittenburg, the Clay County Democratic Party chairman calls Biden a great campaigner.

"I think Joe Biden is a strong choice for a lot of reasons," he said. "He's obviously had 30-plus years in the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

Biden is the current chairman of the foreign relations committee. During his 2007 campaign stop, Biden said his work in the Senate includes efforts to stop President Bush from sending more American troops to what he calls "Baghdad's bloody civil war."

"The next president is going to be left with no margin for error," Biden said during his stop almost one year ago. "This is the most critical election, I think, probably in the last 75 years. I think folks are looking for someone with depth and breadth of knowledge that they can trust to take them through what is going to be a pretty difficult decade. I think I bring that to this race more than anyone else does."

In December, Biden's son, Beau, the Delaware Attorney General, gave Iowa caucus-goers some insight about the private life of his father. The presumptive vice presidential nominee emerged on the national scene 35 years ago. Then a county councilman, the elder Biden upset a three-term incumbent senator and a two-term governor to gain federal office.

"He ran to end the war in Vietnam and to continue the fight for civil rights," Beau Biden said. "Long story short, he ran and won, becoming one of the youngest elected United States Senators in American history.

He won by a landslide of 2,000 votes and it was a big triumph for our family, my dad and for that slim majority of Delawareans who voted for him."

The senator-elect was picking out his office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building when a phone call made the trappings of Washington, D.C., an afterthought.

"It was not good news," Beau Biden said. "The car I was in, with my mom and sister and my brother was hit by a tractor-trailer, killing my mom and killing my baby sister. I was about 3 years old -- just shy of it."

Beau and his brother, Hunter, who also is helping his dad campaign were badly injured in the crash.

Beau said his dad came home that day, after telling Hubert H. Humphrey, Ted Kennedy and Mike Mansfield, the Montana Senator who was Majority Leader at the time, that he wasn't going to take the oath of office.

"He said to them 'look, Delaware can get another senator, but my boys can't get another dad,'" Beau Biden said. "He came home to my bedside, where I was in traction and he's never left."

Joe Biden was eventually persuaded to take the job in order to care for his family. He was sworn into office from his sons' bedside.

"I don't tell you that to gain any sympathy because I had a wonderful life. I've had two moms: I have a mom now who is with my dad somewhere on the other side of the state and I've been a lucky, lucky man," he said, during a campaign appearance for his father in December 2007. "I talk about it to tell you how he responded and where his priorities were as a 29-year-old public man and United States Senator who did what a lot of people talk about doing -- putting his family first and foremost."

Joe Biden spent much of his career drafting anti-crime legislation, including the Violence Against Women Act, which he calls his proudest legislative accomplishment.

"I have some very wide experience in domestic issues as well," he told his Spencer audience. "But it's true that the overwhelming concern of the public now is Iraq and foreign policy and I hope that will hold me in good stead."

He called Iraq the big boulder in the middle of the road.

"Iraq is sucking all the blood and treasure out of this country," he said. "We must end this war. The war must end. Folks, until it happens. Until it ends, the rest of the world is not going to listen to us."

Disappointing numbers in the Iowa Caucuses prompted Biden to discontinue his presidential campaign in February. He hoped for a top three finish in Iowa, but three colleagues in the senate, Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, maintained a strong base of supporters on caucus night.