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Oh, That Joe! (No. 13 in a Series) -- Kicking Ohio State's A**

September 19, 2008 1:12 PM

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., spent the past two days trying to win over Ohio voters, but he may have undermined that work in one quick dis of the Ohio State Buckeyes football team Friday morning.

Before boarding his flight from Wilmington, Del., to Washington, D.C., the loquacious Blue Hen displayed some Fightin' Blue Hen alumni bravado in an impromptu airport meeting with the University of Delaware football team.

"I was out in Ohio," he said, clutching a football. "I told the folks in Ohio that we'd kick Ohio State's ass!"

The Buckeyes might be coming off a 35-3 drubbing at the hands of top-ranked Southern Cal, but the Blue Hen ballers aren't exactly world beaters, themselves. Delaware is ranked sixth in the Division I-AA coaches poll, but they lost earlier this month to Maryland.

Upon hearing that his school's squad was departing in a plane just a football field's length away from his own, Biden came over for a brief meet-and-greet with the blue-and-yellow-clad throng.

Biden, accompanied by his wife Jill -- "she didn't play football but she went to Delaware," Biden assured the team -- shook hands and posed for photos with the players.

"This'll hurt your reputation," he warned them as the cameras snapped away.

The Delaware lawmaker told the team he makes sure to watch their games as he travels the country in his "fancy bus."

"Wish I was going with them," Biden said of the squad as he jogged back towards his plane, tossing a football to his press wrangler and boarding the flight to D.C.

-- Matt Jaffe and Jake Tapper

September 19, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (73)

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This is great that a VP doesn't flip-flop and act like he loves every team from every state that he visits but yet is a die hard fan just like Ohio State fans are. OSU should be proud of someone like Joe Biden who sticks with his hometown team no matter what while acknowledging a great team like OSU. What a real man!

Posted by: William | Sep 27, 2008 2:55:29 PM

Andrew says: "I really don't understand this. Again, this makes Biden seem like a perfectly normal person, acting the way any person might act when interacting with one of bigger sports teams in their area."

In 1969 Richard Nixon declared University of Texas should be named national champions...the State of Pensylvania hasn't voted GOP since. Football means things to people...

Posted by: Nittany Lion | Sep 23, 2008 2:07:13 PM

Hillary to replace Biden on Oct. 5, due to his "health" problems. CHANGELING Obama flip flops again on VP pick. Even Biden said Obama should have picked Hillary....and their desperaton is showing....have heard this everywhere. Obama's judgement always poor, but he needs those 18 million voters. That's why Hillary is laying low now....waiting for the announcement of the big swithcaroo.
HILLARY SUPPORTER FOR McCAIN even before he picked Palin.

Posted by: . | Sep 21, 2008 3:23:16 PM

Demote Biden. PROMOTE HILLARY.

Posted by: anon | Sep 21, 2008 10:04:46 AM

Biden is great, he's a regular guy who would be great to have a beer with. You gotta love how Joe is really enjoying this stuff and mixing it up with people. I'm sure Ohio State fans all had a good laugh at this because everyone, including Joe, knows that Delaware has no hope.

I wish you had an RSS feed for this series.

Oh, BTW how many days is it now since Palin had a press conference? Has she even said "boo" to her traveling press corps yet?

Posted by: Bud | Sep 20, 2008 4:55:56 PM

What about Samantha Powers saying Ohio people are obsessed about trade. She was Obama's closest advisor. He kicked her out because of the monster comment not the trade comment.

Posted by: Jason | Sep 20, 2008 3:37:20 PM

Kinda like him saying "when I was a kid playing football...I always dreamed of being in the hall of fame." Only problem the hall fame didn't even exist until he was 21.

Also, he could play football, get an "A" in PE in college, an "F" in ROTC and be declared 4F because of asthma??

Posted by: susie | Sep 20, 2008 1:12:12 PM

CAN YOU IMAGINE IF IT WERE SOME 24 YEAR OLD SON OF A REP. SENATOR ON McCAIN CAMPAIGN HACKING OBAMA'S [email]?
-----
It'd be denounced as a "hate crime", and the state of Tennessee would be denounced as backward, racist, and clinging to its computers. Celebrity "feminists" would rush into publication with abusive prose crucifying the "Republican" Congressman (AND his wife, if any) for creepy child-rearing practices, and for not having used birth control to avoid the son's conception -- or, failing that, for not having aborted him as a fetus.

Posted by: Belle Starr | Sep 20, 2008 10:22:33 AM

Mr. America community organizer experience in foreing policy.

´I made a speech in Berlin´. Going on honeymoon to Paris also count?

Posted by: Stephen from Indiana | Sep 20, 2008 9:17:38 AM

I love Joe Biden. My father-in-law played on the 1968 Buckeyes team (greatest ever!), and found this both hilarious and endearing. Man, what good are you if you can't stand by your team?

McLame went and bought some OSU fan gear when he was there. How phony is that?

Posted by: Tungsten | Sep 20, 2008 8:40:17 AM

McGoo/Failin' 08!

I think the polar bears will get off easy compared to the rest of us.

Posted by: Leonard Peltier | Sep 20, 2008 4:37:16 AM

Nah not really. Check out the Republicans back Obama over McCain's ludicrous Iraq claims article.

We are all doomed if McCain/Palin win. Global warming will not be taken seriously, it will be drill baby drill, to hell with the polar bears, they can adapt to living on land! It will be screw Iran, ALL OF YOU are terrorists. It will be the Second Cold War.

Maybe, maybe not, but McCain/Palin don't look like reformers to me anyway.

Posted by: Grey Matter | Sep 20, 2008 3:59:14 AM

Is that all this writer, Jake Tapper, has to report is something that Biden may have said when rooting for his Deleware football team? Deleware is Division 1 AA, they don't even play Division 1 Ohio State.

Every article I read from this Jake Tapper guy is negative about the Democrats. Using his analogy Biden will help us win Michigan, but lose Ohio because they are arch rivals in football.

Our country has real problems to face, such as an economic recession (and maybe even a depression) and a war in Iraq that costs our country 10 million dollars a month and countless lives.

McCain and Palin have no economic plan, and no plan to get our country out of this war in Iraq. As Hillary Clinton said, NO way, NO how, NO McCain and NO Palin!

VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA AND LETS GET A DEMOCRAT WIN IN NOVEMBER!

Posted by: Dan1967 | Sep 20, 2008 3:57:09 AM

HEY EMMA, CAN YOU IMAGINE IF IT WERE OBAMA'S TEENAGE DAUGHTER WHO WAS PREGNANT OUT OF WEDLOCK?!!! I'M SURE PALIN AND MCCAIN WOULDN'T HAVE TOLD THE MEDIA TO BACK OFF!

What has Biden got to fear from Palin? If Palin's a barracuda, Biden is a shark. A great white, to be specific. I'd rather someone who makes small gaffes rather than make huge ones on policy and has a penchant for inadvertently pissing world leaders and people of other countries off.

Do you support Palin's view that Roe vs Wade should be overturned?

Posted by: Grey Matter | Sep 20, 2008 3:36:46 AM

You know, to me, Biden's penchant for these sorts of gaffe seem to only add on to his appeal, he seems human and down-to-earth.

If you've noticed, most of Biden's gaffes are not on policy, more on smaller things. On foreign policy, he is very sharp, and you can be assured he will not forget the name of the leader of Spain and sound like he wants to cut ties with them (as McCain did). He accidently makes gaffes on small etiquette stuff, but he does not on foreign policy.

On foreign policy, he picks his wrods carefully, and he would know better than to sound agressionist towards Russia over the South Ossetian conflict- as Palin did.

And he certainly would never say his credentials consist of being able to see a particular country from his house.

Posted by: Grey Matter | Sep 20, 2008 2:47:38 AM

I think obama and co. are regretting they dissed Sen. clinton.

Posted by: jgaw | Sep 20, 2008 12:13:25 AM

By the way, I meant specifically that Sarah Palin as VP candidate is a joke, in my opinion.

As a person/Mom/etc... she might be a perfectly nice person. Though someone who jokes about herself being a pitbull might not be someone I'd want to hang out with.


Posted by: Danny | Sep 20, 2008 12:01:48 AM

ON NO! THIS IS A GAFFE! OH MY GOD, WHAT WILL WE DO NOW!!??? LOL Seriously?

Obama/Biden

Posted by: Jane | Sep 19, 2008 11:40:07 PM

We've been pushing for Biden's
removal from the ticket in the
Oh, That Joe! series since
Palin became the GOP veep
pick.

Obama/Clinton is the real
ticket to the White House.

BO must execute a brilliant
political masterstroke by
inviting Hillary to run
with him. And he should
it now.

Biden was a bad choice. You
cannot let a bad pick stand.
Reverse it. Win the general
election. Take control of
the White House from the
Republicans.

Posted by: anon | Sep 19, 2008 11:06:22 PM

What aqbout the "tell them that BILL sent you" campaign? McCain/Palin08!

Posted by: DanP | Sep 19, 2008 10:27:59 PM

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