MUDDYING YOUR OWN MESSAGE:

On foreign policy, Biden is respected but not always popular: The senator's long tenure has won him bipartisan praise as a liberal internationalist. But he has sometimes found himself at odds with his own party. (Paul Richter and Noam N. Levey, 8/24/08, Los Angeles Times)

Some liberal Democrats remain distressed by his 2002 vote for the Iraq war, which Barack Obama opposed. Other critics say Biden was misguided or even naive in his most recent proposal to resolve sectarian conflict by giving broad autonomy to Iraq's three major population groups, the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. And he opposed last year's troop "surge," which by most accounts has contributed significantly to the reduction in violence in Iraq.

Biden, Obama at odds over lobbyist donations (Jennifer Haberkorn and Jerry Seper, 8/24/08, Washington Times)

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama has made a pledge not to accept money from lobbyists, but his running mate - Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. - has collected over $200,000 from registered lobbyists in this year alone, according to a search of Senate lobbying records.

Mr. Biden's unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign and his still-pending race to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate in Delaware, according to the records, collected another $86,000 from lobbyists this year. The senator's political action committee, Unite Our States, also received $120,500 from lobbyists this year, the records show.

"Obama has been outspoken about contributions from lobbyists, vowing not to accept any contributions from them. Biden doesn't seem to have quite the same view," the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a Washington-based political watchdog group, said Saturday.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 24, 2008 6:56 AM