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Obama-Biden Trumps McCain-Rove
Illustration by Ethan Wenberg
John Kerry stood up on Wednesday night and showed some of the fire he should have displayed four years ago. He did what many Democrats had been calling for all week, delivering a blistering attack on John McCain's misguided policies and the failures of George W. Bush. Commentators including NBC anchor Brian Williams immediately labeled it the Democratic Convention's hardest hitting speech.
Condemning the Republicans for opening the tired playbook of Karl Rove and daring to question Barack Obama's patriotism, Kerry highlighted McCain's only plan to win this election. With Steve Schmidt at the helm, the same Rove disciple who ran the 2004 Bush war room, the McCain campaign has a simple strategy -- to trash Obama by any means necessary.
But by picking Joe Biden as his running mate, Obama has made it much harder for McCain to Swiftboat, Paris Hilton, and Willie Horton his way into the White House. Biden's acceptance speech proved what the citizens of Delaware have known for a long time. Biden is a regular Joe with all-American family values who also happens to be a Senator.
Biden has been on the national stage since he led the fight against Robert Bork's extreme right wing Supreme Court nomination in 1987, and campaigned twice for president. Yet as he stepped into the spotlight Wednesday night, it was his first introduction for many voters. And Biden knocked it out of the park. Like Obama, the man has the gift of the tongue, which makes the fact that he overcame a childhood stutter all the more remarkable.
He stressed the values he learned from his parents growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His father "fell on hard economic times," but told him, "Champ, when you get knocked down, get up. Get up." In one of the speech's many emotional moments, he introduced his elderly mother, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden, who was sitting in the audience. And Biden reminded us that "My mother's creed is the American creed: No one is better than you. You are everyone's equal, and everyone is equal to you."
Unlike McCain, Biden doesn't own a house or condo in Washington, let alone seven of them spread around the country. He takes an Amtrak train most nights on his regular commute back to Wilmington, Delaware. Biden has a middle class bankroll, ranked 99th in net worth out of 100 Senators in 2005. His wife Jill, who briefly took the mike to introduce Barack Obama's surprise appearance following Biden's speech, is a full-time teacher at Delaware Technical and Community College.
And Biden painted a powerful picture of the imagined conversations around kitchen tables in all the houses he passes while riding home on the train:
"Winter's coming. How we gonna pay the heating bills? Another year and no raise? Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care? Now, we owe more on the house than it's worth. How are we going to send the kids to college? How are we gonna be able to retire?"
These are anxieties most Americans share at a moment when our economy is in shambles. Having Joe Biden voice them on the campaign trail from now until November will do more than help the Obama-Biden ticket appeal to working class voters in critical states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. It will keep the focus on how Republicans have screwed things up. George W. Bush spent two terms driving the country into a ditch, and McCain offers more of the same.
It's hard to distract from a historic foreclosure crisis that severely threatens the value of working and middle-class families' homes. Or a broken health care system, falling wages, and inflation that has pushed up the cost of nearly everything. Or sky-high gas prices. And the war in Iraq, pushed off the front pages as U.S. casualty levels drop, is a steady drip in the back of voters' minds, a constant reminder that we are wasting billions of dollars a month while needs at home remain crying out to be met.
Even reporters for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network are calling the Obama-Biden ticket "authentic and real," saying "Joe Biden is a genuine working class guy." John McCain and his team are in trouble unless they wake up and smell the economic realities confronting the country, then start re-thinking the Rove formula for victory. With the economy in the tank and Obama-Biden not afraid to say it, the GOP slime machine may soon be out of gas.
Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.
For more Huffington Post coverage of the Democratic National Convention, visit our Politics @ the DNC page, our Democratic Convention Big News Page, and our HuffPost bloggers' Twitter feed, live from Denver.
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it's more about Rove V. the Internet
You used to be able to slime and destroy a pol in one breathe. With the internet, people are able to arrive to the truth on their own.
I am one of the OBAMA / BIDEN supporters who used to be a Republican. I am ashamed about what McCain and Bush and the Republican party have done to mismanage our country.
For example, a Senate bill to stop oil speculators from cheating us did not pass two weeks ago. 60 votes were needed. All of the Republicans voted AGAINST this bill. Shame on the Republican Party. It will cost me $4.00 a gallon for home heating oil; which is $1,000.00 for 250 gallons.
The Republicans cost me $500.00 because heating oil should be priced no higher than $2.00 per gallon.
WAKE UP AMERICA.
Call or email a Republican and tell them you are angry. I did. Also, GO TO:
http://www.stopoilspeculationnow.com/
And sign the petition.
OBAAMA / BIDEN 08
I just hope those people at the dinner table that are asking these questions, starts to ask why they are asking those questions...answer Mcbush and their policies. Its time for people to wake up and smell the money, or lack their of for the middle class. Obama/biden 08 is our shot to be a great nation again, not just a nation of a great few
Your title was fairly funny, and politically it was quite well done. Lot of spin on it though. Ah hell, it's an editorial, I should lighten up.
Trumps at what?
Try making sense to us and say something,
I like Biden. But he better work on reading that teleprompter.
why? how many more teleprompters will he have to look at between now and November? Fact is, Biden is stump speech kinda guy and this contrast complements Obama's smooth style. Besides, he is a 1000 times better than McCain.
President Barack Obama
I have a few reservations about parts of Biden's record, but I respect anyone who will take a teaching position over higher-paying opportunities. That goes for his wife too.
Obama's wishes he had a Rove at this point. Over a year of daily TV coverage and the best explanation his campaign has for sagging polls is: Nobody knows him yet!
I read your profile so that I could understand the source of this uncanny "logic" - and so I get where you are coming from: a place called disappointment and resentment over someone else's success.
Still I'm curious- who is the "nobody" you are referring when you say "nobody knows Obama yet"? You? The OVER18 million voters that voted for Obama during the primaries? (of course, I am including the caucuses even though according Ed Rendell they are undemocratic)
Last time I checked Obama is the Presidential Nominee for the Democratic Party, so obviously somebody knows him.
"... Even reporters for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network are calling the Obama-Biden ticket "authentic and real," saying "Joe Biden is a genuine working class guy." ..."
And *this* is what's telling and why the repubs are terrified of Obama's incredible insight to choose Joe as his running mate. Joe is impossible to attack and he's got a loooong memory. People like him. People of my generation and older have always liked him because he tells it like it is and is REAL.
The youth choose Obama because, although he's only 1 year older than I, he appeals to the younger generation and has them locked in with him.
A dynamic, invincible duo: Obama / Biden '08.
Well, only invincible if the Diebold machines don't malfunction in favor of the Republican prez candidate...for the third time, that is.
So why did this "average Joe" vote in favor of the Bankruptcy Reform Bill (written by corporate lobbyists)? Didn't he also vote for NAFTA, the greatest union-busting legislation of all time? WTO? It seems like the fact that he's only 99th on the list of Senate millionaires is his biggest claim to being "in touch" with the middle class. Isn't that essentially McCain's view (only people making more than $5 million a year are wealthy)?
Please, somebody, list the man's actions as Senator rather than his (empty) words. Did he try to reign in the banks by voting against the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act? Did he vote against the Welfare Reform Act? Did he vote against the authorization to use force in Iraq? (No.) Against any bill to fund the occupation of Iraq? (no.)
Is anyone else tired of the good cop/bad cop routine of the Dems and Repubs? Can we start, finally, to judge politicians by their actions rather than their words?
Though I disagreed with his vote, I realize that credit card companies have their corporate headquarters in Delaware. As small as that state is and the power and jobs they control, I have to try to understand that vote.
But Biden usually stands up for the little guy and tries to do the right thing.
I think you need to compare Biden's record (the VP) to McCain's record as he runs for president.
Put them side by side before you tear him apart.
In the last 8 years no senator has been perfect in my eyes. But I will vote for the ticket that's going to look out for me over corporate power and greed whle they finally have the power.
McCain? Tax cuts for the rich, tax breaks for big oil, privatize social security (oh and how well has this privatization worked over the last 28 years?), the list goes on.
The point is you can nitpick all you want. On the big issues of the day it obvious that Obama/Biden is superior to McCain/Anyone.
With all due respect, if you list some of Biden's pro-working-people votes that offset the half dozen or so anti-working-people votes I listed, we would have at least a side-by-side comparison of Biden's voting record. And note that the issues I listed are not just "nitpicking" ones, but huge issues for which Biden voted decidedly for corporate and elitist interests. When push comes to shove, when more than crumbs are involved, Biden can be counted on to take the pro-big-biz stand.
"Unlike McCain, Biden doesn't own a house or condo in Washington..."
Don't you think it's a little much to expect McCain to go home to AZ every night? He goes home every week as it is.
He goes home every week as it is on his wife's jet.
Which home?
JulieSA,
You missed the point. Even if McCain has a "house or condo in Washington" that would be reasonable. But he has SEVEN!!!!!! He has soooooo many that he has lost count.
Surely you aren't trying to make that seem like something any, average, real-American can relate to. McCain is out of touch with Americans. He can't play the bigot card and claim he has our values and interests at heart.
Apparently John McCain has seven homes worth approx. $13mm with his wealthy wife. John Kerry had at least 5 personal residences with his wealthy wife Theresa worth approx $33mm....in 2004. ....and our party had no issue with that. Nobody besides uber-partisans care. John Kerry is a war hero, and John McCain is a war hero. War hero/experience was so important to us in '04, now it is almost despised in '08. John Kerry, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy & John McCain are longtime fast friends who regularly work with each other on legislation. Our party leaders think we are all ok with hypocrisy as long as it benefits us, ....and apparently you are perfectly happy being the perfect little hypocrite. You wonder why we can't convince swing voters to pull the lever for democrats. These arguments are silly, petty, and demean the party making them and the hypocrisy immed turns swing voters off. It has always had this effect. Let's debate real issues.
He goes home in his private Jet every night to House number 15 in Washington DC...
Unfortunately, when he goes home it isn't from Washington DC. He hasn't been to work for over a year. I guess he has much more important things than mere legistating to do.
Agreed. This is a great article. Biden is sharp, witty and above all, down to earth. He gets it!!!
"With the economy in the tank and Obama-Biden not afraid to say it, the GOP slime machine may soon be out of gas."
Don't count on it, my friend. The depths these miscreants will sink to never ceases to amaze me.
that is true...but they seem to be sputtering now...grasping at straws.
I agree totally...miscreants. Though I wish they were out of gas...they own the oil. Slime is all they have to offer. The overt slime is easy to dismiss as ridiculous, but the Rove covert slime tactics are easier to miss and to that end we must be vigilant to and ready to counter.
agreed. when they run out of slime, they just repeat what they have ad nauseum and outright make stuff up.
the difference is that it hopefully won't work this time because people are fed up and tired of this.
biden is a great addition to the ticket, probably the smartest choice out of the shortlist options.
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