Biden Out Front in Defending Obama on the Economy
- Posted on June 25, 2011 at 11:14am by
Scott Baker
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – The longest walk parents can make, Vice President Joe Biden often says, is upstairs to tell the children they’ve lost their job.
“Millions have been stripped of their dignity,” Biden told an Ohio audience last year. “It’s time to restore their dignity.”
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy annual fundraising event on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 in Chicago. Gov. Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel were among the 900 people who attended a fundraiser. (AP Photo/Brian Kersey)
Biden, who spoke frequently of his blue-collar roots in Scranton, Pa., during the 2008 presidential campaign, is reprising his role as one of the Obama administration’s top surrogates on the economy and an empathetic voice in industrial Midwestern states hard hit by the recession.
The former Delaware senator is expected to play a similar role in the 2012 campaign, focusing on Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. President Barack Obama carried them in 2008, but each elected Republican governors in 2010.
A large swath of the Midwest, including Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin, which Obama also won, are considered prime targets for Republicans next year.
“He obviously has deep, deep roots in the industrial Midwest running from Pennsylvania right across and he’ll be very valuable there,” Obama strategist David Axelrod told reporters in Chicago this past week.
Biden, who was scheduled to speak at the Ohio Democratic Party’s annual dinner Saturday, has assailed moves by GOP governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to strip away collective bargaining rights from most public workers.
He’s also criticized efforts by Republicans in Congress to turn Medicare into a program with federal subsidies for beneficiaries who would seek coverage from private insurers.
The vice president has defended Obama’s handling of the economy, pointing to tough decisions to seek an economic stimulus package and rescue U.S. automakers. But his pitch often turns personal, drawing on his father’s decision to move the family to Delaware in the 1950s in search of a job.
“There’s still a long way to go. There are still millions of women and men who are like the family I was raised in,” Biden told Democrats in New Hampshire last month. “When a recession hit, we knew someone sitting around my dad’s kitchen table … was going to lose their job.”
Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland said Biden “has the ability to express what a lot of people feel when it comes to their anxieties over the economy and job loss, their kids. I think he does a really good job of identifying with those concerns and expressing them.”
Ahead of Biden’s visit, Republicans countered that Obama’s policies led to GOP gains in 2010 and have failed to revitalize the economy.
“All the visits in the world from President Obama, Vice President Biden and other top-level surrogates won‘t change the administration’s job-killing policies,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Ryan Tronovitch.
Largely under the radar, Biden has maintained a busy travel schedule, appearing in more than 150 political events in 2009 and 2010, including 20 in Ohio and 14 in Pennsylvania. In 2011, he had appeared at more than a dozen political events before the Ohio dinner.
Fundraisers planned for Monday in Atlanta and Nashville, Tenn., were postponed so Biden could meet with Senate leaders about efforts to increase the government’s borrowing limit, aides said.
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Comments (60)
LIBS-ARE-DINGLEHEADS
Posted on June 26, 2011 at 10:40amBlow Biden. Mr. Delaware – otherwise we wouldn‘t know this liar and spender of other people’s money.
Mr. Never had a career other than politics Joe – the….“average Joe” – (talk about an inaccurate nom de guerre) – is about as straight as dawgs hind leg.
Whoever listens – and heeds – whatever comes out of Mr. Career Wrong on nearly EVERYTHING – is an imbecile – best left alone/locked up/indicted.
Choo-Choo Joe…hopefully….will fade away quietly post 2012…….he needs to…America needs him to…
Report Post »Juniemoon
Posted on June 26, 2011 at 9:56amThis is your brain on alcohol and gov’t checks.
Report Post »justice
Posted on June 26, 2011 at 5:18amoh, Joe Blow at it again. Go back to your hiding closet. We are better off.
Report Post »Robert25252
Posted on June 26, 2011 at 3:09amBiden is pathetic. You will always know a liberal is lying, when their lips are flapping.
Report Post »FANGS
Posted on June 26, 2011 at 12:09amI cant even read this, I’m laughing so hard. Joe Biden is a walking gaff. He’s the only one who actually lies as much as obama.Sit down joe, you frickin clown.
Report Post »LoisLane1951
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 11:50pmBiden reminds me of the man who used to work at the local shoe store in the fifties.
Report Post »Enjoyed handling women’s feet just a little too much.
Shiver.
MUDFLAPS
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 11:43pmyo pluggggggssss baby! nice hair you got. Where did they get them from, your arm pits?
Report Post »dcproblemsolved
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 11:27pmBiden has maintained a busy travel schedule, appearing in more than 150 political events in 2009 and 2010, including 20 in Ohio and 14 in Pennsylvania. In 2011, he had appeared at more than a dozen political events before the Ohio dinner.
Report Post »Biden is not out front defending the economy his campaign started right after Obama/Biden took office, damage control began in week1 ! I thought the economy belonged to previous president in 2009?
miles from nowhere
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 10:54pmBiden did not know the economy even existed, he has been in office to long to notice anything outside of Washington DC, people like Biden have not been in the real world for so long he does not recognize reallity.
Report Post »Skee
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 10:12pmDumb and Dumber in 2012. I don’t know how they can lose, that’s a great ticket and perfect track record. You decide who‘s dumb and who’s dumber, close call.
Report Post »Southernguy
Posted on June 28, 2011 at 7:59amMy money is on Biden ;)
Report Post »SymbolsOfLiberty
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 9:52pmThe dems know how to sweet talk people into surrendering their liberty to their empire. http://www.symbolsofliberty.com
Report Post »JudgeMentalOne
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 9:51pmPlugs are loose.
Report Post »SymbolsOfLiberty
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 9:49pmThe dems know how to sweet talk people into surrendering their liberty and freedom. They
Report Post »powhatan
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 8:20pmI think the plugs are really electrodes and Obama shocks him whenever he says the wrong thing…
Report Post »Southernguy
Posted on June 28, 2011 at 7:59amIf they were, he’d be brain dead by now, lmaoooooooo
Report Post »Jenny Lind
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 7:30pmWhat universe is Biden living in? Can’t be ours, we are really struggeling while Washington spends money like there is no tomorrow and there is no end in sight. Blaming Bush won’t work anymore or are they to dumb to see that? Once in awhile I dream of every single one of the Washington gang disappearing from this universe and living on a rock in one far, far away.
Report Post »Akbarjonnie Shaheed
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 6:54pmBiden caught talking in his sleep.
Report Post »kapnkd
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 6:53pmIs Biden dressed in his clown suit and doing tricks with balloons full of his hot air besides spewing a bunch of liberal B S????????
Report Post »fitsgibbons
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 6:46pmI just want to scream………I can‘t wait til these ignorant S O B’S are gone.
Report Post »michael48
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 6:44pmalready auditioning for a job at Messnbc or co-host with Ovaryman on in-coherant TV…cancelled three fund raisers ??? to continue to conduct a train wreck??? truth= no one was going to show up…
Report Post »Imogene
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 6:42pmI have always hated the unions since I was a child…………..Time for our world is coming to a very abrupt end…We must FIGHT like hell until we can fight no more. JESUS CHRIST is our Lord and Savior and the answer to eternal life. So there is NOTHING to fear………………………
Report Post »Sara72
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 6:33pmThese 2 idiots need to stay out of Pa.
Report Post »Biden is better when he is asleep!
historypaper
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 6:08pmLong ago, maybe during the Middle Ages, a man like this, not the victim, would be chained to the stone floor and forced to lie prone with heavy weights.
Report Post »We the economic unfortunates continue to pay the penalty for the liars and the takers and we are pinched to every floor. Impaled by debt and taxes a sudden snap of a rope or chain might be better.
Please be merciful dear leader, we are hanging on during your crude affair that you have bungled around the world.
We’re gently swinging on the end of the rope and not one person, not even the hangman, said a word.
Amen
GardenoftheGods
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 5:53pmBiden is a drunken fool…it‘s not Obama’s feelings about the economy, it’s his adherence to economy destroying principles. Obama‘s administration’s policies should be abhorrent to a blue collar guy like Joe Biden; instead he plays the fool for Obama & helps him use Cloward & Piven, Keynesian principles, & the directives of Saul Alinsky to bring this great Nation to her knees. Biden should be ashamed of himself…I used to think HE (at least) loved America. Instead, he‘s helping Obama destroy everything that’s great about her.
Report Post »Boson Higgs
Posted on June 26, 2011 at 10:39amNo, Biden is NOT a drunken fool. He is never drunk; he is just Naturally STOOPID(tm).
Report Post »He actually believes the crap he says. Remember, one-half of America has double-digit I.Q.;they vote for Democrats. “JOE” is the Leader of the Dim(tm).
I.Gaspar
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 5:32pmBiden is a worthless hack.
Report Post »Anyone who would take what he says seriously is a fool.
ConstitunalAmerican
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 5:28pmWell, now Obama can at least count on Biden for his one vote in the 2012 election! This article doesn’t say too much of what Biden does as vice-president. It seems he’s mainly focused on the election with a busy political travel schedule. How wonderful.
Report Post »getalong
Posted on June 25, 2011 at 6:53pmBite-me Biden – what an empty-headed Godless human being. He has been living off taxpayers for so long, I doubt he would be able to function in a real job. If he is the face of Obama during the election than it brings me new hope that we can clean out the stench in the White House in 2012, I mean, come on, Biden is as good as Obama can do. God help us all and God help Israel.
Report Post »fastfacts
Posted on June 26, 2011 at 4:55amOBAMA IS SENDING BIDEN OUT TO THE FRONT LINE TO PROTECT AND DEFEND THE PRESIDENT.
Biden has said that it is Bush’s fault. He has also said other things that are ground sound bites. He is probably the gaffe king of any administration in the past: http://tiny.cc/o7lmq
Report Post »Boson Higgs
Posted on June 26, 2011 at 10:33amI live about one and a half miles from ‘******** Joe‘ Biden’s $4 Million estate. I have known the Biden family for over 35 years. No one is a bigger Biden supporter than Biden himself. He is a legend in his own mind. Wasn’t it last Summer that he proclaimed “The SUMMER of RECOVERY ™”???
Report Post »Of course, he has also reminded the World about President F.D.R. making a T.V. broadcast in 1929, so there some non-believers who don’t believe him.
Gold Coin & Economic News
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 3:04pmStories like this blow my mind because there is no defense of Obama’s economic policies. They are destroying the country!
Report Post »DrFrost
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 4:18pmI’m going to agree with GoldCoin here… Obama gives lip service to the economy but his actual actions are against it.
Report Post »