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.
Nice to hear a politician admit it at least.
I'm thinking there's a lot of jokes in that line .......
It'd work lots better if he was a Kennedy.
free dixie,sw
ALL of them are DOA the next day after the end of the RATS convention, as NONE of them can carry dixie.
W/O dixie, NOBODY can win POTUS.
free dixie,sw
Yassir, Marse Biden! Dat's real nice! We sho nuff is impressed wit yo skill at nuance and not nary soul down heah thinks tha yo is panderin' to us simple folk wid dat thar talk about being a slave state an all.
Nawsir, you jist go on back up to Deliwear and doan worry about the South Carolina vote. We takes care o' yo vote concerns. Dat's rat.
By dee way, it might hep jus a little ol' bit if'n you was to start flying the Stars n Bars whilst you be out gatherin' up vote. Dat'll really show us where yo heart's at!
There isn't. But I'm still not voting for you...
Now that there's just mighty clever! And funny too!
I bet he wouldn't even recognize the Stars-n-Bars!
W/O dixie, NOBODY can win POTUS.Wrong.
If Kerry had just been able to get out more illegals and dead people in Ohio, he'd be president right now, W/O dixie.
Never underestimate the Dixie in southern Ohio!
You have a point, there, James.
biden is a BAD JOKE & his "bid" is going NOWHERE!
otoh, NONE of the DIMocRATS (who can win the primaries) are winners. they are a party of whiners, idiots & LOSERS.
free dixie,sw
in any "halfway honest" election, NOBODY wins W/O dixie.
free dixie,sw
Damnyankee.
free dixie,sw
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