Sunday, September 2, 2012
5:54 PM
Biden touts Obama’s record, highlights differences with GOP
GREEN BAY -- Making a stop here just two days before the start of the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Joe Biden took shots at Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, saying the GOP ticket offers nothing new or different.
“We’ve seen this movie before and we know how it ends. It ended in the Great Recession of 2008,” Biden said. “They want us to go back to the social policies of the 1960s, foreign policies of the Cold War and the economics that led to the Great Recession. Do they think we have amnesia? That we don’t remember who was in charge when things fell apart? They were.”
Biden’s stop at the National Railroad Museum on his way to the convention in Charlotte, N.C., gave the crowd a taste of what to expect at the convention as the vice president talked up the Obama Administration’s successes.
“The country faces the most starkest differences in a presidential election that I can ever remember. President Obama and I want to keep moving the country forward in the right direction while Romney and Ryan want to take us back to failed policies that didn’t work,” Biden said.
As boos rang out over the mention of his Republican rivals, Biden said, “We need more than your boos. We need your votes. We need you to help us finish what we started. We need you to get out there and help us win Wisconsin and help us win the election.”
The Romney campaign responded to the appearance in a statement saying the vice president offered no solutions to the country’s problems, “just false attacks and failed policy proposals that have led the country in the wrong direction.”
“The fact is Americans are not better off today than they were four years ago, something even the president’s own surrogates concede,” Romney spokeswoman Allie Brandenburger said. “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s economic plan will bring relief to the middle class and ensure that the next four years are better than the last.”
Ryan is to campaign in Greenville, N.C., tomorrow.
Biden said President Obama began his presidency faced with huge deficits and severe economic woes, but that he “righted the ship.” The president led the effort to successfully bail out the auto industry, which has put thousands of people back to work, he added.
“I love how the Republicans discovered the middle class at the convention, talking about how their plans will help them, but if you take a closer look, their tax policies will only hurt the middle class,” he said. “This isn’t your father’s Republican Party. This is a different breed of cat.”
As the Democrats descend on North Carolina for their convention this week, Biden said Americans can expect to hear real solutions from himself and the president and not “the vague plans the Republicans have.”
The vice president also highlighted the differences between Obama’s healthcare policies and Romney’s.
“We are for Medicare; they are for voucher care,” Biden said.
Biden also played to the audience by praising the Green Bay Packers and noting how he was a fan of the team as a youngster since his private Catholic school was run by Norbertines, who are headquartered in nearby DePere. He said the nuns always talked up Lombardi and the Packers’ stars from the 1960s, including Bart Starr.
“Ah, we loved the Packers. On Mondays after a Packers victory, we had our last period cancelled as a reward,” he joked.
-- By MaryBeth Matzek
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