IF Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama wants Hillary Clinton’s blue-collar votes without actually putting former first lady on the vice-presidential ticket, he made a canny choice in Sen. Joe Biden. The senator comes from a poor working-class background and has become a liberal and generally well-regarded Washington insider. Biden also brings two other strengths to the Obama campaign — a strong defense and foreign affairs background and, at age 65, the experience and gravitas that Republican rival John McCain alleges Obama lacks. Even though Russia’s actions in Georgia have brought foreign policy back into the presidential debate, few doubt that in the next three months, the real issue will be the domestic economy. But Obama aides, clearly sensing their man’s vulnerability in defense and foreign affairs, are seeking to cover the gap with Biden. Obama will, therefore, be freer to focus more fully on economic policies while having Biden standing beside him when he delivers his views on foreign policy and defense. A major challenge will be how the Democratic team handles the Bush administration’s soon to be inked deal on quitting Iraq in 2011. The reported vagueness of the agreement, which does not, in fact, make a rock solid commitment to end the occupation in three years time, ought to be strong campaigning ground for Obama who has spoken of quitting Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

There are those who regret the passing over of Mrs. Clinton but it is hard to see how Obama could work with his former rival for the nomination. Clinton fought a dirty no-holds-barred campaign that included personal vituperation against Obama. By and large, the Obama team stayed aloof from such tactics. To have put Clinton on the ticket would not only have allowed the press and media to spend the next three months digging up every mean thing the woman ever said about her new boss, it would also be taken as an act of weakness. Obama campaigned that he was the man to bring change. If, for the sake of her supporters’ votes, Clinton had been made running mate, it would have suggested that Obama was not as confident of the answers as he insisted he was. Besides which, many of her campaign team found Clinton a nightmare to work with. Having her reoccupying the White House would have been a dangerous distraction.

All this said, Biden himself was, before he dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination in January, scathing about what he said was Obama’s limited experience in foreign policy and defense. Three times chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as well as heading the Judiciary Committee, Biden was merciless in his criticism of his then rival’s limited foreign affairs background. Another front-runner to join the Obama ticket was President Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore, the man who almost certainly won the vote in Florida in 2000. In more prosperous times, Gore, with his environmentalist credentials, might have been chosen. But today US voters care more about greenbacks than green agendas.