Biden, Brownback's big press day
Posted: Saturday, October 13, 2007 2:51 PM by Chuck Todd
Filed Under:
Joe Biden
From NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann
DES MOINES, IA -- Two unusual things happened in the world of politics today.
One is that two candidates from opposing parties held a joint press conference, an event that their campaigns called "unprecedented" in presidential history.
The other is that the same event - held by Oh-Eight long-shots Sen. Sam Brownback and Sen. Joe Biden - ran out of space for cameras on the media riser.
Biden and Brownback aren't quite "asterisks," as jaded political types sometimes refer to candidates polling at less than one percent, but they're hardly rock stars either. Brownback garnered 2% support among Iowan Republicans in the Des Moines Register poll; Biden, whose roots in the state go back to his campaign in the state in 1988, is polling at around 5%. So it's rare that either of the two candidates draw jostling crowds of reporters here in Iowa, let alone a cable news satellite truck parked near the entrance to one of their events.
But the nature of their event in Des Moines today, a bipartisan campaign stop to urge their three-state solution for Iraq - piqued the curiosity of the press corps here, and its political gurus descended for an earful of rare interparty affection. Three local camera crews, plus a three-man team and a live satellite truck sent by CNN, made the room look like Britney's booking compared to a typical event for a candidate whose name isn't Barack, Hillary, or Rudy.
Brownback acknowledged the unusualness of the cross-party event right out of the gate, joking that "You may want to check to see if the sun rises" the day after Republicans and Democrats put aside their differences and work together on an issue.
Biden, for his part, seemed pleased as punch in the glow of the bright lights. "Sam and I, we're delighted to give you a preview of the general election," he quipped. "That's the reason we're here."
But once the candidates launched into the real reason for their unusual joint event, the bipartisan love flowed. They pushed their proposal to divide Iraq into three states held together by a decentralized federal government, touting its passage in the Senate last month due to a heavy across-the-aisle effort on the part of its backers.
"You can't sustain a war effort with one party for it and one party against it." said Brownback. "This brings us together." A somber Biden agreed. "One thing we agree on is that the solution to our situation in Iraq is, quite frankly, more important than who among us will be the next president of the United States."
But even though the storyline of the day was supposed to be a heavy dose of navel-gazing about how petty partisanship hurts our men and women in uniform, the press corps - many of whom had just come from Obama's foreign policy address in Des Moines earlier that morning - couldn't help but elicit comment on the snowballing spat over Clinton's vote to classify the Iranian National Guard as a terrorist organization. Biden prefaced his answer by patting his counterpart affectionately on the back. "One of the purposes of us coming together is talking about what we agree on here," he said.
Then, hardly missing a beat, Biden delivered a one-two punch to slam his rivals. "I think from my perspective it was a serious mistake. And I think Sen. Obama, who was campaigning instead of voting, I wonder why he wasn't there to vote. We all knew that this vote was coming up."
Phew, thought the collective press, recalling Brownback's earlier quip. The sun will still rise tomorrow after all.
