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South Carolina Ping
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Posted on 12/09/2006 11:41:02 AM PST by Gondring
Biden tests presidential waters in S.C.
Touts bipartisanship, bond with state's former leading Democrats
Columbia, S.C. | U.S. Sen. Joe Biden heads into his quest for votes in a 2008 presidential primary in South Carolina with a well-exercised sense of what to say and what to leave unsaid to Republicans and Democrats alike.
The Delaware Democrat knows enough to avoid laughing too hard at a Clemson University joke - particularly a few days after the Upstate school lost a nail-biter to its in-state rival, the University of South Carolina.
Biden told a crowd of more than 230 at a Columbia Rotary Club meeting on Monday he learned long ago not to get involved in that rivalry. "You all are crazy," he said.
Biden said he learned to tread carefully from good teachers - former Democratic U.S. Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings and the late Republican U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond.
He's not shy about talking about South Carolina's Confederate history either.
After a club member noted an upcoming event at the state Department of Archives and History included a chance to see the state's original copy of the Articles of Secession, Biden asked: "Where else could I go to a Rotary Club where (for a) Christmas Party the highlight is looking at the Articles?"
Biden noted Delaware was a border state and "a slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South - there were a couple of other states in the way."
The crowd roared with laughter.
Well received
Biden has deep and heartfelt ties to Hollings and Thurmond, two of South Carolina's political icons. Biden credits Hollings with helping to persuade him to stay in the Senate after his wife and daughter died in an accident after his first election in 1972. And Biden was close enough to Thurmond that, just before he died in 2003, the 100-year-old legislator asked that Biden deliver his eulogy.
Biden has been putting those Hollings connections to good use as he shores up a 2008 presidential run.
In May, Hollings introduced Biden at the Galivants Ferry Stump, a big Democratic Party gathering.
On Monday, longtime Hollings aide Trip King brought him in front of the mostly Republican Rotary audience. And Kevin Mertens, the volunteer leading his South Carolina campaign efforts for much of the past two years, also is a former Hollings aide who previously helped former U.S. Sen. John Edwards' 2004 campaign.
In his speech in Columbia, Biden's emphasized bipartisanship and the war in Iraq, keeping an attentive crowd in their seats for a half-hour. Only a handful left as he moved into the crowd with a booming voice for an animated half-hour question-and-answer session.
Club member Bruce Rippeteau, who says he's on Genghis Khan wing of the Republican Party, said Biden kept the crowd's attention by being nonpolitical. And his Iraq message resounded because "what we've been doing hasn't worked," he said.
Biden told the crowd he needs the GOP and its supporters to put Nov. 7 behind them. "American needs - I need - the Republican Party to get back up," he said. "Not a single change in direction can be done without a bipartisan consensus in this country."
Biden knew it was a Republican audience, but said he wasn't surprised people listened.
"I don't find a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats right now," Biden said.
People know the nation is "in a pretty deep hole domestically" and want to know what lawmakers and politicians are going to do about it, Biden said.
But South Carolina holds a partisan primary, notes Don Fowler, former Democratic National Committee co-chairman. "If you're running in a Democratic primary, why give your best shot to Republicans," Fowler said.
I love this line:
...with a well-exercised sense of what to say and what to leave unsaid...?!? He might have exercised it, but he sure ain't flexing it here! Wistful that Delaware wasn't able to join its brethren slave states?!?
ping
Shameless jerk.
"Biden tests presidential waters "
I'm thinking there's a lot of jokes in that line .......
U. G. L. Y.
Wait til it comes out that his middle name is Arkbar.
Just what we need.............a President with an obvious fake smile. This guy smiles as he cuts you down.
Man he's dumb. That statement alone would disqualify him as a Presidential candidate...if he were a pubbie.
S.C. has sharks, doesn't it.
Well, I hope it does.
This guy is an absolute bonehead. This past election his vacuous son has visited upon us as AG in the State of Delaware!
Now, that was a pithy comment.
He would call Delaware "a Muslim state that couldn't figure out how to get to the Mideast", if he thought he could get some millage from it.
Latitude: 39° 48' 48"N
Longitude: 75° 32' 17"W
Another clown wants to join the circus.
Biden tells people in SC they're crazy? Doesn't he know about the antebellum description of South Carolina as being too small to be a nation and too big for an insane asylum?
He can't run for President. He has a comb over! Nobody votes for a guy with a comb over! (oh, and he's certifiably crazy)
DelMarVa Ping (I think)
My husband repeatedly reminds that I am the one that made him put his foot on the brake when Hairplugs stepped in front of our vehicle in downtown Dover more than 10 years ago.
At least Jr. had sense enough to bring in someone with some experience as his number 2 man..........but that's all I can say for him.
Standard Dem boilerplate, of course. We're in a "deep hole domestically?" How so?
Always the appeal to the pessimists (or the "losers in life's lottery" who want a massive redistribution of wealth) -- the 4.5% unemployment rate, low inflation, and record-breaking Dow notwithstanding. Why, did you know that half of the people in the United states have a net worth of under the median? The horror!
A Biden , "Sheets" Byrd would get the Bi-got_den vote
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South Carolina Ping
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The Plagerizer, the algore, the Hildabeast, the black nincompoop, the white nincompoop, and Frenchy. With a lot more clowns sure to cartwheel into the ring.
The 2008 circus is going to be a big one, folks. (Does microwave popcorn come in ten pound bags?)
Who is the white nincompoop?
"Delaware and the Confederacy"
Geez, what a phony!
Recall the old TV commercial that said, "When EF Hutton speaks, people listen"? Well, when Biden speaks, researchers dig through records of quotations. Nothing this jabone says will be original, or honest.
There were a substantial number of Southern sympathizers and spy's here, as there were in all border states.
Isn't that sort of like, Jerry Lewis running for French Prime Minister?
Hillary is looking better and better if I'm a democrat.
I think for Maryland Residents it was something like 2 to 1 to 3 to 1 CSA vs. USA in terms of where they served.
I'd suspect Delaware was at least a majority of CSA soldiers as compared to USA soldiers.
ping
There were a large number that went CSA in Kent and Sussex county, although the state technically remained Union........IIRC they were permitted to keep their slaves as a means of appeasement to keep the state from going CSA.
And here I have been advising disbelieving Freepers that we Nawthan'ers didn't kill enough of them when we had the chance, and Joe Biden comes along and proves it!!!
Delaware is not phony.
But its pandering Senator is!
Biden mentioning the Confederacy is like Howard Dean reaching out to those with Confederate flag plates on their pickup trucks: two liberals who will say anything to garner votes.
Along that line, Hillary will wear a hoop skirt and carry a fan when she campaigns in the South in '08.
I'll be damned. So Neil Kimnock is really Biden Pop after all. :~)
Mrs. Clinton would take about two minutes making this clown look like a sissy.
But in France Jerry Lewis has a decent chance of winning.
(Unless they remember he is Jewish)
The RedState.com guy titled his article on this as "Biden casts his Lott"
Idiot trying to sound colloquial. Reminds me of when kerry came to Ohio and went into a hunting place and asked "Can I get me a hunting license here?" I can't believe what pompous idiots these senators are.
He's trying to hide a hair transplant that would have made Lex Luther's head look like Fabio's.
It's not his fault his hair doctor was a failed gardener. Jeez. I've seen better plugs in my neighbors front yard.
Give the guy a break. <\sarcasm off>
Ouch........
S.C. has sharks, doesn't it?
Sharks off of the coast, gators and gar in the inland waters.
I've heard Biden doing his "I'm a Southerner" routine for months on his C-SPAN appearances, and reminding his audiences that Delaware was on the cusp of the Mason-Dixon line.
And there might be some truth in that: we had a whole line of the family over on Delmarva and it was just as "Southern" as any place in the Deep South, including fried chicken, candied yams, a local KKK, and "Whites Only" restrooms and water fountains at the local drive-in theatre (the only place in my life I ever say them).
But it does get a little over-the-top when Biden starts with his phoney Southern accent and says "Yeah, man" to everything. Kinda funny too, in a Joe Biden way.
Richardson? Vilsack?
Nope. Delware contributed next to no troops to the confederate army.
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