HELP! I need Biden talking points!!! HELP!!!!

[Clio the Leo]

Ok, so my father ........ faithful socialist radical, former member of SNCC, not voting for McCain no way, no how ........ HATES Joe Biden. Just said, "Biden is gonna lose us this election!" I waved my hand in the air "pshaw...." "He said ......." and "said something about how Roosevelt calmed a nation when the Depression hit when he wasn't even president." etc.

I asked him if he knew that Biden wrote the Violence Against Women Act? And that meant more to me than some random comment about Roosevelt. "That doesn't matter!" was his response, "I dont care what ya do..." "so it's not what you do, it's what you say?" I asked. "yeah!" (his point being that people vote based on sound bites and I think there's some truth to that.)

"He's an idiot!" he said, "he's not a bigger idiot than she is!" I said "At least he knows where France is!" "He may know about France, but he doesn't know anything about this country."

"Oh, he's got more knowledge about this country in his little finger than you or I put together!" "He doesn't know more than I do!" my father said and went to bed.

So HELP!!!!!! What do I say!!!!!!!!! EEEEEEK!!!!

warning, my father IS AN ATTORNEY!!!! Won the Missouri state debate championship in 1843 or something. Am I screwed? lol

[jberryhill]

1. Your father is an attorney?

Two words - Robert Bork.

[1corona4u]

3. Good one....

if that doesn't do it, nothing will.

[jberryhill]

6. Biden's done a lot of good work on the Judiciary Committee

...and not just in relation to Supreme Court hearings.

He gave Ashcroft a very hard time with the AG appointment.

You might want to look up Biden's "I am troubled" speech about Ashcroft.

[Clio the Leo]

5. Thanks, but that's gonna fall right under the......

"it's not what you do, it's what you say" category. His issue has more to do with Biden coming off as a hot headed idiot (his words, not mine) and making Obama LOOK bad.

I really dont get the point because there's obviously only ONE hot headed idiot in this campaign, and he aint a Democrat!

Perhaps my strategy should be more "how to avoid the topic of Joe Biden for the next 8 1/2 years." :)

I thought I was doing America a favor by living with the folks and not buying a house with a mortgage I couldn't afford but this may be the last straw ..... I may have to move out. lol

[jberryhill]

8. "Passionate" and "Hot Headed" are two different things

Biden is not called upon to deal with international crisis negotiations because he's impulsive, you know.

[Clio the Leo]

10. I agree completely.....

... I LOVE JOE ..... LOVE HIM.

Hopefully he'll win him over during the debate. Otherwise, my dad will write in Nick Saban.

[1corona4u]

13. Who the hell is Nick Saban?

Am I that far out of the loop, LOL??

[Clio the Leo]

15. Who is Nick Saban! Oh my goodness! Google baby! Google!!! lol ....

.... you may also need Google for my "Steve Spurrier" reference too. ;)

[1corona4u]

17. AHAHAHAHA the football coach?

I never made that connection when you said it...

[patomime]

27. Tell your Dad....

that Joe, comes off as the average "Joe", Irish Catholic, with hard working middle-class appeal. Even his own constituents say they don't mind his gaffes, it's just part of his charm. If you and your Dad have seen him in different formats speaking (i.e., debates, media handling, speeches) he always gets the subject back on topic.

The other thing is Joe always laughs at himself, and makes it seem o.k., to be well, human. I've never heard anyone say he's "hot headed." People seem to laugh with him when he makes fun of himself.

If this is his only concern, then he doesn't have much to think about.

That plus all of his experience in the station of Vice President, and we are winners!

[1corona4u]

2. Sorry, but your dad's not listening to what you're saying....

because he doesn't want to. It's probably penis envy. ;-)

Seriously, you probably won't be able to change his mind.

[1corona4u]

4. If you read this, this is probably what Biden was talking about...

from Wiki;

The election campaign was conducted under the shadow of the Great Depression in the United States, and the new alliances which it created. Roosevelt and the Democratic Party mobilized the expanded ranks of the poor as well as organized labor, ethnic minorities, urbanites, and Southern whites, crafting the New Deal coalition. During the campaign, Roosevelt said: "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people", coining a slogan that was later adopted for his legislative program as well as his new coalition.<27>

Economist Marriner Eccles observed that "given later developments, the campaign speeches often read like a giant misprint, in which Roosevelt and Hoover speak each other's lines."<28> Roosevelt denounced Hoover's failures to restore prosperity or even halt the downward slide, and he ridiculed Hoover's huge deficits. Roosevelt campaigned on the Democratic platform advocating "immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures," "abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating bureaus and eliminating extravagances reductions in bureaucracy," and for a "sound currency to be maintained at all hazards." On September 23, Roosevelt made the gloomy evaluation that, "Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether under existing conditions it is not overbuilt. Our last frontier has long since been reached."<29> Hoover damned that pessimism as a denial of "the promise of American life ... the counsel of despair."<30> The prohibition issue solidified the wet vote for Roosevelt, who noted that repeal would bring in new tax revenues.

Roosevelt won 57% of the vote and carried all but six states. Historians and political scientists consider the 1932-36 elections a realigning election that created a new majority coalition for the Democrats, thus transforming American politics and starting what is called the "New Deal Party System" or (by political scientists) the Fifth Party System.<31>

After the election, Roosevelt refused Hoover's requests for a meeting to come up with a joint program to stop the downward spiral, claiming it would tie his hands. The economy spiralled downward until the banking system began a complete nationwide shutdown as Hoover's term ended. In February 1933, Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt (which killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak sitting next to him).<32> Roosevelt leaned heavily on his "Brain Trust" of academic advisors, especially Raymond Moley when designing his policies; he offered cabinet positions to numerous candidates (sometimes two at a time), but most declined. The cabinet member with the strongest independent base was Cordell Hull at State. William Hartman Woodin at Treasury, was soon replaced by the much more powerful Henry Morgenthau, Jr.<33>

[Clio the Leo]

7. thanks NT

[SoxFan]

9. Cultural Disconnect

Pop is apparently a 1960s radical. Biden is a personally (not politically) conservative irish Catholic, blue collar guy. JRB spent the 1960s playing football, wearing his hair (such as it was) short, and starting a family. JRB has said that he felt culturally closest to people he disagreed with politically. He never had a lot of use for radicals, and I suspect that they returned the favor.

[jberryhill]

11. Ummm....

He wasn't all that "personally conservative", but was more of a "Clean for Gene" Democrat.

You might want to check out some of the recollections of his roommate from the UofD.

[SoxFan]

32. I made the distinction between the personal and political

WHile he supported McCarthy, Biden was also a practicing Catholic, a guy who started a family when he was about 23, and someone who once said of protesters at Syracuse, "there were 15 people tring to take over the administration building, and 15,000 of us watching and saying 'look at those assholes'.

[Clio the Leo]

14. good idea but.....

.... in your description of Biden, you just described my father. ;)

I even have photographic proof lol....



(dad is at about the 11 o'clock position, behind Kind and Parks by the window looking kinda upward)

It just comes down to personality. He and my mother make the same face when anyone mentions Biden as they do when anyone mentions Steve Spurrier.

They just dont like hot heads ...... which is odd considering they raised one.

[Every Man A King]

12. Let him hate Biden then

He is still voting for Obama right?

[Clio the Leo]

16. yeah, it's just a lot more enjoyable when we agree lol NT

[elleng]

18. Suggest that he watch Senator Biden

at Committee hearings:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/senate-foreign-relations-committee-hearing-on-us-china-relations/3064121014

[jillan]

19. Biden mispoke the other day.

He said Roosevelt was the president when the depression hit, and it was Hoover that was in office.

Your dad is right. Sorry. :(

[1corona4u]

20. You should read the wiki above that I posted....

apparently, they were still in the shadow of the depression....I didn't hear the comment, but I think it's being taken too loterally, when he didn't mean it that way....just a guess...


By the way, here is a historical account about FDR and the TV;

In April of 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president of the United States to appear on television. The setting was the 1939 World's Fair in New York. The appearance was broadcast to a handful of TV sets in the New York area.

FDR had already mastered the medium of his time--radio. His "fireside chats" broadcast across the nation soothed Americans troubled by the hard times of the Great Depression. Radio was a perfect fit for the eloquent Roosevelt, who would have had a much more difficult time hiding the fact that he was confined to a wheelchair in the television age.

The outbreak of World War II temporarily halted the development of television, and it would be more than a decade before the new medium became popular.

----------------------------------------------------------

We don't know that FDR didn't later address what happened with the stock market, on TV. Maybe he did. I am looking for it, but I highly doube Joe would have gotten it wrong....

[jillan]

22. Corona - the press has been all over Biden's ass the last two days.

I can't get anything done, I'm too busy sending out emails.
You should have seen the shit AC30 just did on Biden.

[1corona4u]

26. SO read what I just posted....

FDR WAS in office when the depression was still going on.

[1corona4u]

21. Read my post again...

[Clio the Leo]

23. And what does that have to do with the price of gas in Cleveland.....

.... is my point. lol

He was called a "gaffe" machine ......... well in one month, we've had one teeny gaffe (Roosevelt) and one independant thought that could be called a gaffe (the comment about the commercial.)

My answer is the same one I gave my dad ..... no one will even NOTICE Biden's "gaffes" as long as John McCain keep speaking!

Anyway, stop taking my Dad's side! lol

[1corona4u]

25. Yeah, I know. but I just posted another one below...

according to the account on PBS, FDR was in fact, elected when the depression was still going on.

[1corona4u]

37. He did not say; "when the depression hit".

[1corona4u]

24. Check this out....

Franklin
Delano Roosevelt is the only United States president to have been elected to four terms of office. FDR transformed the presidency and placed the institution at the very center of American life. During twelve years in office, Roosevelt shepherded his nation through the two greatest American crises of the twentieth century -- the Great Depression and World War II -- and left a legacy of political freedom and domestic security to the American people.

When Roosevelt took the oath of office on March 4, 1933, America lay in the depths of the Depression. Between 12 million and 15 million Americans, about 25 percent of the work force, were unemployed. Millions of people had lost their life's savings. Many had lost their homes and lived in makeshift shacks. Many more stood in long lines for free soup and bread. Eleven thousand of America's 25,000 banks had failed. Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt's predecessor, had steered a mostly idle course through the crisis, waiting for the economy to correct itself, but the correction had not come.

Franklin Roosevelt was not the type of man who waited for events to happen. In his inaugural address, he swore to bring the nation a New Deal, and backed by a soundly Democratic Congress, he took Washington by storm. Within days of taking office, he closed the remaining banks, avoiding a run on deposits that would have finished them all. He set up a system for judging the soundness of banks and reopened the ones that were solid. He moved to put the government itself on a budget, freeing up federal dollars for relief and reform measures.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/32_f_roosevelt/f_roosevelt_legacy.html



I think this is what Biden WAS talking about!!

[susanwy]

28. Thank you for your research on this issue...

maybe it wasn't a gaffe, maybe he knows history a lot better than most.

[1corona4u]

30. I think he does....and I think the media is really blowing this....

if Joe wanted to elaborate, they would look like asses. I hope he does elaborate. in the 10 minutes it took me to research this, many articles point to FDR as presiding over at least the tail end of the depression, so it would have made sense for FDR to say; here's what happened.

[susanwy]

29. My Dad and Mom are the same way

They don't care for Biden either, but they'll vote Obama. In the primaries I argued with them lots, but nothing would convince them, so I gave up. They just thought Biden had been around Washington too long.

[1corona4u]

31. Show your dad this;

If you go here, and watch the fireside videos, FDR, did IN FACT talk about what HAD been done to stabilize the financial situation. There are 2 videos, one titled years of crisis, and another called a historical look at the first 100...

http://www.history.com/presidents/fdr/video


This is EXACTLY what Joe was talking about!

[murbley40]

33. Corona:

Maybe you could give cnn a history lesson.

[1corona4u]

36. I did already.

:-) Actually, anyone that printed this, got an email from me. By the way, I posted on Ben Smith's blog, and he deleted it!!!!

Fucker.

[Debi]

39. Maybe the 'fucker' comment was why he deleted it???

:rofl:

Biden knows more than the sound-bite fed media - they don't want to research his comments just knee-jerk 'he's wrong' 'gaffe' 'ah hahaha Biden's at it again' - then, in three weeks, they'll make the same claim Biden did because he was right all along.

[1corona4u]

41. LOL, ya think??

bastard.:-)


OH, and Debi, you should have seen the ABC article the other day about Biden's helicopter remark, the WRITER/REPORTER said that they had never heard of it, even though they were slamming Biden about it, and said that, I SWEAR to GOD; "they Googled it"!!!! WTF kind of reporting is that, LOL....ABC Googles for stories?? I let them know what I thought about that too. :-)

[Debi]

48. Hmmm so you're also banned from ABC, eh?

The McCain crew is feeding the MSM bullshit about Biden b/c they are SCARED SHITLESS!
The MSM is eating it up and spreading it (as if it were news) because there is no such thing as a REPORTER out there anymore.
The average American citizen who gets all their political news between 5:30-6:30 pm from ABC/NBC/CBS sees it and thinks BIDEN'S A GAFFEBAG
Very few actually take the time to figure what he said (or if HE even said it) - and whether or not his comments are correct.
:banghead:

Drives me crazy!

[TuxedoKat]

34. My husband

also an attorney and a debate champ(!) is not keen on Biden either. I don't let him get away with it though. The other day he and a Repug lawyer friend were saying something unkind about Joe and I said, "You're not disrepecting Joe Biden in my house!" That shut them up.

Since then I have been sending my husband positive articles about Joe. Here's a good one that was in The New Republic about Joe and VAWA:

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=685a4524-9702-49c0-b062-7d9ecd21a854

Recent article on the situation in Iraq:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/09/21/iraq_moving_toward_bidens_controversial_vision/

Check the Joe Biden DU Group for other positive stories and videos about Joe.

[Jennicut]

35. Your Dad sounds like my Dad accept mine is a right winger

We argue all the time. My Dad said Biden was a no nothing blowhard and I told him Rush (his beloved radio show) was the biggest blowhard ever and then I listed the things Biden has actually done and that he is actually the most bipartisan senator I have ever seen with friends like Hagel and Lugar (my Dad is a Rethug so this actually works for him.) Dads like to argue with their daughters I guess. For my Dad Biden is too liberal, for your Dad I guess he is not enough. Obama wants someone to challenge him remember? Not a yes man but someone who has been to war zones and dealt directly with these people. Tell your Dad that he is extremely protective of individual rights and knocked Bork down because of the right to privacy. He is very into holding up the Constitution. We all know what he meant on FDR but Biden sometimes talks so fast it doesn't fit together right. The president of Georgia thought he was "amazingly smart" and Phalin was just "amicable". Is that enough?

[QueenOfCalifornia]

38. I am married to

a prosecutor.

He doesn't like Biden either.

But he is voting the dem ticket.

My husbands arguments are good and I really can't argue his points except to say that Biden has been loyal and has not made a fortune like other politicians. These points can't be argued. He is also a good husband and Dad. He rides the friggin' train to work - (so does my husband.) BUT - Biden has issues - what can I say???? it's the truth.

It didn't help when Biden said this:
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened."

What a dumbfuck thing to say. Sorry but it is a dumbfuck thing and when my husband paraded that around all I could do was laugh.

1843???
:rofl:

[1corona4u]

42. You should read the whole thread...

it was not a dumb fcuk thing to say. FDR did in fact talk about it, on TV, and he was in fact in the WH while the depression was still ongoing. I found videos of it last night, from FDR, and his "fireside chats". It's in the thread.

[susanwy]

45. See #31 above

It was not phrased correctly, but the historical context WAS correct. The point was it took a leader, like FDR, to get us out of a Republican mess, to talk to the people and restore confidence in the nation. While the stock market crash hit under Hoover, it was FDR that actually implemented the policies to pull us out. He also knew how to put a country on a war footing and not destroy the economy. Like Bush, Hoover stuck his head in the sand, blamed the democrats, and did nothing his his remaining term in office to help the country, he let it sink. I know, my Dad lived it, and his family damn near starved to death in those couple of years Hoover was in office during the depression and his mother died due to lack of health care.

BTW, and with all due respect, I really don't appreciate seeing the works "dumbfuck" and Biden in the same sentence, not very supportive and probably against the rules.

1843?? please explain. At lease Biden knows history, unlike Palin (6 colleges in 6 years) or McCain (894 out of 899). These guys do get tired on the campaign trail, mistakes will happen. But, this is pretty minor compared to McCain's mispeaks, like saying as Prz he would fire Cox, chairman of the SEC, except wait....the president CAN'T fire him. Now that was a gaffe, but the media didn't make a big deal.

[Hamlette]

40. remind him the Obama said there were 57 states

and laugh at him.

Biden is an honorable, accomplished man. Old ladies LOVE him (he's the real cure for Hillary, my mom was a Hillary supporter UNTIL Obama named Biden. She thinks he gets it and my 84 year old mom is VERY smart.)

[1corona4u]

43. Youngish ladies love him too.

Please don't be so narrow in your scope of who find Biden irresistible.

[lolamio]

44. I liked this thread from yesterday that listed all of the world leaders Biden has met:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7158766&mesg_id=7158766

He may be prone to an occasional gaffe, but his resume is rock solid. :)

[gateley]

47. This is IMPRESSIVE!

Not everybody is going to like Joe -- or anybody. Joe's a passionate guy and he inspires passionate reactions/responses from people. :shrug:

[IDsweetpea]

46. Ask him how safe your inheritance is!

He can send McC and Phil Grahm a thank you note for protecting your inheritance.