An especially bronze Vice President Joe Biden made his first major campaign appearance in front of auto workers in Toledo Thursday, mounting a ferocious assault against the Republican Party and reprising his role as the Obama campaign’s folksy, working class warrior.
“Simply stated, we’re about promoting the private sector,” Biden said. “They’re about protecting the privileged sector. We are for a fair shot and a fair shake; they’re about no rules, no risks and no accountability.”
Ticking off the Republican presidential candidates one by one, Biden added, “If you give any one of these guys the keys to the White House, they will bankrupt the middle class again.”
But just as the White House has privately (and not so privately) suggested it expects to face Mitt Romney in the fall, Biden saved a special dig for the former private equity titan.
“Any honest expert will tell you in 2009 no one was lining up to lend GM money, or for that matter, to lend money to anybody — that includes Bain Capital,” Biden said, referring to the firm where Romney was CEO.
Here’s the video:
Look for Biden — whose background as a “scrappy kid from Scranton” and a Catholic makes him an ideal messenger to socially conservative, economically populist white voters — to make this speech over and over again all the way until November. The White knows the economy is recovering more quickly in the Midwest than anywhere else — and that the vice president is best suited to take the credit.
