Joe Biden: Sex symbol?

Joe Biden: Sex symbol? - Biden has been on a tour of diners and delis in swing states.
By JONATHAN ALLEN | 10/2/12 1:28 PM EDT



He’s No. 2 on the ticket but No. 1 in their hearts.

Women born before the baby boom generation seem to have a collective crush on a handsome vice presidential candidate with piercing blue eyes and a wide smile who likes to talk about government benefits for seniors. No, not Paul Ryan.

Joe Biden’s bringing sexy back — to the Medicare-eligible set — and that could be valuable for a president who trails Republican rival Mitt Romney with women of a certain age despite having a wide advantage with their 18- to 65-year-old counterparts.

The vice president, who turns 70 in November, has been on a tour of diners and delis in swing states, charming as many white, blue-collar voters — and their mothers — as possible.

He’s kissed women on the lips – and the cheek. He pulled a biker chick so close to him at one pit stop that she appeared to be sitting in his lap in photos. And he’s talked about the acrobatic acts of cheerleaders in terms that would draw at least a PG-13 rating in Hollywood.

Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist, said it makes sense to have Biden working the crowd at lunch counters because he’s good at it.

“He is a classic old school retail politician and politics and elections never [tire] of that. Obama’s a great orator and Biden is the retail politician,” Kofinis said. “They’re very different and they appeal to different types of emotions of voters.”

It’s undeniable that he’s a little different than the other candidates on the presidential ticket — the vice president is a big flirt.

On Saturday at Mel’s Diner, a Fort Myers, Fla., joint, not the fictional greasy spoon on TV’s “Alice,” Biden asked a group of nurses if they would “take my pulse.”After a quick photo shoot, he told them: “If there’s any angels in heaven, they’re nurses.”

He’s an equal-opportunity flatterer, dishing out compliments to women of all ages and often admonishing school-age girls that they shouldn’t date “until you’re 30.” At one stop in Virginia in August, he told a 13-year-old young man to “keep the boys away from your sister.”

The act may seem a bit hokey to the younger generation, but the 60- and 70-somethings take Biden very seriously. Often, he’s the first to flirt — but not always.

Jan Queen, 74, snagged a hug and a kiss from the man one long, slow heartbeat away from the presidency at a campaign stop on Sept. 8. She said something to him in a hushed tone, drawing nervous laughter from other women nearby, according to a pool reporter’s write-up of the encounter. “I told him he was so handsome, so good-looking that I was not going to let go of him, and he is better looking off camera than he is on,” she said later.

The Obama campaign declined to comment for this story.


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