Eloquent and occasionally irascible, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden last week officially announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. This is one of an occasional series of profiles of the major contenders for 1988.
The mood among 3,000 hometown supporters gathered in front of the restored Victorian train station in Wilmington, Del., was as buoyant as the red, white and blue balloons waiting to be unleashed to the sky. Yet there was Joe Biden, gambling that he could pump up the crowd even higher while challenging his middle-class neighbors with the specter of a "nation at risk" from materialist values, declining...