Johnny Ricchio

Throughout this course in Coms 307 I will be covering Joe Biden’s campaign for the 2016 electoral vote. Born in Pennsylvania on November 20, 1942, Joe Biden briefly labored as an attorney before turning to politics. He became the fifth-youngest U.S. senator in history as well as Delaware's longest-serving senator. His 2008 presidential campaign never gained momentum, but Democratic nominee Barack Obama later chose him as his running mate. When Obama was elected in 2008, Biden became the 47th vice president of the United States. Biden won a second term, as vice president, when President Obama was re-elected in 2012. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee beginning in 1975, Biden whittled out a reputation as a brainy and talkative expert in international relations. He ran for president in the elections of 1988 and 2008, losing in the primaries both times. His issues have always been about not gaining enough recognition even people view him as a sound candidate. Biden attended the University of Delaware, where he studied history and political science and played football (a highly regarded athlete as well). But, he also developed a sharp interest in politics during these years, encouraged in part by the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. On that same summer Joe Biden met what would be his future wife. Before graduating law school Biden was on the hot seat for failing to properly cite a reference to a law article, which he claimed was on accident, the incident would come back to haunt him later in his career.

During his time in the Senate, Biden won respect as one of the body's leading foreign policy experts, serving as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations for numerous years. His many foreign policy positions included promoting peace and stability. More recently, he supported American action to end the genocide in Darfur and spoke out against President George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq War, especially opposing the troop flood of 2007. While Biden has mostly served in the role of behind-the-scenes adviser to the president, he has taken particularly active roles in formulating federal policies relating to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2010, the vice president used his well-established Senate networks to help safe route of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and Russia.

A long-tenured U.S. senator and vice president, Biden is unquestionably one of the most important political figures in recent history.

During much of his second term, Biden has been said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. He will be 74 the date on which the successful candidate could be sworn in, which would make him the oldest president in history. Where Biden has supported deficit spending on fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the increased infrastructure spending proposed by the Obama administration mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and supported too subsidies same-sex marriage and the reduced military spending proposed in the Obama Administration's. Outside of political campaigns Joe Biden’s had a tough life with two tragedies – one that took his wife’s life and more recently this year his son losing his fight to cancer. Biden has been down before, but his will to not give up is motivating and takes a lot of courage.