From The Hotline for Monday, Sept. 8, 2008

BIDEN

Butte Can't Get All The Attention

Monday, Sept. 8, 2008


Joe Biden stumped in Kalispell, MT, on 9/7, where he "brought a gymnasium of 1,200 people to their feet with an impassioned, freewheeling speech on why America needs new leadership." Biden: "I am fascinated to find out that all of the sudden John McCain and Sarah Palin are the agents of change. Name me one single place where John McCain and Sarah Palin differ from Bush. John McCain votes 90 percent of the time with the big ticket items. I can hardly wait to debate the agents of change."

The "economy loomed large" during his remarks, as Biden defined the middle class as "anybody who would be in trouble after two weeks without pay."

Biden also said of the GOP convo, "I thought Governor Palin made one heck of a political speech. ... But her silence on the issues was deafening. I did not hear a word about health care. I did not hear about education. I didn't hear about Afghanistan or Pakistan. I didn't hear her utter a word about what we are going to do about the energy crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, God love John -- he didn't do much better."

Biden, working the crowd into a "roar": "I believe with every fiber of my being that America is ready. I am ready. Barack Obama is ready. We will change this nation" (Cohen, Missoulian, 9/8). He called Obama "the real deal" and "revved up the crowd with a few specifics from the ticket's platform."

Biden "was able to pack a gym with interested voters" in "the heart of conservative" MT, in a county that gave the previous Dem ticket "less than a third of the vote" (Gouras, AP, 9/8).

This week, Biden heads to Columbia, MO, on 9/9 (Rosenbaum, Columbia Tribune, 9/7), and to NH on 9/10 (Concord Monitor, 9/7).

And That's Just Part One Of My Three-Part Answer

On his campaign plane 9/7, Biden "demanded to know more" from McCain about his plans for Iraq. Biden: "I've never heard John utter a word about what he's going to do after. After, quote, he establishes victory in Iraq. ... Tell me the end of the story, John. Victory sounds wonderful. We're all for victory. What do you mean by victory?" Biden said he and Obama "have laid this out in painful detail for two years."

"Asked if he still supported a tripirtite plan for Iraq," Biden's "response to that one question lasted 13 minutes." Biden "said he believed" the Iraqi gov't and the Bush admin "are currently working such a plan out -- adding that Iraq could be divided up into more, or even less, than three areas" (Corsaro, CBSNews.com, 9/7).

Asked earlier on "Meet the Press" if the surge in Iraq helped make the timeline possible: "Well, it did help make it possible. It did help. But it's not the reason. ... They say the reason why there's such success against the insurgency is because of now small, very well trained counterinsurgency units. ... The bottom line is, we can argue about whether the surge was good, bad or indifferent. Let's assume it was all good. The truth of the matter is, what do we do now? What's John McCain going to do when he's president? He says he will not sign on to a timeline, number one. Number two, he has no, no idea, no suggestion how he's going to deal with the neighbors. He has no idea how he's going to deal with Iraq. He has no idea how he's going to deal with Syria. He has no idea how he's going to deal with Turkey. We have laid out a clear plan."

Brokaw: "Five years from now, do you think Iraq will have relative stability and democratic principles in a central government?"

Biden: "If there is an Obama-Biden administration, yeah. If there is a John McCain administration and Sarah Palin, I think it's probably not going to happen, because John does not view this in terms of the region. I never heard him speak about how he's going to integrate Iraq into the region where you have these competing interests that exist. ... John may have an idea. I've never heard it" (NBC, 9/7).

If You Can Face Mikulski, You Can Face Anyone

Asked on his plane if he's expecting anything different when debating Palin 10/2, Biden said of the people asking such questions, "I think they're in a time warp. ... It seems like the only people in the room that think that debating a woman is going to be fundamentally different are people who don't hang around smart women. ... Come to the Senate, man. Take on Barbara Mikulski. You know, uh, take on Olympia Snowe. You know, take on Dianna Feinstein. Take on Barbara Boxer. Take on you know, the list goes on."

Biden also said it's a "legitimate political point" for Palin to make that he's spent 35-plus years in Washington, but Biden said people are "going to say" that Plain is "not ready." Biden: "I know it sounds corny, but I really do have faith in the instincts of the American people. You give enough information, they'll make the right decision" (Corsaro, CBSNews.com, 9/7).

Sarah, Palin And Tall

During his 9/7 "Meet the Press" interview, Biden's first Sunday morning appearance as the Dem VP nominee, he was asked about Palin.

Biden, on Palin saying "being a mayor is like being a community organizer except you have actual responsibilities": "It was a great line. ... She had a number of good ones. Look, she's a smart, tough politician, and so I think she's going to be very formidable. But, you know, eventually she's going to have to sit in front of you like I'm doing and have done. Eventually she's going to have to answer questions and not be sequestered. Eventually she's going to have to answer questions about her record."

Biden, asked who he called first after seeing Palin's speech: "I didn't see her speech, I saw part of it. We were flying from Florida to Virginia, and I caught the tail end of it. ... I called my wife. ... She thought she was tough and she was a good politician. And so, you know, but who knows where this is going to go. You know, it's early in the process and the voters are going to make judgments about Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, but the truth is they're mostly going to make judgments about Barack Obama and John McCain. Vice presidents are useful, but we're not determinative."

NBC's Brokaw: "Already people are saying no one has a tougher job in the base than Joe Biden. He has to go up against this woman and she has been teed up, in many ways, by the Republican Party as someone that you just can't go after in conventional terms. Make it tougher debating her than it would, say, Mitt Romney or Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania?"

Biden: "Well, in the sense I know Mitt Romney and know his positions, and I know Tom Ridge and I really respect them. But, you know, I've debated an awful lot of tough, smart women. A woman who's a judge here in our superior court was one of my toughest opponents ever for the Senate. And there's a lot of very tough, smart women in the United States Senate I debate every day. So in that sense it's not new. But what is new is I have no idea what her policies are. I assume they're the same as John's. I just don't know."

Brokaw: "She's already so familiar to women that they're using her first name, Sarah. Does that give your ticket a problem, because there was a dust-up obviously between the Hillary Clinton supporters and the Obama campaign?"

Biden: "Well, look, I live with a lot of smart women. ... I think it's kind of demeaning to suggest that all women are going to vote for a woman just because she's a woman even when she's diametrically opposed to everything Hillary stands for. ... So far I haven't heard one single policy position, one single position that she has in common with Hillary."

Biden, asked if the camp will send Clinton into the working-class states she won in the primaries: "I hope I'll be campaigning with her in some of those states, particularly in Pennsylvania and Ohio. She's indicated she's prepared to do it. Bill Clinton's indicated to me he's prepared to go anywhere and campaign with us. That's a process being worked out now, how to mechanically do that."

Biden, on McCain and Palin talking about change: "Tell me one single thing they're going to do on the economy, foreign policy, taxes, that is going to be change. Name me one. This is such malarkey. Ninety percent of the time, John votes with the president. ... Tell me where the change is. My goodness. He may change on how he deals with a lobbyist, but the idea on the economy, healthcare, education, same outfit, same deal, no change" (NBC, 9/7).

The Secret Of Life

Also on "Meet," Biden "departed" from party doctrine on abortion rights, "declaring that as a Catholic, he believes life begins at conception" (Phillips, New York Times, 9/8).

Brokaw: "If Senator Obama comes to you and says, 'When does life begin? Help me out here, Joe,' as a Roman Catholic, what would you say to him?"

Biden: "I'd say, 'Look, I know when it begins for me.' It's a personal and private issue. For me, as a Roman Catholic, I'm prepared to accept the teachings of my church. But let me tell you. There are an awful lot of people of great confessional faiths -- Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others -- who have a different view. They believe in God as strongly as I do. They're intensely as religious as I am religious. ... I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception. But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society. And I know you get the push back, 'Well, what about fascism?' Everybody, you know, you going to say fascism's all right? Fascism isn't a matter of faith. No decent religious person thinks fascism is a good idea."

Brokaw: "But if you believe that life begins at conception, and you've also voted for abortion rights..."

Biden: "No, what a voted against curtailing the right, criminalizing abortion. I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously based view that it's a moment of conception. ... I don't support public funding. I don't, because that flips the burden. That's then telling me I have to accept a different view. This is a matter between a person's God, however they believe in God, their doctor and themselves in what is always and what we're going to be spending our time doing is making sure that we reduce considerably the amount of abortions that take place by providing the care, the assistance and the encouragement for people to be able to carry to term and to raise their children" (NBC, 9/7).

Empty Your Pockets

Biden, asked if it was inappropriate to have his son collecting money from MBNA while he was on the floor protecting its interests: "Absolutely not. My son graduated from Yale Law School. The starting salary in Wall Street is $140,000 a year if you want to lawyer. Options he had. He came home to work for a bank. Surprise, surprise, number one. Number two, this is the second largest employer in the state. All the contributions added up make up less than 2 percent of the contributions I've received. Number three, I blocked the first three bankruptcy bills that the credit card companies wanted. I would not support a bankruptcy bill until they did three things. They put women and children first. Every single social welfare agency relating to alimony and child support supported this bill. Eight-five senators supported this bill. So try as people might to make to this out."

More Biden: "You want to know whether or not I am in the pocket of the corporate lobbyists, which makes it apply -- sounds like it's right here. Ask the people in the industry here how happy they are. How happy the DuPont company is with me and the Hercules Corporation that I would not sign on the asbestos bill. ... The fact of the matter is, that I have had an entire career that no one has every questioned whether or not anybody has influenced me, number one. No group has ever, ever been involved with contributing more than 2 percent to my campaign. I'm listed as the 98th or 99th of the 100 poorest guy in the Senate in terms of net worth. I have a 35-year career of actually, of being viewed, at least in my state, as being independent. And so you can take individual votes and you can talk about them, but they're totally out of context."

Biden, asked what the Obama/Biden admin. would do about K Street and lobbyists: "What they would do is they'd stop them from writing the bills. They wouldn't be sitting like Cheney was with lobbyists, writing an energy policy. They'd get to have their voice. Look, there is a thing called free speech. They get to petition their government. But in terms of their ability to be able to set the agenda, write legislation ... it [would be] just a total different atmosphere. A totally different atmosphere, just like it was 25 years ago when it didn't become such a growth industry" (NBC, 9/7).

Way To Bail On Us

Biden, on the gov't taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: "There's three principles that have to play here for this to work, in my view. One, you have to make sure that you help homeowners and stabilize, at the same time, financial institutions. Secondly, you got to make sure that you're not bailing out shareholders vs. the taxpayers. And the third thing you got to do is make sure that they're still in a position to be able to continue to lend, because there is a need for them to continue to have this elasticity of being able to deal with the market. ... I want to wait till I see all the details, but if it meets those three principles, then I think it has a great chance of succeeding. And as I understand it, whatever proposal Secretary Paulson is going to make is a proposal to get us over this hump of instability and uncertainty. It's not an official reorganization. It will be left to the next administration and the Congress to make those judgments" (NBC, 9/7).

We Do Have An Opening For A General-Election-Season Judas

Biden, asked if Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) should be welcomed back in the Dem caucus: "Hey, look, we Catholics believe in redemption."

Brokaw: "You also believe in trying to have a filibuster-proof Senate."

Biden: "Well, that's true. And look, Joe's been my friend for years. Our children are friends, his daughter-in-law was in my son's wedding, we go back a long way. Every time I see Joe these days, I walk up and I say, 'Say it ain't so, Joe. Say it ain't so.' And look, Joe's made a judgment. Joe's going to have to make a tougher judgment when this election is over" (NBC, 9/7).

Nice Of You To Join Us, Mr. Biden

On 8/6, Biden "showed up" to the "Selected Topics in Constitutional Law" class he teaches at Widener Univeristy School of Law for "the first time since the course started two Saturdays ago." Widener spokesperson Mary Allen "said students, as well as school officials, were pleasantly surprised to see Biden return."

Accompanied by a "few" Secret Service agents, Biden arrived "about 10 minutes before the two-hour class," and then "kept his students about 15 minutes past the scheduled end of the class" (Parra, Wilmington News Journal, 9/7).

Student Joseph Pultrone: "It's not that often that you have, you know, a candidate for vice president talking to you within ten feet from your face. It was pretty cool."

Biden "has been teaching the course since 1991, appearing when he can." Prof. Bob Hayman "takes over while Biden is away." Hayman: "We're very hopeful he'll be coming back after the election" (Corsaro, CBSNews.com, 9/6).

Someone's In The Kitchen With Biden

Biden "went stumping for votes" in Northeast Philly 9/5, where voters "overwhelmingly" supported Clinton during the primary. Biden "worked a diner" with PA Gov. Ed Rendell (D), and "gave a rousing speech on bread-and-butter issues at a union hall," saying McCain and Bush "are joined at the hip, and we need a hip replacement very, very badly" (Davies, Philadelphia Daily News, 9/6).

Deposit, Please

Wilmington News Journal's Milford writes, "To some, Joe Biden's image makeover as a blue-collar warrior is slightly at odds with the blueblood company he keeps in the corporate state. Not only is Biden a neighbor to wealthy and powerful company titans," he's also "thrown his weight behind issues and legislation that benefited" DE's "big banking interests," for instance supporting bankruptcy reform. Some observers ay this could "undercut Obama's populist message of change," but others said Biden "was simply representing his state" (9/7).

Ask Me How Many Houses I Own

"Though he's considered one of the least wealthy senators," Biden "is a wealthy man by ordinary standards -- worth about" $2M. Biden lives in northern DE's "priciest area," on a "four-acre lakefront estate in a 7,000-square foot custom home" that also has a "smaller carriage house on his property, where his widowed mother lives." Local "real estate agents" estimate the property is worth "at least" $2.5M.

The Bidens "have managed to live in such splendor partly because of two financially rewarding real estate deals with political supporters," which a Biden spokesperson says were "above board, and involved no special favors." Biden sold a home "for the asking price" of $1.2M to MBNA bank exec/"political benefactor" John Cochran III, making a profit; and Biden used the profit to buy a lot from developer Keith Stoltz, who himself "did not make any profit" (Barrish, Wilmington News Journal, 9/6).

Sorry, Children Are Off-Limits, Remember?

Providence Jounal editorializes, "the conduct" of Bristol Palin "has garnered immense attention," but "vastly less coverage has been given" to Biden's son, lobbyist Hunter Biden. "That may seem odd, since Hunter is a grownup, not a teenager, and he dramatically embodies the nexus of special-interest money, political-family connections and power in Washington that involves both parties." Whether "this says anything about Biden's ability" to lead, "the subject certainly seems worthy of public discussion -- maybe at least as much as the mistakes of Governor Palin's daughter" (9/7).

Chapter One In The Debate Prep Book: "Don't Be Yourself"

Slate's Lithwick writes, Biden's real "problem" when it comes to debating Palin is that she "is not a serious candidate," but if he hints at that, he'll "come across as a sexist bully."

"There is no easy way to tell you this, Joe Biden, but the surest way for Joe Biden to lose a debate against Sarah Palin is by being Joe Biden. If you are windy, pompous, unctuous, or pushy, you will come across as patronizing and condescending." But "if you flirt and smirk and flatter, ... you're going to sound like the creepy guy in the trench coat in the back of the porn theater. If you can manage to be your warm, amiable self, even if you're going batshit on the inside, you will do fine. ... Fight like a man. She will" (9/8).

Top That, Basketball Team Captain

"Back in high school," Biden was pres. of the student council at Archmere Academy in Claymont, DE. Classmate/friend/ex-student council VP Jim Lanahan "remembers Biden's intensity on the football field and the adversity in the classroom due to a stuttering problem" (Guerriero, Erie Times News, 9/8).

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