Joe Biden is running Obama's show

Ahead of President Obama's and Vice President Joe Biden's speeches at the DNC tonight, Politico looks at the messaging breakdown Obama has suffered. Surprisingly, it's the walking gaffe who's saving the day.

Some of Obama’s most effective lines this year — the ones that resonate best with working-class voters — have been cribbed from Vice President Joe Biden, whose appearance was pushed from a prime-time keynote on Wednesday to accommodate Bill Clinton.

“Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative,” is an Obama favorite, cribbed from Biden — who credits it to late Boston Mayor Kevin White.

And when Republicans hammered Obama surrogate Martin O’Malley, governor of Maryland, for suggesting Americans aren’t better off now than they were four years ago at the start of the convention, it was Biden Obama aides turned to again.

“We are better off. If [Romney and Ryan] win, people are in trouble. This is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden told a crowd of 3,500 in Detroit Monday.

“Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”

[Politico]