[Vision2020] Politics of Desperation — Biden plays the Race Card after looking at the polls

No Weatherman no.weatherman at gmail.com
Sun Oct 19 16:52:27 PDT 2008


Biden: Voters "having a difficult time" electing first African
American president
October 19, 2008 6:30 AM

ABC News' Matthew Jaffe Reports: As Election Day looms just over two
weeks away, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said Saturday that with
Republicans firing "vicious" and "dangerous" attacks at Sen. Barack
Obama, D-Ill., voters are "having a difficult time" opting for the man
who would become the nation's first African American president.

"Undecided people are having a difficult time just culturally making
the change, making the move for the first African American president
in the history of the United States of America," the Democratic
vice-presidential nominee said at a San Francisco fundraiser Saturday
evening. "So we need to respond. We need to respond at the moment,
immediately, not wait, not hang around, not assume any of this won't
stick."

"You see these vicious attacks on Barack's character," Biden told
supporters. "I mean, this is dangerous stuff these guys are doing.
This stuff is on the edge. It's on the edge. You know, there's some
folks out there in the community nationwide that aren't as stable as
others. It's a very small minority. But having these rallies where
people are showing up saying, you know, the things they're saying — I
don't even want to repeat them — it's not a healthy thing."

Biden cited automated GOP calls describing Obama as having "worked
closely" with "domestic terrorist Bill Ayers", Virginia Republican
Party chairman Jeff Frederick telling volunteers to tie Obama to Osama
bin Laden, and speakers at Republican rallies referring to Barack
Hussein Obama.

The six-term senator promised that Democrats would not get "banged
around" like they were in 2004 when Republicans "did a hell of a good
job" portraying Democratic nominee John Kerry as a "coward".

"I am so sick and tired of being, of us being banged around that they
are going to have to beat me with a stick before we are going to break
down," he said.

Biden hit the Bay Area for three fundraisers Saturday, helping rake in
an estimated $2.2 million for the campaign. At his second event of the
day, in Piedmont, Biden predicted that the ticket will experience a
drop in polls this week.

"Mark my words, you're going to see these polls drop this week," Biden
forecasted. "We got a bump. We're going to be in good shape. You're
going to see them drop. There's nothing automatic about this at all."

In the state where former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, an African
American, lost the 1982 gubernatorial race after exit polls showed him
leading by a wide margin, Biden attempted to assuage concerns that
Sen. Barack Obama would suffer a similar fate by noting that Democrats
had "the most incredible field organization in the history of American
politics".

"It costs tens of millions of dollars to do this," noted Biden. "And
that's our secret weapon. That is our equalizer to when anybody talks
about the Bradley effect. This is the ultimate equalizer."

Still, Biden cautioned that Obama has a tough task ahead of him in
southern states such as Virginia and North Carolina, reminding
supporters that Harold Ford Jr. was leading his 2006 Senate race in
Tennessee before ultimately falling short.

"We're ahead in Virginia, but the idea that we'd have a lead like
they're saying we have — we haven't won that state in over 40 years,"
Biden said. "We're leading in that state with an African-American of
incredible capacity. We're leading in North Carolina. But you also saw
how we were ahead in Tennessee with a brilliant young senator last
time out who was an African-American."

But Biden boasted that Obama has the capacity to withstand GOP attacks
and win the White House.

"Barack Obama communicates an absolute sense and certainty that is the
most typical American instinct that there is," Biden said. "That we do
not have to accept circumstances as we find them. That it is totally,
thoroughly within our capacity to change our circumstance. That's why
he touched those people helping feed us tonight. That's why he touched
all those white and black folks around the country. The African
American population in my state and in South Carolina, and the white
population in the state of Iowa. Because he means what he says. It's
not about black or white. It's not about — it is about all being
Americans."

The Delaware lawmaker noted how far the country has come to now be on
the brink of possibly electing an African American president.

"I got started in the civil rights movement as a young kid in a state
that had been segregated by law with the eighth largest black
population in America, as a percent of population," Biden said. "And I
never thought, but I prayed I'd live to see the day, when — and I
never thought I could be part of it — a part of seeing to it that we
for the first and significant, fundamentally significant way, put a
lot of that past behind us and began to unite the nation."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/biden-voters-ha.html



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