Biden in Bay Area: ”Going to Get Uglier”

Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden was in the Bay Area today. Our colleague Mary Anne Ostrum of the San Jose Mercury News has filed this pool report, which is the story straight from the reporter’s notebook:

”Sen. Joe Biden arrived at the Atherton home of former state controller Steve Westly about noon on Saturday. An estimated 150 guests ate lunch in the large garden and sipped wine as they strolled about the grounds.”

”It was the first of three Bay Area Biden fundraisers on Saturday.”

Westly introduced Biden, first saying ”Folks, this is looking pretty good,” referring to polls showing the Democrats ahead. That produced shhs and nervous laughter. Then he reminded the crowd that both Al Gore and John Kerry had leads over President Bush in October, but failed to win.

”I’m calling on you. There will be no complacency until we are done,” Westly said.”We learned in ’04,” someone shouted from the crowd.

Biden took microphone, first apologizing for the campaign’s regular return trips to the Bay Area raise money: ”I genuinely feel badly about it.”

Before turning serious, he joked about his decision to join Obama on the ticket. ”The vice presidency ain’t much to begin with,” Biden said. ”At least as chairman of foreign relations committee, presidents have to go through you. As vice president they don’t have to pay any attention to you.”

Someone in the audience yelled out, ”At least you know what the vice president does.” Sarah Palin, after being named the GOP nominee, failed to name any specific duties of the vice presidency.

Biden too referred to past races where Democrats had been leading in October but lost. ”We’ve been here before…We have always, not always but the last two times, underestimated just how successful virulent attacks are.”

During his 15-minute speech, he interrupted himself to introduce his son, Hunter, and Silicon Valley U.S. Rep Anna Eshoo.

Of Obama, Biden said, ”If anyone, anyone thinks he owes this country for his success, it’s Barack Obama….This is no malarkey. This guy is the real deal.”

Biden described a seminal moment during the Democratic National Convention. Shortly before he left for the convention floor, he said goodbye to his young nephew and granddaughters who had joined Obama’s two daughters in the same room.

”I looked back in that room and I had no doubt that I had made the right decision to try to help Barack get elected president of the United States. It sounds corny…”

”What I saw in that room, these little black and white children cuddled up with one another while their grandfather and father were in the quest to become president and vice president of the United States of America says more to me about what this election is about at its core than anything else.”

Biden spoke for several minutes about how difficult a job it will be if the Democrats win the White House.

”This is not going to be easy. It’s not going to be easy to win, but I think we will. But once we win this presidency is going to be left the greatest amount of challenge since that any president has since Franklin Roosevelt was elected president of the United States of America. I do not believe for one moment that is any even scintilla of hyberbole.”

”It’s going to be a tested administration, mark my words. This administration is going to be tested out of the box…this presidency is going to be tested in ways because everybody knows, if we do get our footing, if we do get our footing firmly placed in the direction of beginning to unite this world and not squandering the opportunity to unite it, everthing changes over the next 25 years.”

On the domestic side, he warned Americans may not ”fully trust us.”

”They’re just looking for somebody, somebody they can trust enough and even when we win, they’re still not going to fully trust us. Because what’s happened here, what Bush has done, and is now being done by McCain to my great disappointment — he used to be a close friend. What’s being done is a constant attempt to win by actually…appealing to the cynicism of American people and the sense that government cannot work. That it cannot work. That’s the wedge — that’s the wedge, that’s the ultimate wedge they use.”

Biden, speaking of the GOP ticket, said ”these guys are going to get uglier.” He referred to media reports that the McCain campaign is focusing a $60 million advertising effort in a handful of states for the final three weeks, and he predicted voters would hear ”some of the most scurrilous stuff you’ve heard.”

He criticized Sarah Palin for comments she made in North Carolina a couple of days ago when she said she was happy to be in a place of patriots. ”As if all of us here are not patriotic….It’s really bad stuff.”

Biden was headed Saturday afternoon to a second fundraiser, this one in Piedmont, CA. The third and final fundraiser was to be held in San Francisco. Biden is spending the night at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco and will head to Washington state for a rally in Tacoma followed by a fundraiser.

Posted By: Carla Marinucci (Email) |
October 18 2008 at 08:51 PM