Biden Stumps in Palin's Shadow

This week, the senator from Delaware will seek to elevate his place in the debate, taking on McCain's foreign policy views in a speech in Michigan on Monday and making a bus tour through Midwestern battleground states. But Obama's efforts will continue to focus on building up Obama and making the argument against McCain, not tearing down Palin, aides said.

On the stump, Biden's speeches are full of attempts to connect Obama to audiences and cast him as an average American. Biden speaks fondly of a slumber party in Denver at which Obama's two daughters joined Biden's three granddaughters. He noted the "chemistry" between their wives.

"If Barack Obama grew up in my neighborhood in Scranton or Claymont or Wilmington, Delaware, he would have been the guy who had my back," Biden told a crowd in West Palm Beach, Fla., on a recent campaign stop. "If you're looking for a very sophisticated Harvard graduate who went to Columbia undergrad and was president of the Law Review, he's totally intellectual. Baby, you ain't seen nothing yet. This guy is steel."

Biden often goes into great detail about his friendship with McCain, with whom he has served in the Senate since 1987, while slamming McCain's policies.

Edward G. Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania and a Clinton backer during the primaries, said Biden is a major asset to Obama in the Keystone State. "He may not have quite as much of a discernible impact as Governor Palin, but over the long run, he might prove more valuable," Rendell said. "He's a great person in energizing our traditional base."

Obama aides dismiss recent national polls that showed female voters shifting toward McCain after he picked Palin. Instead, Dunn argued, the selections of Biden and Palin, along with the excitement surrounding the conventions, helped both parties consolidate their bases.

Despite the attention gap Palin has created, many Democrats maintain that it will be clear by Election Day that Biden is a stronger candidate than Palin.

"You've had this dynamic of Sarah Palin sucking the oxygen out of the room . . . and Joe Biden has had his role kind of pushed to the side by this energy around Palin," said Steve Grossman, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

"I say to my friends, 'Look, folks, you have to take a deep breath and count to 10. There will be any number of times in the next 52 days where the American people will have a look at Joe Biden, and, at the end of the day, he will bring rock-solid credentials and good judgment on national security.' "