Biden, Part 2: From a banking state, but it didn't pay off

Inspired by my colleague Connie Prater's earlier item on Sen. Joseph Biden, I poked my nose into his financial disclosure form. It shows that while the Delaware Democrat may have been friendly with his home state industry, it's also clear that not much of the bankers' chief product -- money -- stuck to him.

Biden's one of the U.S. Senate's least wealthy members, according to the 2007 financial disclosure forms he filed earlier this year.

In the 16-page document, there's not much aside from his $165,000 U.S. Senate salary. He did get a $125,000 advance in 2007 from a book deal with Random House. He'll get another $125,000 when he delivers the manuscript -- which doubtless got a lot more interesting in the past 72 hours. Aside from those two items, he had little to disclose.

That's an area that the Obama campaign may want to capitalize on, considering that the man atop the Republican ticket, John McCain, is one of the wealthiest senators, owning more homes than he can keep track of.

One interesting tidbit about Biden's financial disclosure: It apparently pays better to be a talking head on pay TV than free TV. Biden reported that he was paid $825 by Bill Maher's company for an appearance in March 2007 on the HBO show, "Real Time with Bill Maher." That cheapskate David Letterman over at CBS paid only $200 for a Speptember '07  appearance. Biden donated both appearance fees to charity.

See related: Obama may reform McCain's credit card rate, Hillary racks up credit card debt, but pays it off monthly