GREENVILLE, Del. - Two or three times a week, a jovial, silvery-haired man walks into the Brew HaHa! cafe and orders a medium or large coffee, sometimes leaving room for cream, sometimes not.
"Good morning, sweetie!" he often says to Jessica Oliver behind the counter. "How are you?"
"Hi, Joe!" she replies. "How's everything?"
Then Sen. Joe Biden heads to the train station in nearby Wilmington and rides south to Washington, a daily commute he's made since being elected to the Senate 36 years ago.
Those early-morning coffee orders, fondly recalled yesterday by Oliver, have been put on ice - at least until November.
Now that Biden has been named Democrat Barack Obama's vice presidential running mate, the veteran senator will be crisscrossing the country nonstop for the next 10 weeks with one goal: to reach the White House.
It's well worth it to lose his business, and his nice $1 tip, says Oliver, who at 19 will cast her first vote this fall. She was already a big Obama fan. Now her tiny state, home to just 850,000 people and smaller than any other but Rhode Island, will be thrust into the nation's consciousness.
"Delaware's getting recognition," she said, "which is good because people don't really think about Delaware. It's like, Dela-where?"
Biden, 65, has made two unsuccessful bids for the White House, in 1988 and this year. But his quest for the nation's second-highest office is generating excitement even among die-hard Republicans here.
"As a Delawarian, I'm thrilled," said 37-year-old banker Tony Lunger. Even though he "certainly will not" vote the Obama-Biden ticket, he said Biden is popular. People respect his decision to live in Wilmington rather than cloister himself in Washington, a place Lunger calls "warped."
A few doors up from the coffee shop, Chuck Wagner emerged from the back office of his hardware store to offer his thoughts on his longtime customer, whose home is a few miles away.
Wagner, an independent, said he remains undecided in the presidential race despite his enthusiasm for Biden. One thing he knows is that the Delaware senator would bring valuable foreign policy expertise to a Democratic administration.
"I have faith in Joe," Wagner said, "but I'm still not sure on Obama. I don't really know about him."
For one lifelong Republican who lives just across the border in Pennsylvania - a battleground state - Biden's elevation could mean unexpected support for Obama.
