Joe Biden At The DNC
Joe Biden is at the dais right now, having been formally introduced by his son, urging America to "be there for my dad and be there for Barack Obama." The call in the hall? Bring it, Joe.
Biden has done a couple off-the-cuff drop ins in the first few sentences. "Bravest warriors in the world?" Not in the published speech. "Breathless and speechless?" That was in. Joe Biden's wild ride has begun.
Aw, but he sort of threw away this line: "No longer will you hear the eight most dreaded word in the English language, 'The vice president's office is on the phone."
MSNBC's chyron, by the way, confirms the rumor of surprise visit from Barack Obama tonight.
Biden's getting down with middle-class values: faith, equality, family, "dignity of work." He rides the train home to Delaware. Take heart, light rail fans!
He's riffing on the imagined conversations of people he passes on the train. This connects with Hillary's "invisibles." And then he makes the "Freudian slip" Kerry made: saying "Bush" instead of "McCain." I suspect now, that it's schtick. But it's schtick that the hall is eating up with a spoon.
On Obama: "He made [the lives of the people on the South Side of Chicago] the work of his life. That's what you do when you've been raised by a single mom..." Biden is selling Obama's record better than the Obama campaign has in a long while.
Biden also proclaims McCain as a friend of his, but then comes the shotgun. More drop ins from the published speech. The refrain: "That's not change, that's more of the same." The last time I heard the word "change" invoked so often? Bill Clinton: 1992.
Russia and Georgia: termed the "consequences of neglect." "This administration's policy has been an abysmal failure."
"Al Qaeda and the Taliban" are termed, "the people who actually attacked us on 9/11." Isn't it amazing how strangely ethereal this baseline truth seems in America today? So rare to hear it said! Got to say it every day.
Biden's winding it up, evoking middle-class imagery against FDR and Kennedy. "This is our time. This is America's time."
Eight minutes of oppo from Joe Biden.
And now, Jill Biden gets the duty of the night, welcoming Obama into the hall. And Obama seems a lot looser than he's seemed in a while! He's legitimately having fun. Hillary didn't just do a good job, she "rocked the house." And Seth Colter Walls notes that the "putting people first" line from Clinton goes all the way back to Clinton's beginnings, referencing the book he wrote with Al Gore.
For you to debate: was Obama showing up a good thing or bad. Was it overexposure? A detraction from tomorrow? Or was it more important to close that circle, with the Clintons, and with the past he's trying to revive?
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First Posted: 08-27-08 10:26 PM | Updated: 09-27-08 05:12 AM