Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) told NBC’s Meet the Press that he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, reports MSNBC.

He officially threw his hat in the 2008 presidential race with a promise to get U.S. foreign policy in gear - and a light-hearted, optimistic, Bob Dole-esque third-person reference.

“I am running for president,” he told the program’s host, Tim Russert. “I’m going to be Joe Biden, and I’m going to try to be the best Biden I can be. If I can, I got a shot. If I can’t, I lose.”

The Delaware senator went on to say that he will be filing the necessary paperwork to create an exploratory committee by the end of the month.

The new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is one of the Democrats’ most experience spokesmen on international affairs.

With about $3.5 million in his campaign account, the exploratory committee will help him raise money and gauge potential support. He’s campaigned in early voting states such as New Hampshire and Iowa, as well as South Carolina and Nevada, already.

Biden has also been one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush’s policy in Iraq, saying Thursday that he believed top officials in the administration of George W. Bush had privately concluded they had lost Iraq and were simply trying to postpone disaster.

“I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost,” Biden told The Washington Post.

“They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy — literally, not figuratively.”

Biden made the comments in an interview as he outlined an ambitious agenda for the committee he will chair, including holding four weeks of hearings focused on every aspect of U.S. policy in Iraq.

The Senator has expressed opposition to the President’s expected plan for a surge of troops in Iraq, stating doubts about the Iraqi government’s ability to implement a new approach.

We at AfterW are curious to see if Biden’s campaign can build serious momentum. Despite more than three decades in the U.S. Senate, a strong record, and more experience than any Democratic challenger (save for Al Gore), he lacks the name recognition of some already-declared candidates.

Biden also leans closer to the center of the Democratic Party, which may be of use to him in a general election but hurt him in an effort to raise funds for primaries. At that level, for what it’s worth, Biden’s strength on national security is likely to be overshadowed, and a populist message such as John Edwards‘ seems more likely to resonate.

As far as character goes, Biden is by all accounts an upstanding individual, though the Washington Post calls his “manic-obsessive running of the mouth” the most likely trait to hurt his efforts.