Joe Biden

Joe Biden came to Green Bay and we skipped church to go see him.  I did anyway.  We left the kids home.  Becky skipped church to stand in burning sun and 80-something degree temps in a security line while they filed 500 of us through a single metal detector, stand in the waiting area of the Railroad Museum for another hour or so listening to a soundtrack of oldies the college kids behind us joked must have been piped in straight from Joe's iPod, then listened to a couple of people runnning for local offices (Dave Hansen, Tammy Baldwin), then go back to waiting for Biden.

That's when Becky got tired of waiting.  So she left.  Of course, she found out from security as she tried to leave that Biden was arriving right at that same time.  They couldn't allow her to be walking around the grounds unaccompanied while the VP was coming in, so she waited another few minutes with security.

I'm glad I stuck around for Biden's speech.  He is an incredibly good speaker.  Fun to listen to, dynamic, convincing.  The Green Bay Press Gazzette described it as, "Biden connected with the crowd."  That was a good way to put it.  He did.

He made a convincing argument to vote for Democrats, especially for he and President Obama.  I mean, he had a very receptive audience, right?  I was already convinced.  He still made a couple of really good arguments that were worth hearing.

He pointed out the absurdity of the current debate over which party was destroying Medicare.  The program is a Democratic party baby.  We made it, fought for it, and have kept it funded over Republican objections for 40 years.  And they now want to argue that we're just tossing it aside?  They want us to believe that after Republicans spent 40 years fighting to get rid of it, to defund it, shrink it to the size that they could drown it in a bathtub, this year they suddenly think its wonderful?  How stupid do they think we are?  Or maybe gullible is the better adjective.

Biden pointed out that Barak Obama brought home troops from Iraq with overwhelming support and it was the right thing to do.  Yet Mitt Romney says it was a mistake.  We are part of a UN coalition of 50 nations in Afghanistan which unanimously agreed it was time to set a date to turn over security to the Afghans.  Mitt Romney says the coalition is wrong.  President Obama is wrong to work with the coalition.  In both cases our Iraqi and Afghan allies have agreed that it was time for the US to step down and Mitt Romney believes we should stay there over their objections.

I understand part of that may simply be Romney can't admit the President is doing anything right.  It's just part of campaigning.  When I see him hiring on the same people who crafted Bush 43's Iraq policy, though, I worry about going back to the go it alone cowboy style he exemplified.  I am still absolutely horrified at the hubris and warmongering my country glorified during those years and I would hate to see it return.

As expected, Biden addressed the recent GOP convention.  He mentioned the talking point flying through the liberal web-o-sphere about Paul Ryan condemning President Obama for not acting on the recomendations of the Simpson Bowles commission.  Of course Ryan left out that he sat on that commission and was among the Republicans who sucessfully blocked sending its suggestions to the President to be acted on!

Biden talked about Ryan's claim that people should be judged by what they do for those who stand most in need.  Biden's comment was that his own father had a policy:  "Don't tell me your values.  Show me your budget and I'll tell you your values."  So he talked about the budget Ryan had authored, its tax cuts and its cuts to social programs.  He contrasted that with the Office of Budget Management's suggestion that for every $3 of cuts we ought to increase revenue by $1 and Romneys claim that he wouldnt even raise $1 for every $10 in cuts.

It is true that the budget Biden criticized was Ryan's, and Romney has said his will be different.  However, Romney doesn't say how it will differ, has said his basic principles are the same, and will be working with a House which has already approved that budget.  At the very least it's a good guide for the type of policy to expect.

Finally, I have to admit I got a kick out of Biden's description of the Republican party.  "It's changed, man.  It's not your father's Republican party.  It's not even Mitt Romney's father's Republican party."