Even though they differed on how, or even whether, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential choice would move voters in Pennsylvania, local political analysts and consultants were largely united this morning in lauding the presumptive Democratic nominee's pick as both savvy and safe.

Obama, the Illinois Democrat, announced early this morning that U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) would fill out his ticket. Most political watchers, glued to their televisions this morning taking in coverage of the long-awaited announcement, agreed that Biden could help Obama in a number of ways, from his energetic campaign style and his ability to connect with working-class Democrats to his roots in Scranton and his foreign policy experience.

"You probably couldn't make a better choice," Joseph DiSarro, a political science professor at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, told PolitickerPa.com. "You can't take [U.S. Sen. Bob] Casey or other Pennsylvanians. Biden is probably as good as it gets for Pennsylvania."

"This is a move that I would rank up there with Kennedy selecting Johnson," DiSarro added, in some of the most glowing analysis offered by local experts.

Biden's roots in the state run deep. He was born into a working-class family in Scranton, where he lived until he was 10. Although his family then moved to Delaware, he returned to Scranton almost every summer as a child to visit his grandfather, the Obama campaign pointed out this morning.

As the longtime Senator from Delaware, Biden's exposure to the Philadelphia media market has been substantial and consistent, a fact some analysts said was likely to help Obama in the critical Philadelphia suburbs.

Though most analysts and consultants insisted that any vice presidential pick was unlikely to significantly move voters at the polls, most also agreed that Biden would be an important campaigner in blue-collar areas where Obama has struggled.

"I think he'll be very valuable campaigning in places like Wilkes-Barre and Scranton where Obama has shown weakness," said Chris Borick, a pollster and political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. "Having roots up in Scranton will certainly help."

But for DiSarro, it's Biden's blue-collar credentials, not his oft-mention foreign policy experience, that makes Biden such an appealing pick.

"He's proven he's not an elitist," DiSarro said of Obama.

Certainly, there is some minimal risk in choosing a politician who, though widely considered an energetic campaigner, also has a tendency to say things that get him in trouble.

"Biden does sometimes shoot from the hip," DiSarro acknowledged.

But with the Obama campaign exercising tight message control with all its surrogates, few expect that to be a major problem.

Elliott Curson, a longtime GOP advertising consultant, said it was Biden's foreign policy credentials-he is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his name was even floated as a potential Secretary of State in an Obama administration-that made Biden a solid pick.

"He needed someone with foreign policy experience to play against McCain's strength," Curson said.

Meanwhile, longtime GOP political consultant Charlie Gerow, said it's exactly those foreign credentials that should worry voters.

"What's interesting about the Biden pick is that it's a tacit admission by the Obama camp that he lacks foreign policy experience," Gerow said. "It's the first time the Obama campaign has admitted that Obama is the least experienced candidate in the last 100 years of presidential elections."

Regardless, it remains unclear what impact the Biden pick will have on the electorate or Obama's chances of winning the state's 21 electoral votes.

"Vice presidents, by and large, do not have enormous impact on final decisions in campaigns," Borick said. "People vote for presidents, not for vice presidents."