BIDEN SPEECH
BOMBS WITH PHILADELPHIA FIRE FIGHTERS
Posted on July 25, 2012 at 10:40pm by 
Mytheos Holt
Mytheos Holt
When Barack Obama
and Joe Biden first began campaigning in 2008, their complimentary advantages
as candidates were fairly clear – that is, Obama was the candidate who spoke to
the young and minority voters (who had, up until that point, been his base) most
capably, while Biden was the one who spoke to restive blue collar workers. As a
matter of fact, Biden’s constant references to “taking the train” back from
Washington were probably intended to demonstrate this supposedly more homespun
character.
Yet as Vice
President, Biden has shown himself to be prone to gaffes, even in his supposed
home turf, a fact that has complicated this otherwise simple division of labor
between him and the President. And Biden’s lack of comfort in the public eye,
has, at least recently, become increasingly difficult not to notice. For
evidence, simply look at his speech today to the International Association of
Firefighters in Philadelphia.
Why? Because that speech reportedly had all the hallmarks of a
vintage Biden gaffe-fest. To begin with, according to Business Insider,
Biden mouthed odd lines such as “I wish my kids would become wealthy,”
apparently intended as a means of reassuring the audience that Democrats aren’t
anti-wealth. Needless to say, the line fell flat.
And then there was the fact that despite Biden’s attempts at
pandering, he seemed to almost purposefully avoid hitting the right notes. One
Philadelphia Firefighters’ Union President was apparently visibly upset at
Biden for failing to include even one sentence regarding a
local dispute in Philadelphia over an award to firefighters. From Business
Insider’s report:
more
One wonders if the
Vice President might have been projecting. Or, perhaps, he simply is a
surrogate for the wrong candidate. After all, while running for President in
the 2008 Democratic primary, Biden was very well-received by the same group:I don’t think he
gets you. I don‘t think he understands what you’re all about, what makes you
tick, what makes you decide to go in this profession, which you couldn’t pay 90
percent of the population to do.
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