During an interview with Katie Couric, Senator Biden stated: "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed." The problem with Biden's remark is that FDR wasn't the president in 1929 during the stock market crash, and the television wasn't the main method of communication due to the fact that it wasn't widely available at the time. Luckily for the Obama campaign, the media was more focused on Sarah Palin's interviews and didn't make a huge deal out of the remark.
Over the past couple of days Joe Biden has been on the campaign trail along with Barack Obama, speaking at large rallies in both Detroit, Michigan, and Fredricksburg, Virginia. This is a change from the previous week, when Senator Biden had been addressing crowds on his own around the country in Ohio, Milwaukee, and Pennsylvania.
Taking a break from speeches and the campaign trail, Joe Biden recently convened near his home with campaign advisers in preparation for the upcoming debate. Yesterday he was
seen having lunch in a local diner with his son Beau Biden, who is being deployed to Iraq on Friday. Family matters aside, today Joe Biden traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in the Senate vote on the $700 million dollar bailout plan. Along with Senator Obama and Senator McCain, Senator Joe Biden voted yes on the plan which was approved by the Senate this evening with 74-25 role call. This bailout plan is most likely going to be highly discussed in tomorrow nights debate, along with foreign and domestic policy. Tension runs high as both parties await tomorrow nights debate.
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Sources:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081001/biden_palin_081001/20081001?hub=TopStories
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/obamaroadblog
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMD_lAHZUf-SqYoVRHbJV-KLQJqA
http://blogs.courant.com/capitol_watch/2008/09/joe-biden-wasnt-even-close-on.html
In my opinion, gaffes such as the ones Biden made, though significant, are no comparison to missing the obese pink elephant in the room (cough cough, the economy). For all I care, those folks can make 25 mistakes each about relatively small details as long as they nail down the economy.
I just hope that they make up for last week's pathetic debate, when neither candidate even seemed to appreciate the gravity of plunking down $700 billion.
It's nice and all to become energy independent, win Iraq, and reconquer Afghanistan, but the bottom line is that all of these activities require dough. And right now the pillsburry dough boy looks pretty emaciated...so perhaps Obama and McCain should have reality checks, and their epiphanies should be voiced tomorrow.
After watching the debate it seemed that he did not win by a huge margin and it seemed that he did not win at all. His composure was excellent but his personality did not show through as much as I expected lowering my perception of his success.
I would tend to disagree with the assessment that Sen. Joe Biden had to win this debate by a large margin. In fact, to succeed this evening Biden had to go 90 minutes without a major gaffe or directly insulting Sarah Palin. After promoting the debating "skills" of Sarah Palin, the Obama Campaign got exactly what it desired as Palin did not live up to the raised bar set for her, and Biden was unBiden-like.
While Palin attempted to resort to her "NASCAR Middle America" charm, she instead came off rather condescendingly to the middle class families that Biden spoke directly to. While her pre-prepared answers that all directly related back to her time in Alaska attempted to cover for her lack of knowledge, it was impossible for her to pretend as if she had the experience of Biden. References to "Joe Six-Pack" were excellent ploys to sound un-Washingtonlike, but when contrasted with the calm responses of Biden sounded somewhat childish. Tonight's debate was the realization of the inexperience attack that the McCain campaign has been attempting to use on Obama. However this time it bit their own Vice Presidential Candidate.
Great blog, but you cannot receive full credit unless you list WHERE your candidate/surrogate has been campaigning since the last update.
Going along with this elections theme of "don't look/sound like George W. Bush," Biden's slip up caused more damage then anything else hes done or said so far in the election.
Although Samir is right about the real issues being more important, that doesn't apply to everyone. As educated AP Government students, we have the advantage of seeing past the unimportant mishaps of the candidates, and understanding the core issues. The face of the matter is that most of the American people probably see these slip-ups and base their decisions on those and not on the core facts.
Overall, a more educated American public is going to be necessary for elections to work correctly, and considering public school standards, that wont be happening for a good couple of generation.
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