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(Photo: AP Photo)
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Age: 64
Born: November 20, 1942; Scranton, Pa.
Education: B.A., University of Delaware, 1965; J.D., Syracuse University, 1968
Military: None
Family: Married (Jill Tracy Jacobs); 3 children
Hometown: Wilmington, Del.
Religion: Catholic
Career: Practicing attorney, 1968-1972; New Castle County Council, 1970-1972; U.S. Senate, 1972-present.
Delaware’s senior Senator, Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972, at the age of 29. One month after his election, Biden’s wife and young daughter were killed in a car accident that also injured his two sons.
Biden has opposed Bush's tax cuts and has criticized him for pushing a national missile defense system.
Biden voted for the Iraq war resolution in 2002, but has been critical of the Bush Administration’s performance during the war. In August 2003 he said he did not regret his vote for the war, but added, "There's nothing international about this until we get NATO in there and we get Islamic forces in there." He said the administration was filled with "control freaks who are allowing their ideology to get in the way of common sense," and mentioned Dick Cheney.
After disclosure of the Abu Ghraib abuses, Biden said that the U.S. should release every prisoner it could and "bulldoze down that damn prison."
In 2000, Biden authored the Violence Against Women Act, which contains various measures to combat domestic violence and gender-based crimes.
Biden made a brief, ill-fated presidential run in 1987.
Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee during the notorious hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991; as well as the Robert Bork hearings in 1987.
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