Biden tries some new lines
Posted: Thursday, October 09, 2008 6:34 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Joe Biden
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
LIBERTY, Mo. -- After weeks of treading carefully on all things Palin, Biden has showed a new willingness to take the Alaska governor on on a host of issues. The latest example came as he discussed McCain’s mortgage plan and made reference to one of Palin’s criticisms of himself.
“Sarah Palin says, 'You know, I was in second grade when Joe Biden was elected to the United States Senate at age 29,’” he said this afternoon. “That’s true, but she was in sixth grade the last time John had a new idea.”
The crowd of about 700 people at William Jewell College erupted with laughter and applause to the joke, which highlighted a disparity in the age of the two Republican ticketmates -- one the oldest and one the youngest of the four principals.
Just an hour or so earlier, Biden mocked McCain’s age, as he talked with patrons of a nearby coffee shop. An older gentleman told the Delaware senator that he caucused for him when he campaigned two decades ago.
“You know, the hardest part, I’ve been the youngest everything for so much of my life,” Biden said. “Now I’m the old guy in the campaign. Thank God John McCain’s around.”
“The second oldest,” a local man interrupted.
“He’s still a few years older than I am,” Biden answered.
At the so-called “Community Gathering,” Biden again talked about the “unbecoming personal attacks” being launched by the McCain-Palin ticket, and compared their focus to the fact that in Tuesday’s debate, no one asked about such topics as William Ayers.
“The American people are focused,” he explained. “Your town is no different than towns in the northwest and the northeast and the southwest. This is the homogenized election, man. Same thing’s going on in my town of Wilmington, Delaware, [as are] going on in Liberty. … We’ve been dug into a very, very deep hole. Literally. No matter whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, no matter what your political persuasion. It’s virtually impossible to say things are better off today than they were eight years ago.”
