Despite what some concern troll thinks about Biden in the diaries below, I'm loving Biden as Vice-President right about now.
I had other ideas of who I would like to see, but he bowled me over during the run-up to the convention and during the convention. So, I'm a convert to Biden. I ran across this clip today at MSNBC and thankfully it's on youtube now. I wanted a VP that would attack the Republicans and Biden has comfortably stepped into that role.
Sure, Palin has fired up the base of the Republican party, BUT we must remember that her pithy speech the other night fired up a whole lot more people.
Today, a lady I work with informed me that she was ready to get involved. Not because of Obama or Biden's speech, but because she watched what little she could handle of the RNC and feared what she saw. "These people cannot win this year. I sat by in 2004 and just voted since I thought everyone knew how bad Bush was. This year I want to get involved." is what she told me (and since I was an Obama fellow she told me this since I can get her in touch with the people working in her county). There are other people I work with who are having the same reaction.
We cannot simply vote this year. This year (and every election year) our feet need to be on the ground or making calls.
It fired up people who were already working and volunteering with Obama, and now it's fired up people who were simply voting for Obama.
Here's Biden firing some people up at a rally and I hope you feel fired up after watching it.
The silence from the Republican party is deafening and the Democratic party is bringing the noise this year (and hopefully every year after this because of the grassroot groundwork that Obama has helped to foster).
Hattip to Jim Oleske for the following quotes:
On at least three fronts, Joe Biden's speech in Pennsylvania today was the pitch-perfect response to Gov. Palin and her convention.
Everyone should watch it. Better yet, watch it twice. And be sure to watch it with the volume turned up high.
First, Biden frames the Republican convention concisely and powerfully:
The silence of the Republican Party was deafening. It was deafening. On jobs, on healthcare, on environment, on all the things that matter to the people in the neighborhoods I grew up in. Deafening.
Front 2: Present the details of the "silence" indictment:
Do any of you recall either candidate on the Republican ticket utter the phrase "middle class"?
Crowd: No!
Did any of you hear them utter the phrase "health care" and how we’re going to help?
Crowd: No!
Did you hear them talk about aid to get kids to college?
Crowd: No!
Did you hear them talk about aid to education?
Crowd: No!
Did you hear them putting more cops on the street to make us safer?
Crowd: No!
I didn’t hear a thing. A thing about any of the things that matter to the lives of the people of my hometown of Scranton....
Rick Davis, John’s campaign manager, said two days into the convention... he said "this election is not about issues," that's what he said, and everything I saw at the convention demonstrated that.
Front 3: Without a hint of whining, Biden then reminds folks exactly what it was about Gov. Palin's attacks that seemed all-too-familiar and just too darn nasty.
It was about how well placed -- and boy she is good -- how a left jab can be stuck pretty nice. It’s about how Barack Obama is such a bad guy.
It’s about how in fact, how in fact, they got great quips. Man, they’re like the kids you know when you went to school and you were very proud of the new belt or the shoes you had, and there was always one kid in the class who said, "oh, are they your brother’s?"
Crowd: Yeah.
Remember that kid? That’s what this is reminding me of. "Of, I love your dress. Was that your mother’s?"
You know what I’m talking about.
They knew what he was talking about.
And they were on their feet again as he returned to the main theme of silence, with gusto:
What do you talk about, when you have nothing to say?
What do you talk about when you cannot explain the last eight years of failure?
Crowd: Standing ovation.
What do you talk about? What do you talk about?