VP Biden Campaigns in Virginia
WASHINGTON, DC
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Vice President Joe Biden is on a two day tour in southern Virginia and delivers remarks at The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville, VA.
In his remarks, the Vice President said that the Romney plan would "unshackle" the private sector by "shackling the middle class." The Romney campaign immediately responded with this statement:
“After weeks of slanderous and baseless accusations leveled against Governor Romney, the Obama Campaign has reached a new low. The comments made by the Vice President of the United States are not acceptable in our political discourse and demonstrate yet again that the Obama Campaign will say and do anything to win this election. President Obama should tell the American people whether he agrees with Joe Biden’s comments.”
The Obama campaign later countered with the following statement:
“For months, Speaker Boehner, Congressman Ryan, and other Republicans have called for the ‘unshackling’ of the private sector from regulations that protect Americans from risky financial deals and other reckless behavior that crashed our economy. Since then, the Vice President has often used a similar metaphor to describe the need to ‘unshackle’ the middle class. Today’s comments were a derivative of those remarks, describing the devastating impact letting Wall Street write its own rules again would have on middle class families. We find the Romney campaign’s outrage over the Vice President’s comments today hypocritical, particularly in light of their own candidate’s stump speech questioning the President’s patriotism. Now, let’s return to that ‘substantive’ debate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan promised 72 hours ago, but quickly abandoned.”
Updated: Tuesday at 3:22pm (ET)
Obama defends Biden on 'chains' remark
President Obama came to Vice President Joe Biden's defense in interviews with People Magazine and Entertainment Tonight, calling Biden an "outstanding" running-mate.
"Joe Biden has been an outstanding vice president. He is passionate about what's happening in middle-class families," Obama told People. "So I will be talking to him a whole lot about the campaign generally."
On the trail in Virginia Wednesday, Biden suggested that Wall Street and the Republicans would put Americans back in "chains" — a phrase that Republicans said evoked racial connotations.
Biden was saying "you, consumers, the American people, will be a lot worse off if we repeal these [Wall Street reform] laws as the other side is suggesting," Obama said. "In no sense was he trying to connote something other than that," Obama added.
"Folks like to get obsessed with how something was phrased even if everybody personally understands that's not how it was meant," Obama told People. "That's sort of the nature of modern campaigns and modern coverage of campaigns."
Some Republicans have even suggested that Obama replace Biden on the ticket — an exceedingly unlikely scenario given that it would represent a certain failure on the part of the Obama campaign.
In a separate interview with Entertainment Tonight, Obama said that the gulf between what the national press wants to talk about and what the American people want to talk about is great.
"You know the truth of the matter is, again, this is an example of what the American people hear and what the press corps want to focus on are two very different things, so if we're going to talk about substance, than we should focus on what Joe's comments meant and what they're intended to mean, and that is we shouldn't roll back Wall Street reforms that are making consumers and the economy a lot more secure," Obama told ET.
"Most folks know that's just sort of a WWF wrestling part of politics. It doesn't mean anything, just fills up a lot of airtime," Obama said.
UPDATED at 8:09.
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