Biden has better visit to club 20 years later

NASHUA, N.H. -- Before Sen. Joseph Biden takes the mike at the Nashua Rotary Club luncheon, the audience plays a round of "Dead or Alive?" where celebrity names are tossed out and members answer with their status: Ginger Rogers (dead), Larry Hagman (alive), Elvis Presley (in dispute).

When Biden gets up to speak, he points out that he is, in fact, alive. Twenty years ago, as he was running for president and speaking to the same group in the same ballroom, Biden had to leave the podium, stricken by a monster headache that presaged a life-threatening brain aneurysm.

Biden, a six-term Democrat from Delaware, is giving the White House and the Rotary lunch a second shot. His campaign is focused on his foreign policy experience and his plan for restructuring Iraq. Still, he continues to face the issue that forced him out of the 1988 race: talking himself into trouble.

Sunday, he'll participate in a Democratic debate in Iowa, the state where almost 20 years ago to the day, his debate performance cost him his candidacy.

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, bills himself as the only candidate who has a strategy to end the Iraq war. He wants to divide the country into autonomous regions for the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, held together by a limited federal government.

Biden says it's hopeless to push for a strong central government to end sectarian violence, as Bush and Republican candidates do.

The rest of the Democratic field is in "a race to see who could get (U.S. troops) out the quickest," Biden says, which he calls unrealistic. "The facts are the facts. You can't get them out in less than a year."

"You are basically being given two false choices … 'Do more of the same and leave it for the next guy,' or 'Get out and hope for the best,' " he says. "I'm the only one in either political party who has offered a plan so we won't have to go back."

On the stump, Biden emphasizes his success in getting funding for new armored vehicles known as MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) that better deflect roadside bomb blasts. He warns of the growing cost of care for injured veterans, "our most sacred obligation," and swears he would spend "nine out of 10" dollars of the federal budget to fulfill that promise.