Go Joe! When ever anyone gets to thinking Joe Biden might have a chance, he goes and talks. The following is yet another in one of his tone-deaf pronouncements, apparently intended to appeal to people like me: Biden not worried about Southern Dems
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Joseph Biden says he can hold his own in a 2008 presidential primary against Democratic contenders from the South, noting that his home state of Delaware was a "slave state."
Biden dismissed the notion that he was a "Northeastern liberal" who would have a poor showing in the South against other likely contenders such as Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee.
"Better than anybody else," Biden said, when asked on "Fox News Sunday" to rate his chances of winning Southern states.
"You don't know my state," he said. "My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth-largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a Northeast liberal state." [...]
It is insulting in the extreme that this twit seems to think I sit around thinking that the measure of candidate's attractiveness is based upon whether his state held slaves. Does he think this is a GOOD thing? Does he think this degraded part of American culture is worth using as a political yardstick? Does he have anyone around him to slap him in the back of the head and tell him to quit being so condescending and patronizing and stupid?
First it was Dr. Dean and his outreach to guys with Confederate flags in their pickups, and now it's Senator ProtoByrd reaching out to--whom exactly?
Well, not me. Look, I like joking about stereotypes--possums and talking slow and rednecks and stuff, but there is a difference between that, and believing the stereotypes, and attempting to pander to them in an attempt to get votes. It happens on both sides, obviously--I'm not saying it doesn't. What is instructive in all this is that certain political groups seem to get a pass when it comes to such slipshod crudity. Or maybe it's just that by now, everyone expects Joe Biden to say stupid stuff.
In any case, he has no chance of doing anything but wasting money in the South. But, hey, thanks anyway.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at August 29, 2006 09:45 AM