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Biden Keeps Enemies Close, Friends Closer
September 03, 2008 9:40 AM
ABC News' Matthew Jaffe reports: Barack Obama's vice presidential nominee Joe Biden might be campaigning against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, but he can't stop emphasizing that he is close friends with his GOP rival.
"He is my good friend," said Sen. Biden, D-Del., of Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., speaking Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Florida. "We go back 33 years. If John McCain picked up - I get in trouble for saying this with some real strong Obama supporters, but you gotta - it is what it is. If John McCain picked up the phone today and said, 'Joe, I need you to get in a plane and fly out to Missoula, I can't tell you why', I'd get in a plane and I'd go. And I believe he'd do it for me."
Of course, while Biden calls McCain "a good guy," he is always quick to add that, when it comes to key issues, "John doesn't get it."
When he's not telling everyone how close he is to McCain, Biden also loves to describe what a great relationship he and his family have developed with the Obamas.
"I don't know whether you can notice," Biden told the south Florida crowd at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. "But there is a a genuine, a genuine chemistry. There is a genuine, genuine affection and there is a genuine bond between Michelle and Jill and me and Barack. And it's real. It's real."
The Delaware lawmaker fondly tells the story of his grandchildren having a sleepover with Obama's daughters on the second night of the Denver convention.
"Every once and a while something happens totally unexpected that you didn't anticipate. That makes you realize something, a perspective you didn't walk in with," he said.
To Biden's surprise, his granddaughter Finnegan - "she better turn out to be smart and beautiful handling that name" - approached him and asked his permission to have a sleep-over.
"We're standing there and said, you know, she said, 'Pop, we want to have a sleepover.' And I said, 'You do?' And they said 'yeah'. And the end result of this was, we cleared out one of the rooms, took out the beds. Seriously".
"And they put down mats on the floor, and Barack's two daughters and my four granddaughters - actually my oldest one who's 15 did not. But the three youngest granddaughters and until he got a little rowdy my 3-year-old grandson, we had pizza brought in and tapes of the various shows they like to put in."
The spur-of-the-moment slumber party might have seemed minor, but it left an indelible impression on Biden.
"I didn't want to be vice president," he admitted. "But as I walked away from that, I realized what I suspect a lot of you who are dedicated to Barack becoming president feel. I walked out of there realizing why I'm in this. It sounds corny. I'm in this for my children and my grandchildren. I'm in this for the people I grew up with in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware. I'm in this for all the people who you know, all the people who you know, who success or failure is the very measure, the very measure of whether or not the American dream still persists."
September 3, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (70)
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What a piece of crap biden is, His wife is killed and he runs off leaving his children in grief and motherless so he can campaign. WHAT A LOWLIFE
Posted by: hilly-billy | Sep 3, 2008 9:55:51 AM
What a piece of crap McCain is. His wife is injured and disfigured in a car crash and he runs off with a 22 yo heiress leaving his children in grief and without financial support. WHAT A LOWLIFE
Posted by: April Campbell | Sep 3, 2008 10:03:54 AM
Biden is so full of it.
Biden slipped the other day and blurted out he was running for POTUS while on the stump for Oz.
Want to know when to check if Biden is lying?
Everytime he opens his mouth.
Well - Oz wnet for the penultimate insider in his "quest" to change Washington...........riiiiiiight.
Posted by: few | Sep 3, 2008 10:05:29 AM
hilly-billy: you are a LOWLIFE... the man was sworn in at his childrens hospital bedsides. He was dropping out but was talked into staying.. WHY... because WE THE PEOPLE NEEDED HIM ON OUR SIDE.. You are a piece of crap..... people like you should be made to seek help....
Posted by: beck | Sep 3, 2008 10:10:01 AM
The only ones FULL OF IT are the GOP and McCain. To actually think that most women of this Nation will vote for him because he chooses a woman...who has very little to offer a woman of the 20th century is totally out of touch with everything and everyone. Unless you are wealthy and hauling in our hard working money.
Posted by: beck | Sep 3, 2008 10:12:40 AM
Using the tragic death of Biden's wife and daughter to smear him? You are beyond reprehensible. And it just shows how desperate you Republicans are that you can't get him on the issues.
Posted by: Mary | Sep 3, 2008 10:23:37 AM
The reason Sarah Palin is attacked so visciously by liberals is because she has more experience than the top of the Democratic ticket. When the Democrats whine about her lack of foreign affairs experience, all the Republicans have to do is point to Obama's similar lack of foreign affairs experience. The Democrats forced Joe Biden on Barack Obama to shore up his lack of experience. It's now clear to the entire country that the wrong man is at the top of the ticket. Dems are embarrassed, and Repubs are laughing.
Posted by: Disappointed by not Surprised | Sep 3, 2008 10:27:12 AM
That means all republicans are in the "crook " of my elbow and my friends are next to my heart. remember "I am not a crook" and the "texas mafia" which candidate is going to work for the USA not big oil, drug, and insurance companies, certainly won't be the maverick and the beauty queen.
Posted by: Rose Szymanski | Sep 3, 2008 10:28:01 AM
You Zero-bama bonehead-supporters, leave Biden alone. It's only Zero-bama the liar.
Posted by: d0 | Sep 3, 2008 10:29:11 AM
Joe finally got it! NOT ALL AFRICAN-AMERICANS ARE BAD or like P-Diddy. I noticed his negative comments were placed on this web page. WHY??? Was it to unite the Republican base? Was it to show causations that they need to back John MCBush so that he could protect the country from people like P-Diddy? I think so. There were so many other prominent African-Americans who could have given an intelligent comment however, the media never misses an opportunity to project Africans Americans as low life thugs and hoodlums. There are many middle class African Americans who work everyday, strive to educate their families in a Christian environment and live law abiding lives. Just because the media wants to play the race card, it doesn’t mean we have to fall for it.
Posted by: y.sister | Sep 3, 2008 10:31:58 AM
Wow, what a hard hitting news story!! Not one mention of Biden's so called "childhood asthma" that he fabricated to get 5 draft deferrals from Vietnam. Nor is the details of his 2 brain aneurysms -- gee, doesn't it say something about Obama's judgment that he picks a VP with massive medical issues? What about Biden's ethnic smear against Indian-Americans? Or Biden's son's problem with a corrupt hedge fund? Or his other lobbying son? Or Biden's embellishment of his academic honors?
Posted by: Karen | Sep 3, 2008 10:38:12 AM
I like him. Sounds like a person who has compassion and cares. I've yet to hear a Republican say a sensitive caring concern for anyone, except unborn fetus's but that's only if they aren't gay, of course.
Posted by: Brenda | Sep 3, 2008 10:38:34 AM
Get the facts straight- Biden had already been elected to the Senate when his wife and child were killed. He was sworn in at the hospital next to the hospital beds of his boys. America has citizens that are truly consumed with with hate and ignorance. Wow.
Posted by: Jackson in NC | Sep 3, 2008 10:40:05 AM
Biden and Hillary are both McCain's friend, only Obama is not.
It's totally wrong choice to pick Obama as Dem. nominee, he can not cross party line, he can not work with Rep. who has different opinion than him, he always thinks he is always right and McCain is always wrong. Such an arrogant, ego person can not be president.
Posted by: golfgirlusa | Sep 3, 2008 10:42:10 AM
I was pretty impressed with Biden's story during the convention. I didn't know a lot of that stuff.
That said, I realize we got the convention-sanitized best case version of the story, and the reality with everyone from either party is usually a mixed bag.
Take McCain, for instance. Thompson last night said McCain refused medical help for a confession. I know for a fact that's 180 degrees from truth. McCain held out for about three days, and then agreed to "confess" for movement to a local hospital - and he did get hospital treatment.
Does that take everything away from his story of suffering at the hands of his captors? No, of course not.
Back to Biden, I'm sure there was some spin there, too, but I was pretty impressed that he was willing to not take the oath of office for the Senate to take care of his family, and had to be talked into accepting the job he had been elected to.
Posted by: Paul | Sep 3, 2008 10:45:52 AM
Disappointed: "The reason Sarah Palin is attacked so visciously by liberals is because she has more experience than the top of the Democratic ticket."
Not true on many levels.
First, she's facing media inquiries; not attacks.
Second, her current political opponents aren't saying anything about her at all. The media is mostly picking up on information coming from former opponents in Alaska and crisis-control attempts from the McCain campaign.
Third, her experience. Sigh. In December 2006, I remember everyone wondering if Obama would run. For some odd reason, I don't remember anybody asking that same question about Palin.
Now, I'm not attacking her experience. She's a governor, and voters will decide for themselves whether she's qualified, based on her views, her temperment, her demeanor, and her performance in office.
Posted by: Paul | Sep 3, 2008 10:50:55 AM
Hey, hilly-billy, I have a feeling Senator Biden did far more for his deceased's wife spirit than you could ever imagine ... or do for any member of your own family.
Posted by: newz4i | Sep 3, 2008 10:52:09 AM
Senator McCain threw a temper tantrum when he couldn't have Lieberman as his running mate. In his anger, he reached into thin air and thrust Governor Palin into the public arena And whether its liberal ABC or conservative FOX, the news media is vetting her. McCain didn't. His tantrum antics of, "I'll show you," is not the correct way to run a presidential campaign...nor a country.
Posted by: newz4i | Sep 3, 2008 10:54:03 AM
That part about voters having to decide if she's qualified... of course that assumes she's on the ticket come that first Tuesday in November.
The ethics investigation and her reported involvement with a secessionist fringe party could force her to drop from the ticket.
Posted by: Paul | Sep 3, 2008 10:54:57 AM
Everything the media puts out is designed to make the voters lose focus on whats really important, and thats the real issues....
Okay 17 year is pregnant, no the first or last time in history this will happened, what about the girls who made a packed to get pregnant at the same time???? So what Obama picked a man instead of a women, not the first or last time in history this will happen, Bidens wife and her untimely death, non of your business, people mourn in there own way....MccCain 20 some years ago cheated on his first wife with his second, who cares...
what are the real issues,
Over priced Gas, Home Foreclosures, the Education of our future, crime, wars, poverty, jobs....
Posted by: Cicly | Sep 3, 2008 10:56:40 AM
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