Obama-Biden try to shrink the margins
Posted: Friday, October 10, 2008 12:09 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Joe Biden, Ron Allen
From NBC's Ron Allen
LIBERTY, Mo. -- Two female co-workers were standing in the crowd outside the "By the Book Cafe" here as
Joe Biden stopped by. Neither woman wanted to give her name.
"We're supposed to be non-partisan" and apolitical, the two civil servants with jobs in city government politely explained.
They did reveal, however, that one of them supported Barack Obama, and the other John McCain.
Video: Speaking in Missouri, Joe Biden takes on Sarah Palin's one-liners and John McCain's "lurching" from one economic proposal to another.It was a proper metaphor for this part of the "Show Me" state, Clay County, a suburb of Kansas City. While the town of Liberty is pretty Republican, the county's partisan divide is split almost evenly. It's a contentious swing area in perhaps the most bellwether of states.
Al Gore won by a single vote here. George Bush came back and won it by almost seven percentage points four years later.
Missouri has picked right in every presidential election since 1904 except in 1956. There's a lot at stake here. Recent polls put McCain and Obama almost even here. Missouri remains a dead heat while Obama seems to build leads in other battlegrounds like Ohio, and even Florida, and on new contested turf like Colorado, Nevada and Virginia.
All of that, of course, is why Biden is in town. This day features three big events for the senator, a rare trifecta, along with the stop at the coffee shop to politic and for a jolt of caffeine -- probably to help keep him going.
The Obama-Biden plan here is no secret. They're trying to follow the route laid out by Sen. Claire McCaskill. The first-term Democratic senator beat Republican incumbent Jim Talent in 2006, in part, by staying close in heavily Republican areas, like Liberty, and making headway in the surrounding small towns and even rural areas.
On this trip, Biden has steered around the big cities -- the traditional Democratic strongholds where they expect to run up big numbers.
Clay County looks inviting to Obama and Biden this time around, because there's a big auto plant here and a maintenance yard that overhauls and repairs airplanes. That's a lot of union workers, and a lot of them are worried about losing their jobs in the face of cutbacks.
So that's what was behind Biden having a cup of Joe in the heart of picturesque and quaint downtown Liberty, on this otherwise typical beautiful fall day, all of it carefully chronicled by the local media. Then, Biden headed up to nearby William Jewell College for a "Community Gathering."
Biden's campaign speeches here and elsewhere continue to focus on fears and worries about the economy. He noted that Missouri has its highest unemployment rate in 17 years, and median family income is down some $7,000 during the Bush years. That’s in addition to the ever-deepening financial crisis now swallowing up homes and destroying retirement plans and savings.
Summing up the Obama promise, Biden proclaimed, "We are running to restore middle-class America."
Biden also continues putting up a spirited defense of Obama, laced with a biting counter-attack aimed at McCain. McCaskill, out on the trail briefly this day, also didn't miss a beat, as she decried the Republicans' "petty, small and personal" attacks -- what she called, "the politics of fear and smear."
And there also was this. At each stop Biden seemed to be trying to get into McCain's head. He talked about how McCain never looked Obama in the eye during their first debate, and never leveled the so-called "character" and "association" charges directly at Obama during this week's town hall event.
Biden turns up the volume, gathers indignation, and practically yells at McCain, that where he comes from, "When you've got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye. … Straight up!"
And at his last event of a long day, Biden added, "I'm tired of losing; I'm tired of taking this stuff; I've had enough." He was venting about the last two presidential elections, and the way the Republicans dismantled and reconstructed Kerry and Gore.
With just a few weeks left, for Biden and many Democrats, that clearly is what this entire, lengthy, grueling campaign seems to come down to.
Biden has often said he believes McCain can't be comfortable with the negative and "ugly" tone he says his Republican buddy's campaign has taken. He believes McCain's discomfort is what causes him to look away. He accuses McCain of being desperate and sacrificing his reputation and sense of decency to win.
It will be interesting to see if at their next face-to-face encounter, McCain does, in fact, look Obama in the eye? And all of this also makes you wonder what if anything Biden has said directly, privately to a man he thinks he knows pretty well, his old friend John McCain?
