With Barack Obama in the White House, Biden said the U.S. would engage not only with its allies but with its adversaries. The troops would leave Iraq. More would head to Afghanistan.

"Our country is less secure and more isolated than at any time in recent history," said Biden, a six-term senator from Delaware. "The Bush-McCain foreign policy dug us into a very deep hole with very few friends to help us climb out."

But Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, didn't just stick to foreign affairs. He tried to reach out to Americans struggling economically and he also sought to let voters know a little more about himself.

Biden grew up in Scranton, Pa., and in Wilmington, Del., in a middle-class family. He went to law school and only spent a few years on the city council before being elected to the Senate in 1972 at the age of 29.

His son, Beau Biden, the Delaware Attorney General, introduced him on Wednesday and told the story of how his mother and sister were struck and killed by a drunk driver just a few weeks after that campaign victory. Beau and his brother Hunter Biden were severely injured and hospitalized.

"He was sworn in, in the hospital, at my bedside," said Beau Biden, who was not yet 4-years-old at the time.

Biden is famous for taking an Amtrak train home each night from Washington to Wilmington, to be with his children -- a tradition he continues today.

"As I look out the windows at the homes we pass, I can almost hear what they're talking about at the kitchen table," he said, listing economic concerns ranging from gas prices to dwindling retirment savings. "I've never seen a time when Washington has watched so many people get knocked down without doing anything to help them get back up."