Biden’s gaffe reminds me of the time in 2004 when John Kerry spent the day hopping around different mid-sized Ohio towns giving campaign speeches at airport rallies. At the end of the day he had one final stop in Michigan. Kerry started off his speech there, as he had at all of the day’s previous stops, celebrating America’s fall sport traditions and wrapped up these remarks by exclaiming “Yeah, there’s nothing like Buckeye football!”
All of the assembled Democrat supporters in their union jackets looked back and forth to one another and then started to jeer the Senator. Realizing his mistake, Sen. Kerry backpedaled furiously but under pressure was unable to come up with the word “Wolverines” instead explaining weakly that he also admired “Big Blue”.
Karl Rove must have peed his pants on hearing this and sure enough a few days later Pres. Bush campaigning in Michigan said in his remarks “Well, I heard Sen. Kerry came here the other day and praised Buckeye football. I don’t guess y’all were expecting that!”
The bottom line for politicians is don’t fake it. If you don’t know, shut up.
It reminds me of the time when
Al Gore told a Chicago audience “How about those Bulls. That Michael Jackson sure is something”