Swing States Have Dim View of Dim Bulb

Joe "It's a Big F'ing Deal!" Biden doesn't play well in middle America:

Joe Biden may not be much help to Barack Obama in key swing states this fall.

In a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, Americans split on whether they like or dislike the vice president – 42% said they had a favorable opinion, 45% said unfavorable – but the numbers are worse in key swing states.

In the 12 swing states likely to determine the outcome of the presidential election, only 40% of registered voters view Biden favorably, while 54% view him unfavorably. These numbers are worse than President Obama's who is seen favorably by 50% of registered voters in those same states and unfavorably by 49%.

The 12 swing states in the poll are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. These states are all considered too close to call for the November election.

Independents are also down on the VP, with 50% saying they view him unfavorably and 35% holding a favorable view. The survey found the same pattern with voters who are not strongly committed to any candidate, with 52% viewing Biden unfavorably and only 33% holding a favorable view.

I'll bet we starting seeing more articles like this as the Obama campaign starts setting up the "dump Biden for Hillary" move that many now expect.

Biden Draws A Crowd...of Romney Supporters

RealClearPolitics has a piece on some of the people who showed up for a Joe Biden event in Youngstown, OH:

Bob McClain and his wife, Myra, went to M7 Technologies to support their friend’s family business. Neither supports the Obama-Biden ticket.

“We are friends of the owners – that is why we came, to show support for the Garvey family,” said McClain. At 71, he’s retired but volunteers full-time as a counselor for Mahoning Valley small-business owners.

“Our vote is going for who is best to lead on the economy. That is Romney, for us,” said Myra as her husband nodded.

Richard Furillo stood with his son Matthew at his son’s place of employment; a lifelong Democrat, he voted for Obama in 2008 but won’t again. “I don't know why I did it but I cannot stand anymore ‘change,’ ” he said, referring to the president’s old campaign slogan.

Father and son both said they attended the event to support the company.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a sitting vice president,” added Matthew, also a Democrat. He, too, said he will vote for Romney.

Standing beside them, Jeff Cunningham echoed their sentiments: “The biggest challenge in this country is creating jobs that last, jobs that sustain families.” The 36-year-old valley native said his vote will be for Romney.

Montgomery “Monty” Deruyter sat several rows from where Biden stood, addressing the crowd. The 43-year-old father of two started working at M7 as a machinist two months ago; uncertainty is driving him to favor Romney.

“I hold both parties at arm’s length but trust Romney’s business skills to lead on the economy,” he said.

I'll bet you can repeat those sentiments all over the country - especially in those swing states that went narrowly for Obama in 2008. He's in trouble.

Joe Biden's Pipe Dream

VP Gaffes thinks he wants to run in 2016:

Former Senator Ted Kaufman, Biden’s former chief of staff, says he will encourage his longtime friend to run for President in 2016.

“I’m sure I’m going to be telling to him take a look at 2016,” Kaufman, who filled the Delaware Senate seat after Biden was elected Vice President in 2008, told BuzzFeed, but said any determination will have to wait until at earliest next year.

“He should consider 2016 in 2013,” Kaufman said. “The next six months are incredibly intense. He’s totally focused on the next six months right now.”

As early as last May, Biden floated the possibility of running for president in 2016, asking donors to keep him in mind, Politico reported at the time.

Kaufman said Biden’s relationships with foreign leaders, ties to the middle class, and bipartisan friendships on Capitol Hill were what made him a great vice presidential pick and will make him a great presidential candidate.

Not. A. Chance. I don't think Biden could even get the nomination.

Biden Forces Obama's Hand on Gay Marriage And Gets More of the Credit

And that makes the White House very angry:

Joe Biden might just go down in history as the guy who forced Barack Obama to publicly announce his private support for gay marriage.

But the vice president is no hero in the West Wing, and administration officials are struggling to cast Obama’s truly historic announcement as something more than an election-year shotgun wedding.

Obama’s interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts capped a frenetic half-week of backstage political maneuvering after Biden said he was “comfortable” with gay marriage during a TV interview that was pre-taped Friday and aired Sunday. It followed the passage Tuesday of an anti-gay marriage ballot initiative in North Carolina that illustrated the divisions in typically cohesive Obama constituencies, including women, Hispanics and blacks. And it exposed a few divisions in the Obama-Biden camp.

Senior administration officials admit that Biden’s comment was, indeed, the catalyst for Obama to make his historic announcement weeks earlier than planned.

But Biden’s remarks deeply annoyed Obama’s team, people close to the situation tell POLITICO, because it aggrandized his role at the expense of Obama’s yeoman efforts on behalf of the community and pushed up the timing of a sensitive announcement they had hoped to break — at a time and place of their own choosing — in the weeks leading up to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte this fall.

Nor did it tickle anyone, from Obama on down, that Biden — who backed the Defense of Marriage Act while serving in the Senate in the 1990s — seemed to be getting more credit in the LGBT community than a president who has actually taken steps to repeal the Clinton-era law that defined marriage as something that could only take place between a man and a woman.

And it chafed Obama’s team that Biden had, at times, privately argued for the president to hold off on his support of marriage equality to avoid a backlash among Catholic voters in battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to two officials familiar with those discussions.

This issue might have been helpful to Obama had it come much later in the election cycle. But making this announcement in May pretty much negates it as a factor in the campaign. The gays will be all giggly and goose-pimply for a couple of days, but then it will be over. No policy has changed. In states where gay marriage is illegal it will still be illegal. Obama did nothing with his announcement except portray himself as an inept political operator upstaged by his idiot VP.

Fourweird! #Forward

H/t Jay:

And a bonus:

Political Quote of the Day

Apparently Joe Biden "don't know much about history" as he talks about the Bin Laden raid:

You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan. Never knowing for certain. We never had more than a 48 percent probability that he was there.

Let me try one. How about launching 16 land-based B-25 bombers off the deck of an aircraft carrier 600 miles from Tokyo to conduct an unescorted raid on the Japanese capital only four months after WWII started? Oh, and they couldn't come back when they were done.  They had to fly on to China and hope they landed in friendly territory.  That was pretty audacious, but not as much as the Bin Laden raid...according to our brilliant VP.

Any Republican saying something like that would be ripped to shreds.

Political Headline of the Day

From Drudge:

PAPER: Bin Laden ordered Obama killed so 'totally unprepared' Biden would take over...

Bin Laden really had Biden nailed, didn't he?

Political Photo of the Day

From a campaign event, Joe Biden does his best Captain Morgan impression:

In an attempt to co-op popular culture, Joe now insists that this pose be known as "Bidening".

Robert Reichhhhhhhhhhh-uh: Dem Ticket Will Be Obama-Clinton

Hmm:

My political prediction for 2012 (based on absolutely no inside information): Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he’s apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President.

So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton.

Why do I say this? Because Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.

Back in January 2010 I predicted that Biden would be moved to Secretary of State to make way for a younger and more popular VP candidate who would be a viable presidential candidate in 2016. I figured Clinton would give Obama a primary challenge, but that seems very unlikely now.

Would Clinton really rev up the base...as VP? I don't think so. Her big supporters want her at the top of the ticket, not as runner-up again. Plus, how viable is she for 2016? She'll be pretty old then and the years haven't exactly been kind to her.

I can still see Biden being moved out, but I don't think it will be Clinton that replaces him.

Political Quote of the Day

From Joe Biden, talking about U.S. involvement in Iraq:

'We're not claiming victory'...

Of course we're not. Under Obama, Americans don't win anything. And we're certainly not going to claim victory in a war that was won my George Bush.

Joe "Short Bus" Biden Wants a Reporter Punished For Asking Him a Tough Question

Poor Joe. When Jason Mattera asked Biden a tough question, Biden immediately got defensive and now is trying to find a way to punish the intrepid reporter (from Dave Wiegel):

After that confrontation, Biden stopped making the crime/cuts comparison. Today, The Hillreports that Biden wants to know how Mattera got to him in the first place, and his office "has also contacted the standing committee of correspondents, which oversees the gallery, regarding whether Mattera broke the rules by ambushing him."

The case is thin. Mattera was not as up-front as he's been in other videos. As you can clearly see, he gets close to the VP not by asking a question and saying where he's from, but by getting into a photo-op. "Mr. Vice President," he says. "Picture?" Once Mattera's got Biden he starts asking him a well-formulated question: "Do you regret using a rape reference to describe Republican opposition to the jobs bill?" Biden's "don't screw around" comment, which led the stories about this, might be a reference to the tactic. And yeah, the tactic is unfair. Most reporters are anonymous enough that, if they felt like it, they could sidle up to a politician in congressional offices, they could ask them questions without announcing that they were with the press. The answers they'd get might be different than the ones they get after they announce themselves as reporters.*

There's more at the link. The video of the Biden confrontation went viral and the Veep doesn't come out looking too good. It's also at the link.

By the way, the defense of Mattera above was written by another reporter, and that's gotta hurt Biden even more.

VP Joe "Short Bus" Biden Predicts Rapes and Murder if Obama's Jobs Bill Isn't Passed

What a dummy:

Vice President Biden is stepping up his argument that rapes and murders could increase if Congress does not pass President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill – evoking sexual and violent imagery in his sales pitch for the second time in a week.

Speaking to Philadelphia police officers Tuesday at the University of Pennsylvania, Biden slammed Republican critics who say the jobs bill is just “temporary,” underscoring measures aimed at maintaining police force levels.

“Let me tell you, it’s not temporary when that 9-1-1 call comes in and a woman’s being raped. If a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape, it’s not temporary to that woman,” Biden said with his voice rising. “It’s not temporary to the guy whose store is being held up and has a gun being pointed to his head if a cop shows up and he’s not killed. That’s not temporary to that store owner. Give me a break -- temporary.

“I wish these guys who thought it was temporary, I wish they had some notion what it’s like be on the other side of a gun or a 200-pound man standing over you telling you to submit,” he added. “Folks, it matters. It matters.”

Last Wednesday, Biden suggested during a speech in Flint, Mich., that rapes and murders could rise if the jobs bill failed to pass Congress.

Jason Mattera decided to ask Biden about his outrageous assertations and the result is comedy gold:
Biden's a thug. If someone commits rape or murder because of Obama's jobs bill, it's likely to be Biden.

Joe Biden Tries to Talk His Way Off the 2012 Ticket

From CBS News Mark Knoller:

VP Biden says its not relevant to blame the Bush Admin for current economic problems. "What's relevant is - we're in charge," says Biden.

Joe may have just talked himself off the 2012 ticket. It's heresy for a Democrat to suggest something bad isn't Bush's fault.

Joe Biden: Yeah, That Chinese One Child Policy in China Makes Perfect Sense

This is the only guy who can make me pray for Obama's health because he would be a disaster as president:

Sheriff Joe puts yet another hole in his boot -- Joe Biden called Tea Partiers "terrorists" and got sent on a slow boat to China. How could his big mouth get him in trouble all the way out there? Welllll... TheDC's Caroline May reports: "Pro-life advocates are not pleased with comments Vice President Joe Biden made during his appearance at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, Sunday. Following his prepared remarks about the U.S. debt, Biden answered a question about how America can reduce deficits and strengthen America's financial system. His response included a tacit acceptance of China's one-child policy — a mandate which has resulted in mass abortions, sterilizations and heavy penalties for violators. In explaining the demographic concerns of funding for future generations, Biden cited the Chinese policy. 'But as I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China. You have no safety net,' Biden said. 'Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I'm not second-guessing — of one child per family. The result being that you're in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.'" Don't get Sheriff Joe wrong, China. He fully understands why you're killing all your girl babies! Oh, Joe. You're going to make a fine president. 

For all the criticism that was leveled at Day Quayle about his intelligence, he was a brain surgeon compared to Biden.

A Message for the Media

Jonah Goldberg is a little tired of hearing the left, including people like Vice President Biden, calling conservatives and Republicans every manner of vile name while the complicit media just ignores it.  He posted a classic rant which ends this way:

The Today Show even had Debbie Wasserman Schultz on this morning for five minutes talking about Giffords. No one thought to ask her what she thought of Biden's comments? It's not like she's the Democratic party's national spokesperson or anything. Oh, wait. She is!

Instead, after the full ten minutes on Giffords, we get an update about the debt-limit situation (which is supposedly an Armageddon-level issue) and Kelly O'Donnell basically carries water for Biden on the issue by completely muddying whether he said anything of the sort at all. (His office says, no, no the vice president didn't call them terrorists, he just politely agreed with all the Democratic congressmen in the room that they "acted like terrorists." Ah, this is a distinction a team of a million Jesuits working around the clock would have a hard time slicing.)

And yet you know the next time there's the slightest, remotely exploitable tragedy or hint of violence, the same reporters, editors, producers, and politicians are going to insist that blood was spilled because of the right wing's rhetoric.

Well, go to Hell. All of you.

Amen, brother.

Read the whole thing here.

Palin Reminds Us of Real Terrorists That Obama Hung Out With

Obama may not like Tea Party people and his VP chooses to call them terrorists, but Sarah Palin reminds everyone that it's Obama who has a history of "palling around" with terrorists.

Monday night, Sarah Palin was willing to shrug off Vice President Joe Biden's alleged name-calling about the tea party. But she seems to have woken up Tuesday substantially angrier about the (supposed) tagging of her constituency as "terrorists."

If the president wants to see "domestic terrorists," Palin said, maybe he ought to look at his own past — to his association with figures like William Ayers, the '60s Weathermen radical.

“Independent, patriotic Americans who desire fiscal sanity in our beloved nation do not deserve to be called terrorists,” Palin said in an interview on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. “If we were domestic terrorists, I think the president would want to pal around with us. He didn’t have a problem with Bill Ayers.”

Speaking from her Alaska home studio, Palin added, “Shaking hands with Chavez, saying he doesn't have preconditions for meeting with dictators, wanting to read Miranda rights to suspected terrorists … if we were all domestic terrorists, I think the president would want to pal around with us.”

I hope Palin stays involved in the 2012 election. I don't particularly want her to run, but I enjoy it when she goes after Democrats like this.

Marco Rubio, 2012 Candidate?

Maybe not for the top job, but he could be a very attractive choice for VP, especially if paired with a quality presidential candidate like Rick Perry.  All you have to do is watch Rubio's floor speech and takedown of John Kerry from last weekend to see how good a national candidate he'd be.

And since the left loves to make everything about race, let's take a quick look at what effect a Rubio candidacy might have on the election.

Rubio is Hispanic, and to date no Hispanic has ever held either of the top two jobs in the U.S.  Remember the ecstasy in the black community over the first black president?  It was big, but Obama didn't really change the numbers among black voters very significantly at all.  More black voters went to the polls, but in terms of percentages, 96% voted for Obama, up only a point or two from historical averages for Dem candidates.

The Hispanic community is not nearly as monolithic as blacks.  Hispanics vote 67% - 31% for Obama in 2008.  Some of that vote certainly had to do with the whole "first black president" thing and the "rainbows and unicorns" promises, but in 2004 44% of Hispanics voted for Bush.  That tells me the Hispanic vote is very much up for grabs and can't be counted on to automatically support Democrats.

With Marco Rubio on the ticket a great many Hispanics would feel the same way about him that blacks felt about Obama - one of their own reaching for high position.  I think Rubio could swing significant votes toward the GOP ticket and possible make close races in highly Hispanic states that went for Obama like California, Nevada and Florida (Rubin being from Florida doesn't hurt either).

I'm not sure he wants the job since he's only been a senator for a short time, but that didn't stop Obama and if anyone wants to make Rubio's time in the Senate an issue, there's a ready-made argument in return about Obama.  Rubio on the ticket would sure make things entertaining, and wouldn't you just love to see a Rubio-Biden debate?

Joe Biden, in the Spirit of Unity and Compromise, Calls the Tea Party "Terrorists"

You can read the story here.

I have a suggestion for Speaker Boehner:  Hold the debt ceiling vote right after Joe Biden comes to Capitol Hill and personally apologizes to the GOP caucus.  Not a moment sooner.  If he doesn't come, don't vote.

We'll show him how terrorists operate.

Of course, as many have pointed out today, if the Tea Party congressmen were really terrorists, Biden wouldn't dare call them that and would probably be trying to get them some sort of federal subsidy.

Maybe Willie Brown Has Been Reading My Stuff

Willie Brown is the former Speaker of the California Assembly and former Mayor of San Francisco, and is considered somewhat of a political guru. He's making some news with a prediction that Joe Biden might be moved to Secretary of State to replace Hillary Clinton and make way for a younger VP with less baggage...something I suggested in January of 2010. Here's the Brown story:

Brown, who writes a well-read column for the San Francisco Examiner, was touching on widespread speculation that Vice President Joe Biden is not exactly an asset and might be dumped from his post by an increasingly nervous and poll-challenged President Obama when he declared:

“Here’s a prediction: Vice President Biden moves over to secretary of state, with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo stepping in to bring new blood to the Obama re-election campaign.

“He’s a big name, a big-state governor. And a Democrat who is taking on the issue of pubic-employee salaries and pensions. Plus, he looks good,” Brown wrote.

A source close to Cuomo said the governor was flattered by Brown’s observations, “especially his saying that he looks good,” but insisted the governor had no plans other than to work hard during the 3½ years remaining in his term.

“The governor is committed to working for the people of New York and is not going anywhere,” said the source.

And here's what I wrote on January 5, 2010:

Should Obama and the Dems continue to slide, and especially if the Dems take a bloodbath in November, I look for Hillary to resign the Secretary of State's job sometime in early 2011. Nobody will believe she wants to "spend more time with her family" so she'll have to come up with another excuse. In reality, she'll be setting the table for a primary challenge to Obama in 2012.

And she'll be very popular. She barely lost the nomination in 2008 and given Obama's performance and her work as Secretary of State, her star probably shines brighter today than ever. For one thing, she hasn't been in the news all that much and we haven't had to listen to her. That's gotta help.

So, with Hillary out of the Secretary of State's office, who will Obama choose to replace her? Here's where the scenario becomes even more interesting - Joe Biden. Biden's many years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be cited as the main reason to move him to SoS, though the real reason will have more to do with the fact that Biden will be a drag on the 2012 ticket. He's not seen as a viable future candidate for 2016 and frankly people are a little bit afraid that something will happen to Obama and we'll get stuck with President Biden.

This will give Obama and his political crew the opportunity to choose his potential successor, someone younger and more attractive as a 2016 candidate. Confirmation could be a bit problematic should the GOP pick up a bunch of Senate seats this year, but I don't know if they will have the stomach to filibuster a vice presidential nominee.

There's more at the post.

I don't think Cuomo would be a particularly good match for Obama. He's got some baggage of his own, and his presence on the ticket is not going to result in any electoral gains for Obama. Obama will win New York anyway, and having a New Yorker on the ticket could actually hurt in many parts of the country.

However, I do believe the Joe Biden to Secretary of State switch is very likely. Biden will not help Obama in 2012.

And I still think Hillary might be lurking out there to see if a 2012 challenge to Obama will be doable.

Could Obama Be Impeached Over Libya? Just Ask Joe Biden

This video is getting a lot of play today:
Joe's gonna end up answering a lot of questions about that one.

Conservative talk radio host Mark Levin thinks Obama is completely within his authority to order the attacks.