Biden Tells “Legitimate Media” How To Report

February 12, 2013 2 Comments

Yesterday we talked about media bias as it relates to left-wing cop killer Christopher Dorner. Dorner has issued a manifesto praising Obama, gun control etc. The media hasn’t reported on the political aspect of Dorner’s manifesto, focusing only on alleged corruption in the LAPD. On Monday Joe Biden had a press conference pushing Obama’s gun control proposal. He told the assembled press that the administration is “counting on” the “legitimate media” to push the administration’s cause. It appears the Vice President hasn’t been watching NBC, CBS or CNN lately. He would have seen the mainstream press already pushing for Obama’s proposal, if not more gun control.

We’re getting to the point where the difference between the mainstream press and the Democrat Party is nil. Biden didn’t have a press conference yesterday, he had a pep talk with Democrat media allies. No one in the mainstream press complained about Biden’s brazen expectation that the media parrot the administration line. It was business as usual for the press. They will continue to run anti-gun and pro-gun control stories. The media will continue to demonize the NRA while praising advocates of gun control. They’ve been doing this since December, it hasn’t dented the opposition to gun control at all. Perhaps Biden thinks an all out media blitz can change American opinion. He’ll need his media allies for this.

Last week Dr. Benjamin Carson spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, which was attended by the President. Carson attacked political correctness, Obamacare, progressive taxation and dared to actually mention God at the prayer breakfast. For that Candy Crowley of CNN wondered if Carson was offensive in his speech. Crowley never seemed to have a problem with this sort of thing when Bush was President. Apparently Crowley believes Obama is some sort of prince who cannot be subjected to hearing an opposing viewpoint. Keep in mind Crowley’s base position here is that opposing left-wing ideals is offensive.

This is the same Candy Crowley who attacked Mitt Romney during a debate last year in which she teamed up with the President to get the facts wrong about the Benghazi attack. Speaking of Benghazi has the mainstream media discussed Leon Panetta’s testimony last week at all? Recall, Panetta said that the President wasn’t involved at all and never ordered a counter attack. The President went to sleep, or at least didn’t have contact with his Defense Secretary. He issued no orders. Hillary was also MIA during the entire attack. If Bush had been President the media would be howling about his dereliction of duty costing the life of an ambassador. With Obama it’s crickets, the press barely covered the story and offered zero analysis questioning the President.

We’re to the point where mainstream media bias is so egregious they ought to just stop pretending to be unbiased. When the Vice President can tell the “legitimate media” how to report the gun control issue and no one in the “legitimate media” pitches a fit, it’s clear to everyone that the media is no longer unbiased. Conservatives have for decades offered countless examples of mainstream media bias. The press has always countered that they’ve issued hard reports on Democrats as well. They haven’t with this President. They’ve ignored Benghazi, they’ve ignored inconsistencies in Obamacare, they ignored Obama’s past when he first ran for office, they’ve done everything to protect the President. If Benghazi isn’t the last straw, surely having Biden tell the media how to report is. The mainstream press needs to be honest, just admit you have a left-wing bias. We won’t agree with you but we can at least respect your honesty.

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Biden Threatens Gun Control Via Executive Order

January 9, 2013 3 Comments

Joe Biden is threatening an executive order regarding gun control. One would think the administration would realize they have very little chance of passing any form of gun control via the current Congress. The House is unlikely to take up the issue and there are a number of Democrats from red states who don’t care to take the issue up. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp for example called Obama’s view on gun control “extreme.” For reasons unknown the NRA is wasting its time meeting with Biden today. This gives the administration the opportunity to browbeat the organization and demonize it to the public. Ultimately nothing will be accomplished in that meeting or on gun control.

Biden insists that executive action will be taken on gun control. We have a President who has already tossed aside the Constitution on a number of occasions, so one can only imagine what sort of executive action the President wishes to take. Gun control isn’t a recess appointment made when Congress isn’t in recess and it isn’t the minting of a $1 trillion coin. Gun control via executive order would require unilateral action by the Obama administration, which would specifically fly in the face of the Constitution. The President doesn’t have the authority in law or the Constitution to ban guns or create new laws regarding them.

About the only executive action Obama can take is the enforcement of laws already on the book. There are hundreds of firearms laws on the books and boxes worth of regulations. Few are enforced, though there’s no evidence that enforcement of these laws will change much of anything. Many are duplicate and a handful are contradictory. Even in enforcing existing law, Obama cannot ban so-called assault rifles and he cannot prevent law abiding citizens from obtaining firearms. He cannot create new waiting periods or create new obstructions to obtaining a gun. Under existing law, Obama can do very little before the purchase of a gun.

We are left to wonder then what Biden means when he suggests executive action. Obama is skating on thin ice when it comes to gun control. The overwhelming majority of the public support gun rights and most oppose additional regulations. There is marginal support for an assault weapons ban however that support has dropped since the week after the Sandy Hook shooting. Obama is about to make gun control the central feature of his second term agenda and he will do little more than sidetrack is administration while accomplishing little to nothing.

If Obama goes forward with unilateral gun control, not only will the courts likely overrule him but the public will as well. The Courts have been very pro-gun over the last decade, overturning handgun bans in DC and Chicago. (both cities defy the Supreme Court’s ruling) Odds are a unilateral action by the executive branch won’t be viewed favorably. The mid-term election is less than two years away. If 2014 is anything like 2010, Obama’s base won’t show up to vote. Couple that with a likely angry gun toting Republican and independent electorate and it sets up as a disaster for the Democrats. Obama wants to be a dictator, he’s eluded to it on multiple occasions. Banning guns or restricting guns via unilateral executive action is dictatorial and will be rejected by the people.

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Big Bird, Binders And Romnesia: Obama Increasingly Desperate

October 20, 2012 2 Comments

There seems to be a growing sense of desperation within the Obama campaign. The first debate obviously unsettled the Obama campaign. Since that point they seem to have really begun to panic. First it was the ridiculous Big Bird ad accompanied by Obama and Biden barking about Big Bird both on the stump and during the debates. The President looked incredibly small barking about Big Bird, but that hasn’t stopped them from playing the Big Bird card for a second straight week. The Big Bird attacks had an air of desperation. It didn’t feel Presidential, when a President starts doing and saying things that feel unpresidential it’s likely because they’re entering desperate territory.

This week the President and his campaign have gotten sillier than the Big Bird ad. They won’t stop talking about Romney’s line about “binders full of women.” Obviously Romney was talking about resumes of women submitted for potential jobs within the Massachusetts government. Apparently the Obama campaign thinks this was some sort of huge gaffe, for reasons unknown to anyone over the age of 12. Joe Biden even showed up to a stump speech with a bunch of binders. These guys seriously believe they’re making some grand point. In doing so they look petty and childish, never good qualities for people running for high office.

Yesterday Obama accused Romney of having “romneisa.” President Obama has often done things that historically haven’t been very Presidential. Name calling on the stump can now be added to the list. It’s one thing for Obama to argue from the stump that Romney flip flops on issues. It’s another thing entirely to name call from the stump. It reminds me of George Bush, 41, in 1992 when he called Bill Clinton and Al Gore bozo’s during a stump speech. It was unpresidential, it showed how desperate Bush was. Surely at that point, a week or two before the election, Bush had a pretty good idea he was losing the election. He was desperate, his arguments weren’t working. What do desperate people do when their arguments aren’t working? They call their opponents bozo’s and dive into childish arguments.

Obama is entering Bush 41 territory. Big Bird and binders seem to make the bulk of his argument against Romney. Obama hasn’t laid out a plan for the next four years, he’s barely bothered to defend his indefensible first term record. He and his campaign thought they could destroy Romney during the summer, setting him up to look like Scrooge McDuck meets Thurston Howell III. Obama thought this election was in the bag, there was no way he could lose. Then the first debate happened and it sucked all the air out of his campaign. He and his campaign have been desperate ever since.

Obama’s campaign doesn’t engage arguments, they never planned on needing to do so. With the polls tightening across the country, they’ve become desperate. Unprepared and unable to engage Romney on the issues, they’re creating false issues and name calling. Big Bird, binders and “romnesia.” It sounds a lot like bozo’s, it sounds a lot like Carter’s last week when he spent his time trying to scare people by telling them Reagan would start a nuclear war. This of course doesn’t mean Obama is going to lose but it does suggest that within the Obama campaign they’re very concerned. The polls are tightening and Obama is running out of money. (the campaign got a $15 million loan from Bank of America) Desperate times call for desperate measures and in the political world that means name calling. Unfortunately for Obama, Americans tend not to think very highly of candidates for President who name call.

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Biden’s Factual Errors, Raddatz’ Biased Performance

October 13, 2012 1 Comment

The VP debate fallout has been interesting to say the least. Paul Ryan has all but been forgotten about. His performance was mediocre on policy but at this point no one seems to care. He’s being given a pass, largely because he came off as nice and polite in comparison to Joe Biden and Martha Raddatz. We’ve previously discussed Biden’s ridiculous, condescending attitude and gestures. It’s his policy statements which drifted from inaccurate to surprising that are of interest today. As for Raddatz, we now know she attended a press “women’s event” at the Vice President’s residence just a few months ago. She also has a history of attacking conservatives at debates. What makes a good moderator?

Biden made a number of factual blunders the other night. Let’s begin with one that you might characterize as a lie. He blamed Ryan and the Republicans for voting for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He claimed to vote against them. He in fact voted for both wars, which he had to know was the case. For him to act like a know it all old man who knew better than those silly Republicans concerning the wars when its public record is simply the height of stupidity. The question then comes why didn’t Ryan call him on it. But that’s another matter.

On taxes Biden claimed that Obama’s tax increases on the “rich” would only hit those making over $1,000,000. That’s factually incorrect. Obama favors letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the rich, which would raise taxes on those making over $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples. We won’t say that Biden lied there, perhaps he was giving away Obama’s negotiating strategy on the issue after the election. Or perhaps he’s confusing some Democrats demand to raise taxes even further on those making over a million. Still, what he said to the American public didn’t represent the truth even if it didn’t represent an actual lie.

Biden claimed that the ambassador in Libya never requested more security. That ought to be news to the State Department folks who testified earlier in the week in Congress that more security was requested. Biden as well as the administration was all over the place on Libya. It’s clear that their story was either inaccurate or an outright lie. It’s impossible to say which it is at this point. That the Vice President has no idea that more security was requested in Libya, especially considering that the Benghazi consulate had been attacked prior to 9-11-12 makes you wonder about Biden if not the administration.

What makes a good debate moderator? I enjoyed how Jim Lehrer handled the first Presidential debate. He allowed the candidates to go back and forth, he let them ask questions of each other. It was a real debate with the moderator setting it up by shifting the issues discussed and only butting in to ensure both sides got equal time. It’s a stark contrast from what debates used to be. Go back to the previous debates when the moderator asked questions and each candidate got a certain amount of time to respond. It was less a debate and more a joint press conference.

Raddatz is being praised to the hilt by the left for her performance. She was anything but passive. She played Barbara Walters tough girl journalist. That would be fine if she was hosting a one on one interview. But this was a VP debate. It’s not her job as the moderator to follow up with attack questions or with statements expressing doubt in what a candidate has said. Let the opponent do that, it’s a debate after all. Instead, it was a two on one, usually directed at Paul Ryan. Raddatz rarely questioned what Biden said but consistently questioned Ryan. Not surprising given her past history, which calls into question why she was a moderator. Had she been like Jim Lehrer her conflict wouldn’t have mattered much.

Only 50 million people watched the VP debate. That’s down from the nearly 70 million who watched both the 2008 Palin-Biden debate (Palin by the way did much better against Biden than Ryan did) and the first Romney-Obama debate. Less people cared about this debate, I suspect a lot of people turned it off halfway through. Biden’s factual errors likely won’t be noticed by a lot of people because they just don’t care. One wonders why we even bother with these VP debates. They don’t swing the polls, no one cares. Voters didn’t care in 1988 when Quayle looked a fool, they didn’t care in 1992 when Admiral Stockdale looked senile and no one will care that Biden looked like a crazy, obnoxious uncle at a family reunion. All that matters to voters are the Presidential debates.

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Vice Presidential Debate Review

October 12, 2012 2 Comments

What a horrible debate last night. Paul Ryan was absolutely dreadful. He came off as unprepared, a child allowed to chat with the adults for the first time. Joe Biden came off as a dismissive, senile old man. Biden was unlikable, Ryan while likable looked a child. Worse than the two candidates was Martha Radditz the moderator. She couldn’t decide whether she was going to let them debate like Jim Lehrer or interrupt. When she chose to interrupt it was almost always Ryan who was interrupted. Part of the problem is Ryan was to nice and let her do it, a good example of how unprepared he was for this stage.

The answers to the questions almost don’t matter. Ryan’s answers mirror Romney’s. Biden’s largely mirror Obama’s, though he threw the intelligence community under the bus with his Libya comments. No doubt the “fact” checkers will snarl over every comment made. I noticed some nonsense facts from Biden but in the end no one will remember any of it. What people are going to remember is Biden’s smirks and condescending tone. It is those two things that made this debate close to a tie. Otherwise Biden would have won in a landslide.

Let’s talk about Martha Radditz. President Obama attended her 1991 wedding. She has a history of attacking Republican positions. She consistently interrupted Ryan while always allowing Biden to finish his answers. Republicans will likely point fingers at her for her bias. They’re going to be right about her bias, it was pretty obvious. But what did we expect? This is what happens when we allow a liberal Presidential Debate Commission pick liberal moderators election after election. Until we insist on someone like Chris Wallace or Megyn Kelley we don’t get to whine about the liberal moderators. Having said that, it would have been nice for her to butt out and let the two candidates debate.

Does this debate change anything? It halts Romney’s momentum so in that regard Biden did what he was supposed to do. Paul Ryan didn’t do anything to hurt Romney. Yes, he looked a child and he looked unprepared. But Ryan was polite and respectful which contrasted well with Biden’s condescending attitude. When I say unprepared, it’s not that Ryan doesn’t understand the issues. It’s that he doesn’t have experience on this sort of stage. He’s never run for President, he’s never had a serious debate like this. So he didn’t hurt the Romney brand. Biden won on the issues but he looked like such a jerk that he lost the big gains he should have made for Obama. In short, the debate changed nothing.

Look, on the substance of the debate Biden won in a landslide. There’s no point in sugar coating it, Ryan got his clock cleaned because he was unprepared for the stage. But Biden was so shockingly condescending and disrespectful that he completely undid everything he could have done to help Obama. In the end though, this is a debate for Vice President. This was never going to change things much. People don’t vote for Vice President, they vote for the top of the ticket. Biden stopped the bleeding for Obama, at least on some level. He won.

One final thought. This debate came off as very unpresidential. It felt like a political fight between two useless talking heads on Hannity or Maddow. I think this will turn people off to this election and these two candidates. I get the feeling like people changed channels halfway through or just turned the tv off in disgust. The Presidential debate was a worldview debate, this was a petty talking head battle on cable news. The debate was boring, it didn’t offer us a serious look at either candidate’s worldview. It was petty, cheap and dreadful.

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Vice Presidential Debate Preview

October 11, 2012 Leave a comment

Today the two vice presidential candidates will debate. The left has already made it clear what their line of attack is going to be after the debate. They’re simply going to call Paul Ryan a liar. It doesn’t matter what he says, he’ll be labeled a liar. This is an incredibly dangerous position for the Democrats to take because they risk looking like complete fools. What they call lies are little more than policy disagreements. One of the things I’ve learned as a trial lawyer is that you don’t call someone a liar in front of a jury unless you can actually prove they’re lying. You might call them dishonest or misleading but never a liar absent actual proof. Why? Because a jury views the term liar as an explosive charge and if it isn’t true they’ll oppose the person leveling the charge. Voters are a de facto jury.

A lot of Republicans are very much looking forward to seeing Ryan debate Joe Biden. The general line seems to be that Biden is so gaffe prone that he’s sure to say something insane. Biden isn’t going to say anything bananas tonight. He’ll give a very clean performance wherein he defends Obama’s record and attacks Romney. Ryan might be able to get some shots in by bringing up past Biden gaffes but don’t look for the Vice President to make any major gaffes. He’s to experienced a debater and pol to make a major error in a debate.

While Biden brings a lot of experience to the debate, having sat through a VP debate before and having run for President twice, Paul Ryan brings no experience to the debate. Ryan hasn’t had the 20+ debates that Romney had going into the Presidential debates. We should not discount this point at all. Experience in debate matters, he needs to be able to set up Biden and respond quickly to Biden’s attacks. Some of that requires a bit of experience, frankly it requires losing in order to learn how to win. Experience is going to play a major factor tonight.

The other issue with Ryan is that he has a tendency to come off as smug. Some might say he comes off as self assured but he’s barely 40 debating a a near 70 year old. If he comes off as a know-it-all and overly dismissive of Biden, Ryan risks looking smug which will turn off some voters. It’s one of the risks Romney took by bringing on someone so much younger and so much less experienced than Biden. Ryan needs to avoid the smug while attacking Obama’s positions. These two are nothing but surrogates for the top of the ticket, Ryan shouldn’t spend much time attacking Biden other than to point out when Biden has opposed his own President.

Biden is going to win this debate. Why? Because he has such low expectations he’s sure to exceed them while Ryan has such high expectations he simply can’t live up to them. Biden’s experience will win the day and while it won’t gain the Obama campaign any momentum in the polls it will reinvigorate Democrats. It may even disillusion some Republicans, who expect the world out of Paul Ryan. No matter who wins though, this debate is largely meaningless. Vice Presidential debates just don’t mean anything. The polls aren’t going to shift no matter what happens tonight.

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Handkerchief Excuses And Tempered Expectations

October 6, 2012 2 Comments

First the left blamed Jim Lehrer for Obama’s poor performance at Wednesday night’s debate. Then Al Gore blamed the altitude. Now the left is accusing Romney of having a cheat sheet during the debate which turns out to be nothing more than a handkerchief. They’re grasping at anything to create an excuse for Obama. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, it’s fairly common for people who have placed absurd expectations on someone to make excuses when they fail. Look at the Atlanta Braves last night. Everyone in Atlanta is talking about the horrible infield fly call by one of the worst umpires in baseball. The call is to blame for the Braves loss according to fans, the truth is the Braves were down in the game because of three errors. The truth gets lost in the excuses.

Having said that, the excuses will have an affect on future debates. Well, some of them anyway. Handkerchief bans likely won’t be created and maybe they’ll go back to Denver in a future election. But the real affect will be on Candy Crowley and Bob Schieffer, the moderators of the last two Presidential debates. You can probably add Martha Raddatz, the moderator of the VP debate to the list of the affected. The message was sent loud and clear by the left in their attacks on Jim Lehrer. Keep Romney under control or face the wrath of the people you want to love you. Expect to see the moderators try to control Romney while letting Obama get away with whatever he wants.

Obama meanwhile is on the offensive against Romney. Apparently Obama thinks he was debating with a cast member of Dancing With the Stars. Obama and the left continue to lie about Romney’s tax plan, despite the fact that Romney shot down the attack with perhaps the best and most memorable line of the debate. Does Obama think that by continuing to lie about the Romney plan that people will believe it? With nearly 70 million people watching the debate, it seems a bit absurd to think that Obama is going to be able to convince people that Romney is lying about taxes.

What Obama can’t lie about is the national debt. The CBO confirms that the deficit for the last fiscal year was $1.1 trillion. That’s the fourth straight year the deficit has been above $1 trillion. Keep in mind, the 2009 fiscal year’s budget was signed by Obama in March of 2009, making him fully responsible for it. Obama is trying to blame Bush for all his problems but the numbers are damning. The debt has increased over $5 trillion since he took office. There’s just no way around that. Our national debt is over $16 trillion, Obama is responsible for over $5 trillion of that. Does the President really think people will blame Bush over him?

The VP debate is next week and its time to temper  expectations for Paul Ryan. Ryan has never been on the debate stage before. He’s never run for President so he doesn’t have experience in 20+ debates like Romney has. Biden was in the VP debate in 2008 and he has previously run for President. As much as we want to believe that Biden will make one gaffe after another at the debate, the fact is he’ll be prepared and he’ll do a serviceable job. As much as we want Ryan to be great, it’s tough to walk into an unfamiliar environment like this and dominate. No doubt the moderator won’t let him get away with anything. Expectations are too high for Ryan, he’ll never be able to meet them.

 

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Obama: Romney An Extremist, I’ll Compromise During 2nd Term

August 27, 2012 4 Comments

President Obama should seriously consider not speaking in public between now and the election. Why? Because every time he says something in public it’s ridiculous and it makes him look like a blithering idiot. His latest example took place during an interview with the AP when he said Mitt Romney was an extremist. That’s right, moderate Massachusetts Mitt is an extremist in Obama’s mind. The problem here is that the Democrats really believe that people who are pro-life are extreme, they really believe that people who believe in slightly lower taxes are extreme. It makes one wonder who the real extremists are.

But of course calling Mitt Romney an extremist isn’t even the kicker in Obama’s interview. He actually said that he would compromise with Republicans during his second term. Obama is a President who called Republicans “the enemy” in 2010. His campaign accused Romney of killing a former employee’s wife when she had cancer. He has spent four years refusing to speak with Republican Congressional leaders, in fact he spent the first two years announcing that he won so he didn’t even have to listen to Republicans. Now he’s calling our moderate candidate for President an extremist. But we’re supposed to believe that Obama is going to compromise with Congressional Republicans during his second term. I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you if you believe Obama.

You can see why Obama shouldn’t speak in public anymore. No one other than the most extreme liberal Democrats believe Mitt Romney is an extremist. He’s a johnny come lately to the conservative movement. The idea of not raising taxes during a recession recovery is hardly shocking or extreme. His position on abortion isn’t in line with the GOP platform, he’s to the left of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan on the matter. Surely his opposition to homosexual marriage isn’t extreme, after all Obama took the same position until May of this year. Opposing Obamacare surely can’t be extreme, after all over half the country continues to oppose it. Of course would it surprise anyone to discover that Obama thinks half the country is extreme?

Obama’s goal is to make Romney look like an extremist rich monster who isn’t worthy of the White House. The fact though is that Obama’s attempts haven’t worked. Romney is only a point behind Obama in the Real Clear Politics average, he started August four points behind. Nobody in their right mind thinks Romney is an extremist, which makes those who say such things look like complete idiots. Which of course Obama looks right now making such accusations of Romney. Obama looks even more foolish in suggesting he’ll compromise with Republicans. Why should anyone believe him, he’s so far refused to compromise. We have a major tax increase coming on January 1st and Obama has made no effort to compromise with the GOP. But of course, he’ll compromise all over the place beginning January 20th. Who believes this nonsense?

Romney ought to have a field day with the litany of ridiculous comments coming out Obama and Biden’s mouths over the past few weeks. He needs to highlight all of this nonsense in his acceptance speech or allow Ryan to take it on point by point. The Obama campaign has been on a downward spiral ever since he declared ‘you didn’t build that.’ He says that but Romney’s the extremist. What planet are these people living on? The same planet that believes Obama is going to suddenly become the compromiser in chief during his second term I suspect.

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Joe Biden Calls GOP Squealing Pigs, Plans To Crash Convention

August 22, 2012 4 Comments

Vice President Joe Biden is the gift that keeps on giving. This man has created more problems for the Obama campaign then Romney can create. He screwed up the homosexual marriage announcement, he got Obama off message last week with his ridiculous accusation that the GOP would “put y’all back in chains” complete with phony southern accent. Now he’s claiming the Republicans are like squealing pigs. His speeches are getting less and less dignified, which only makes Paul Ryan look more qualified. Biden is coming to Michigan this week, I almost can’t wait. He’s sure to put his foot in his mouth again and that can only be good for the GOP.

But it gets even better. Joe Biden is planning on holding campaign events in Tampa next Monday and Tuesday. That’s right, Biden is going to crash the GOP Convention. There are several ways to look at this. Obviously this is completely undignified, not to mention incredibly narcissistic and arrogant on the part of the Obama campaign. It is unprecedented for a President or Vice President to crash the other party’s Convention, holding rallies and such in the same town. Generally candidates back off a little bit during the other party’s convention, not so with Obama’s. Obama wants his campaign in the forefront. But rather than do it himself, he’s sending Biden.

So while this is incredibly arrogant and inappropriate, the Republicans must be jumping for joy. Biden will almost certainly say something completely outlandish, he won’t be able to help himself with so many Republicans in town. The opportunity to lampoon Biden throughout the Convention will likely be taken by nearly every speaker. It’s almost to easy though it serves an important purpose. Joe Biden is a heartbeat away from becoming President. Do we really want four more years of that sort of risk?

But the best part about Obama sending Biden to Tampa is that the GOP can respond in Charlotte the next week. As Reince Priebus points out, the Republicans can see what sort of shenanigans Biden pulls in Tampa and respond ten fold in Charlotte. My thought is that the Romney team should send Paul Ryan on a tour of North Carolina during the Democrat Convention. He can give speeches in front of closed factories, have lunch with the chronically unemployed and speak at some of the retirement complexes which are becoming more popular in North Carolina. He doesn’t even have to go to Charlotte, though I’m sure with its 10% unemployment there are plenty of closed factories and businesses and plenty of chronically unemployed people to have lunch with.

Obama said his Presidency would be post-partisan, he was going to be the guy to put the partisan bickering aside and do what’s right for the country. His Presidency of course has been the most bitterly partisan in history. Obama is at the center of that but Joe Biden is awfully close. Just in the month of August Biden has proven that the administration is bitterly partisan. The only thing he hasn’t done, in public anyway, is snort like a pig at the Republicans. Otherwise he’s engaged in personal attacks, baseless innuendo and now he’s crashing the Convention. All of this while not engaging in a serious discussion of Barack Obama’s vision for a second term.

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Romney’s Response To Biden A Campaign Turning Point

August 15, 2012 2 Comments

With all the talk surrounding Paul Ryan it might be easy to forget all about the current Vice President Joe Biden. Not content unless he’s the center of attention, Biden created a firestorm yesterday when warned a crowd about the Republicans “they gonna put y’all back in chains.” This man is a heartbeat away from the White House and he’s accusing the other party of desiring to enslave people. Interestingly the crowd wasn’t all black so what Biden actually meant by “back in chains” is anyone’s guess. He might not even know, Biden rarely remembers what state he’s in these days. 

The Romney camp struck back declaring that Biden’s comments were offensive and not fitting for a Vice President. The Obama camp struck back in defense of Biden, claiming that some Republicans said they wanted to “unshackle” business. Apparently in the Obama spin room the Republicans, not even Romney mind you, opened the door to slavery language by desiring to unshackle business from overbearing government regulation. You would think reasonable people would see the difference between “unshackling” business from regulations and declaring that the GOP wants to enslave people. Sadly, reasonable people don’t spin things for the Obama campaign.

Romney was surprisingly tough on Biden’s comments. Romney said at a campaign stop in Ohio “Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago.” Romney took it a step further suggesting that all of the smears coming from the Obama campaign are disgracing the office of the President. He then tied the smears to the fundamental failures in the Obama administration and his total lack of new ideas for a second term. This is a surprisingly combative speech coming from a candidate who up until yesterday has campaigned in an extremely conservative and cautious manner. Perhaps Biden’s comment caused Romney to decide enough is enough.

Biden’s line was ridiculous. It is another in a long line of inappropriate and degrading comments from this Vice President. The Democrats just don’t seem to care so long as Biden is attacking the people Obama called “the enemy.” This is who we’re dealing with, people who believe that the 45% who vote every year for Republicans are the enemy to say nothing of the people actually carrying GOP cards in their wallet. That Obama and company don’t care about Biden’s incendiary comments really shouldn’t surprise anyone. At this point Biden can say anything and the Democrats will lock arms in support of him, at least in public.

What is really interesting though is Romney’s response. He’s clearly had enough of the nonsense and is ready to fight back. He seems energized and ready to go. This can’t be anything but good for Republicans, many of whom were getting tired of seeing Romney shy away from the fight over the last couple months. That Romney is willing to call Obama’s campaign a campaign of division, anger and hate suggests that he’s in this to win it. Not only that, he’s spot on about the Obama campaign. Obama can’t win over independents to his political views so he’s going to create a campaign of anger, division and hate among core Democrat constituencies, particularly where race is involved.

Everyone wants to say that the Ryan selection is going to be the turning point in the race or Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment will be looked back at as the turning point. Those are both important moments in this campaign. But we may look back at yesterday’s Romney speech as the real turning point in the election. It was the speech in which Romney declared that he isn’t going to take it anymore and that he’s in it to win it. If Romney goes forward refusing to get pushed around by the Obama bully machine while tying the bully machine to Obama’s lack of success and vision this could be a real close race.

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