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Calling Iowa his “second political home,” Sen. Joe Biden discussed flood recovery efforts, taxes, health care, and the Republican ticket in front of a crowd of several hundred at the State Fairgrounds in Des Moines Monday.

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign announced today that Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, would visit Des Moines Monday.  The location and time have not been released, but the campaign says that the Delaware senator will discuss economic issues.
Text of the Obama campaign press release is below.

Now that he is riding shotgun for Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, it will be fascinating to see if Joe Biden remains comfortable in that role. In Iowa campaign stops, Biden, a veteran U.S. senator from Delaware, made it clear he didn’t think the rest of the field was in league.
In reponse to questions from [...]

The Democratic vice presidential candidate’s long answers may require patience, or even test that of his audience, but as rural Iowans reflected on his remarks during the caucus season, they left with the sense that Biden respects them enough to go deep with his answers, to spend hours before crowds in half empty small-town restaurants. libraries and other venues where I saw this lion of the U.S. Senate make genuine connections with the very voters largely elusive to Obama: older and rural.

Biden has an in-your-face personal style, rarely pausing and getting physically close to the people he’s speaking with. He constantly drops names that he picks up off name tags, throws his arm around people, and gestures with salt shakers. He’s simultaneously larger than life and self-effacing, brushing off long-winded introductions filled with platitudes and saying, “I’m Joe Biden.”

With news out that Sen. Barack Obama has selected Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential nominee, here are highlights of the Iowa Independent’s extensive coverage of the Delaware senator on the Iowa campaign trail during the 2008 caucuses.

“I’m too old to be vice president,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley told Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill.

Grassley is 74; Republican presidential candidate John McCain is 71.

“But I am young enough to be reelected to the Senate,” said Grassley, hinting at a run for a sixth Senate term in 2010.

Just one week from today, each of Iowa’s 99 counties will host their Democratic county conventions. It’s a development that has sparked the previously successful grassroots organization of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama back into action.
In an email to supporters on Friday, the Obama campaign provided detailed information based on county of residence as well as [...]

(Commentary) Three days have elapsed since the Iowa caucuses, and while most of the presidential candidates have moved on to New Hampshire, some Iowa Democrats cannot shake the sense that Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status may be in jeopardy. Others are left wondering whether the caucus system itself will be resurrected four years from now.

While the Iowa [...]

[Exclusive] It seems that the under-the-radar caucus night dealmaking first reported by Iowa Independent last night may be even more complicated than once thought, according to additional reports from sources on the ground across the state.

Two well-placed sources told Iowa Independent last night that Gov. Bill Richardson’s campaign plans to direct their supporters to Sen. [...]