Obama had 60 Democrats with him in the Senate. What could have any progressive accomplished given the reality of a 50-50 Senate where two senators in his party refused to abolish the filibuster? Try to do what the Peru president did? For the record, when it comes to civil rights, Biden was ahead of Obama on gay marriage.
Biden was a big businesses over the people segregationist loving republican calling himself a democrat before joining the Obama administration.It took following Obama to change Biden to the moderate democrat he became.
He knew The Obama administration was going to come out in favor and being the blabber mouth he has always been he went off script and made the announcement first.
I would say that Biden has always been a mainstream Democrat (never one of the most conservative or liberal). He's always been seen as favorable to the unions. Remember what state Biden was from, DE. That's where all the credit card companies are and where so many corporations are incorporated. Obama has always been cozy with big business. Look at his Treasury Secretaries. In his first term he re-appointed Bernanke. He originally wanted Larry Summers (who was a major player in financial deregulation) as his Fed Chairman. Obama was mostly seen as progressive more based on the Iraq War/foreign affairs (which were a bigger deal in 2008 than they are today) rather than on domestic policy. On domestic policy, Obama has always been pretty moderate. Biden himself was never a segregationist. He first became a senator in the early 70's. At the time, the south was mostly Democrats and the Democratic Party in the south was for segregation. Being a young senator, he had to deal with the political realities at the time. It wasn't until 1964 when Barry Goldwater ran for states rights did people with these views really start to shift to the Republican Party (this is when Strom Thurmond switched). Nixon continued this by employing the Southern Strategy in his 1968 bid. Many southern Democrats saw LBJ as a traitor. However, many segregationists stayed in the Democratic Party for years (including David Duke). There was a massive shift in the 90's when most of the old guard moderated their tone on segregation and joined the Republican Party. Richard Shelby is a senator who switched in 1994 when Republicans came to power under Gingrich's "Contract with America".
Not publicly. I don't believe Obama was ever against it. He expressed views in favor of it in 1996. I think he was a coward on the issue out of pragmatism (even though I doubt it would have cost him the election in 2008 as views were moderating then). My two biggest criticisms of Obama were this and his unwillingness to take out ISIS earlier than he was. I believe he did this, because he promised to get out of Iraq and didn't want to break that promise even though ISIS was clearly a change in the game. Fighting ISIS was about counterterrorism, not about installing democracy.