Biden has been on a tour of diners and delis in swing states. Joe Biden: Sex symbol?

He’s No. 2 on the ticket but No. 1 in their hearts.

Women born before the baby boom generation seem to have a collective crush on a handsome vice presidential candidate with piercing blue eyes and a wide smile who likes to talk about government benefits for seniors. No, not Paul Ryan.


Joe Biden’s bringing sexy back — to the Medicare-eligible set — and that could be valuable for a president who trails Republican rival Mitt Romney with women of a certain age despite having a wide advantage with their 18- to 65-year-old counterparts.

The vice president, who turns 70 in November, has been on a tour of diners and delis in swing states, charming as many white, blue-collar voters — and their mothers — as possible.

( PHOTOS: Joe Biden over the years)

He’s kissed women on the lips – and the cheek. He pulled a biker chick so close to him at one pit stop that she appeared to be sitting in his lap in photos. And he’s talked about the acrobatic acts of cheerleaders in terms that would draw at least a PG-13 rating in Hollywood.

Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist, said it makes sense to have Biden working the crowd at lunch counters because he’s good at it.

“He is a classic old school retail politician and politics and elections never [tire] of that. Obama’s a great orator and Biden is the retail politician,” Kofinis said. “They’re very different and they appeal to different types of emotions of voters.”

It’s undeniable that he’s a little different than the other candidates on the presidential ticket — the vice president is a big flirt.

( See also: POLITICO’s swing-state map)

On Saturday at Mel’s Diner, a Fort Myers, Fla., joint, not the fictional greasy spoon on TV’s “Alice,” Biden asked a group of nurses if they would “take my pulse.”After a quick photo shoot, he told them: “If there’s any angels in heaven, they’re nurses.”

He’s an equal-opportunity flatterer, dishing out compliments to women of all ages and often admonishing school-age girls that they shouldn’t date “until you’re 30.” At one stop in Virginia in August, he told a 13-year-old young man to “keep the boys away from your sister.”

The act may seem a bit hokey to the younger generation, but the 60- and 70-somethings take Biden very seriously. Often, he’s the first to flirt — but not always.

( Also on POLITICO: The Biden factor)

Jan Queen, 74, snagged a hug and a kiss from the man one long, slow heartbeat away from the presidency at a campaign stop on Sept. 8. She said something to him in a hushed tone, drawing nervous laughter from other women nearby, according to a pool reporter’s write-up of the encounter. “I told him he was so handsome, so good-looking that I was not going to let go of him, and he is better looking off camera than he is on,” she said later.

The Obama campaign declined to comment for this story.

In a case of life imitating art, it was the parody newspaper The Onion that first caught onto the idea that Biden just might be a hunk. In a May 2009 piece, the publication wrote that a shirtless Biden washed his Pontiac Trans Am in the driveway at the White House. His fake quotes indicated the car was something of a babe magnet.

Wait, wait, said Jacquie Padow, who kibitzed with the second-in-command at Nestor’s Gourmet Deli in Boca Raton, Fla., on Friday. Biden’s more mensch than macho man.

“He’s charming and adorable,” said Padow, 68, who described herself as a former shrink. “I don’t find [him] sexy at all, but he’s a terrific guy.”

Instead, she said, she told Biden it’s impressive to her that he and President Barack Obama both married accomplished women. “She is fabulous,” replied Biden, who often talks about his wife, Jill, adoringly on the trail.

“He said after 32 years, every time he sees her his heart flips because he is so in love with her,” Padow recalled in a telephone interview on Monday. “That impresses me more than anything.”

Whether it’s sex appeal or just basic charm, Biden appearsto be spreading the love for the Obama reelection effort. The former Delaware senator has locked onto a demographic diamond in the rough.

In a Gallup poll taken in August, Romney led Obama 48 percent to 43 percent among women 65 and older but trailed among three other age groups — 18 to 29, 30 to 49 and 50 to 64.

There’s a policy angle, too. Biden’s the same age as some of the seniors who worry about Republicans’ talk of cutting back on entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. He likes to talk about both programs on the campaign trail.

“Can you imagine me as vice president, can you imagine the president supporting a plan that would, under any circumstances, would raise the cost for seniors $6,400, your out-of-pocket?” Biden asked in Century Village, a Florida retirement community. That’s the average amount Democrats estimate seniors’ health costs would increase under Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s plan to move Medicare away from defined benefits and toward defined contributions.

The policy and the patronage make for a one-two punch on the campaign trail, but Biden seems to be aware that there are pitfalls in the way he connects.

At one stop, a woman handed her phone to Biden so that he could talk to her husband.

“I’m sitting here with your wife,” Biden said, catching himself. “Not alone.”