No, that’s what he said to a room full of potential campaign contributors. Ones from outside Steve Israel’s district.
I just want you to know that supporting him is a smart investment.
Do tell, Mr. Vice President. Do tell.
Moe Lane
PS: NY-02 is a D+4 district. Getting to the edge, but still gettable. Needs a challenger, though.
Crossposted to RedState.
She was reportedly adamantly against giving the VP slot to then-Senator Clinton.
(pause)
Damned if I know how to score that one.
Crossposted to RedState.
Via @baseballcrank, promises, promises:
Vice President Joe Biden said today that if Democrats were to lose 35 House seats they currently hold in traditionally Republican districts, it would mean doomsday for President Obama’s agenda.
Biden said Republicans are pinning their political strategy on flipping these seats.
“If they take them back, this the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do,” the vice president said at a fundraiser for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) today in Greenville, Delaware.
Giffords, Giffords, Giffords: where have we heard that name before? Right: she was one of the Democrats who ran and hid from her constituents during the August town halls. As I recall, she was so scared of them that she only felt safe on a military base – which was an impressive display of cowardice, even for a Blue-in-Red Democratic Member of Congress.
Yes, definitely, she needs to be one of the Thirty-Five. I’m thinking that it’s going to be Jesse Kelly for this one: his website is here and you can contribute here.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
This is a pretty critical point for the health care rationing bill, and VP Biden’s supposed to be this hyper-useful kind of guy when it comes to Congressional issues. Goodness knows, we got told often enough that he was smarter than his opposite number in the campaign – you know, the one who is currently helping to drive the debate, to the administration’s detriment – so it seems odd that he’s not more involved in helping his boss chivvy scared Democratic legislators back into line.
Very odd…
SAY IT AIN’T SO, JOE: Half down, half to go. Veep Biden, touting health care reform at a Chicago fundraiser declared, “We provide about 50 percent of the health care already.” Great. And untrue. A fourth of Americans are covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Two-thirds are covered by private insurers. That’s according to the federal census.
Ah. Yes. Of course.
Silly me.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
Contra Allahpundit. As one of Jake Tapper’s commenters noted, that way nobody else would have been able to get a word in edgewise. Looking at the body language, that might have been for the best.
This really is iconic for Dizzy City, isn’t it? Four guys sitting around trying to pretend that their casual meet-and-greet-with-smiles-that-don’t-reach-the-eyes aren’t being filmed by umpteen billion different members of the media. No wonder the cameras kept moving around: the people that weren’t having cold beer were just as much part of the story as the people that were.
Crossposted to RedState.
Third word: OK. Fourth word: not so much, maybe.
James Lileks is either less merely elementally offended by the Vice President that we’ve been saddled with, or else he’s better at hiding it:
It takes years of yoga to learn the posture necessary for speaking clearly with all your feet in your mouth. But for some the skill comes naturally, which brings us to Joe Biden. Those who saw Dick Cheney as an evil genius crouched silent in the shadows of the Oval Office like Nosferatu must enjoy Biden’s high profile: he’s out there daily with the sunny enthusiasm of Ronald McDonald opening another store. And, quite often, telling everyone to have a Whopper.
Read the whole thing, and no need to point out that Whoppers come from Burger King: remember, this is Biden that we’re talking about, here. Unlike Lileks, I’m not convinced that the VP’s unrehearsed comments represent the thinking of this administration, mostly because I’m not convinced that there’s anything that represents the thinking of this administration. The slapdash strategy of the White House towards pursuing its goals – which apparently can be summed up in two words: ‘sign something‘ – could be easily making the Vice President’s utterances look more important than they actually are. After all, we’ve become accustomed to having someone who should be taken seriously being in that spot – so when POTUS is giving us rhetoric with the semantic content of tapioca pudding, it seems natural to assume that VPOTUS at least is providing something with more heft to it. Whether this is a justified assumption, or not.
Still, either way… you know, ‘they told me that if I voted for John McCain‘ we’d end up with a Vice President who kept mucking up things on a fundamental level – and they were right.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
It was apparently their turn.
The annoying bit is that we can’t even put the Vice President in an undisclosed location, given that he’s already gone out and disclosed it. I would write that it’s days like this that make me miss Dick Cheney, except that doing so would imply that I’ve ever stopped doing so since 01/20/2009.
Biden comments drive metal manufacturers lower
NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of major metal manufacturers traded sharply lower Monday, a day after Vice President Joe Biden said the White House “misread” the economy, prompting concerns that an economic recovery could be slower than expected.
[snip]
During the second quarter, commodity prices “went through the roof,” and investors snapped up metal makers stocks on word that the economy was “less bad” than before, he said.
But, now, the market has switched its thinking amid broader concerns about the economy, he said.
See here for a link to the interview (Hot Air for the H/T). About the only thing that you can say about it is that at least the White House hasn’t sent out people to retract the economic portions yet – unlike, for example, the VP’s recent comments that could be read as the USA giving permission to Israel to bomb Iran (via Sense of Events). But the ‘pace of the ball is now going to increase,’ at least – and if you know what that actually means, I’m not sure whether to be envious of, or worried about you.
Just another Monday in this, the best of all possible worlds…
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
To steal from Glenn Reynolds: You know, they told me that if I voted for John McCain we’d end up with an embarrassingly unpopular Vice President who’d stumble over the simplest of tasks… and they were right!
Biden fails to draw crowd in Erie
Wattsburg, Pa. — Vice President Joe Biden visited a small town on the outskirts of Erie today to talk to rural folks about federal stimulus money that can be used to expand broadband access to the Internet for rural areas that typically have poor connections.
Apparently stimulus money and broadband are not all that interesting to the local folk here: Only around 100 or so people have showed up so far to hear Biden talk at noon at Seneca High School off Route 8 in Wattsburg.
The room looked so sparse that about 30 or so chairs were removed by volunteers to give the illusion of a full house.
See also Texans for Sarah Palin, which has a suggestion that’s as predictable as it is apropos. I’m told that the report is that Biden wasn’t really impressive to the people who bothered to show up, but… really, by what standard?
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
*Never fails, does it? Well, if even Jove nods…
So… the guy who’s against gay marriage (unlike his predecessor) went to a LGBT fundraiser and told them that his boss (who is also against gay marriage) intends to get DoMA repealed (while at the same he’s still defending it, in terms that started a backlash) and wants to end DADT (while doing nothing to actually end it*); and in the process somehow manages to confuse the governor of Virginia (and DNC chair) with the governor of New Jersey.
In other words, it’s Thursday for Joe Biden.
(H/T: Andrew Malcolm & JammieWearingFool)
Moe Lane
*Dammit.
Crossposted to RedState.
