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Why did Obama select this man as VP? What did he offer over the other choices. I still can't make sense of it

At the time of Obama's first nomination he was a very new figure and didn't have much experience. One of his biggest criticisms was lack of foreign policy experience, which is something Biden has a lot of. So, he was chosen to strengthen a weakness of Obama's.

I wonder if a former president can be a VP.

Originally posted by Time-Immemorial
I wonder if a former president can be a VP.

Yes, potentially a president can be a vice president.

However they would have to qualify by the same rules that a president has to, that is they can not have been elected to be president twice and can't have served more than 6 years as president. So Bill Clinton would be out, if that's who you are thinking. Of the currently living former presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush would be eligible.

Of course none of this has been tested in court, so it is just some people's reading of the law, though it seems pretty evident.

Interesting, got a link to that?

Sure: http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/vice-president-bill-clinton/

It'd be a weird step, to be sure! I wonder what kind of president would take the VP role...

Hm, I could see it if a younger VP had an older President die or step down, they get bumped up for a short time before the next election, realize they aren't experienced enough, and then join a ticket with a massively popular other candidate to prevent a split between 'do we support the incumbent or the one we want to be prez...?'.

Originally posted by Raisen
Why did Obama select this man as VP? What did he offer over the other choices. I still can't make sense of it


He's a highly experienced, skilled politician who had a good reputation from a long history, and knowledge of many subjects.

Note how quite often when the Obama administration does convince congress to compromise, it's Biden doing the deal-making, so IMO a good call.



Like Blackfire said, adding experience to the ticket was a part of it. Normally young presidents have older vps and vice-versa.