Though the Illinois senator’s campaign promised supporters to inform them of the pick first, news broke early Saturday morning that Biden will be the choice.

Biden, 65, is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He ran for the Democratic nomination this year but dropped out after failing to gain traction in the Iowa caucuses.

While helping to alleviate concerns over Obama’s relative inexperience, Biden’s choice also has some potential drawbacks. The Delaware senator is prone to the occasional gaffe.

His 1988 presidential candidacy was sunk when he was discovered to have plagiarized a speech from a British politician, and in 2006 he made the comment that you can’t visit a 7-Eleven convenience store or a Dunkin' Donuts in Delaware “unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

Biden drew much criticism in early 2007 when he referred to Obama as the first black candidate for president who was “clean” and “articulate” — comments many interpreted as vaguely racist in their undertone.

The Delaware senator was mostly an also-ran on the campaign trail this year, so the microscope will be far more intense now that he is a vice presidential candidate.

Biden is serving in his sixth term in the Senate, having first been elected in 1972 at the age of 29.

He is up for reelection this year, meaning he will have to decide whether to abandon that campaign in order to run for vice president. He does not face a top GOP challenger, though, and it appears likely he could run for both at once, as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) did in 2000.