History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
Seamus Heaney
Hot on the heels of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden charmed a crowd of 110 guests at the home of Senator Kibbie tonight.
If the caucus were tomorrow, he might win Emmetsburg.
Quoting Irish poet Seamus Heaney, Biden said the goal of the 2008 election will be to get the US out of the hole dug by the Bush government. He said Iraq is the biggest boulder on the road to the future.
More . . . .
Biden's entire stump speech was about Iraq and the recent vote of more unrestricted money for the war. Biden believes Bush would make the soldiers pay (i.e., Bush would endanger them even more) if Congress failed to vote more money on Bush's terms. But he thinks continual re-votes on Iraq will weaken Republican support for the war as the next election approaches.
Former Rep. Berkeley Bedell posed the first question. It was about another boulder in the way of better government. Bedell asked Biden to support
public financing of campaigns. Biden said he and Iowa Senator Dick Clark introduced the very
first public financing bill back in the early 1970's, adding that he supports the new Durbin-Spector bill.
More questions about agriculture(he promised his Sec of Ag will not be from the agribiz giants or the Farm Bureau), energy, tuition costs and Iraq war funding highlighted the meeting.
At the end the mostly senior citizen audience crowded in for photographs, autographs and even hugs.
Biden was Kibbie's guest for the evening. As darkness fell, the Senator and one Kibbie grandchild were at the lakeshore talking about Wave Runners. Senator Biden charms even those too young to vote.
2 Comments
Biden
is good. Very charming.
mark-langgin Wed 30 May 7:15 AM
I am hearing that he is impressing people
I saw Biden at a small event in Des Moines last year. He handled the questions extremely well. I hear that he is doing well at the larger town hall meetings lately too.
The one thing that didn't go over well with some people in the group I saw was that Biden would sometimes step forward in answering a person's question and get way too close to the person. I used to live on the east coast, and I don't remember people doing that, but maybe it is a Delaware thing. Is he still doing that? I almost wanted to pull one of his staffers aside to advise him not to get in people's personal space.
desmoinesdem Wed 30 May 8:10 PM