Vice President Joe Biden Hits Romney, Ryan On Middle Class Woes

Vice President Joe Biden hammered Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, in a speech in York, Pennsylvania on Sunday. Biden said, "the thing I most love about them is how they discovered the middle class at their convention."

Obama-Biden 2012 Announcement Video

Joe Biden On Black History: 'A Lot More To Do, but Damn, We've Come A Long Way'

Image via Wikipedia

By Sophia A. Nelson

Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden welcomed over 120 elected African-American officials and their guests to their official residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory this Tuesday in honor of Black History Month.

Biden, who had just returned from a trip to Ft. Campbell Kentucky, was in a very reflective mood, as his wife Dr. Jill Biden welcomed several distinguished members of the Congressional Black Caucus, mayors, state legislators, county officials and former elected leaders such as Wellington Webb who served three terms as Mayor of Denver Colorado.

The vice president talked about the importance of Black History Month as he recounted his recent meeting with young pre-teen African-American football players at Ft. Campbell (who are the offspring of deployed U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq), to his becoming an attorney in 1968 just after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. (and the subsequent riots), and finally to his train ride with then President-elect Obama in January 2009 as the newly elected vice president-elect to the nation's first ever black Commander-in-Chief. CONTINUE....

Why Obama-Clinton 2012 Almost Makes Sense

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By: TheRoot.com

When former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder first pitched the idea of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden swapping jobs in 2012, it sounded like a ridiculous stunt. It still sounds like a stunt, but it's starting to sound a bit less ridiculous.

The Washington Post's Bob Woodward upped the ante this week when he reported that the idea is "on the table." And there's speculation that Clinton's core supporters are floating the idea to see if it catches on, encouraging commentators who pine for another Clinton presidency, like The Daily Beast's Tunku Varadarajan, who writes of a "growing sense that Hillary would have made a much, much better president than Obama."

Ordinary Woman: Sonia Sotomayor and the Fight Over ‘Empathy’

By: Calvin Woodward

WASHINGTON (AP) — A black president introduced his Hispanic Supreme Court nominee while his white vice president watched. It was a custom-made American tableau, the politics of biography.

The flags in the East Room around Barack Obama, Sonia Sotomayor and Joe Biden on Tuesday were almost superfluous. Everything else spoke of red, white and blue as the curtain rose on the president's first Supreme Court nomination.

The scrutiny is just beginning of Sotomayor's thick record as a federal appeals judge, trial judge, prosecutor and corporate attorney. But it's not enough for a high court hopeful to be a creature of the law.

She must also be a recognizable member of the human race. She must be one of us even as she prepares to leave us for the rarefied pinnacle of judicial power.

"I am an ordinary person," she said, "who has been blessed."

Obama attributed to Sotomayor, a child of Puerto Rican transplants and a Bronx housing project, the "wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life's journey."

Some Republicans scoffed when Obama foreshadowed the selection saying he wanted a justice with a common touch and "the quality of empathy." What matters, they say, is judicial skill and fealty to the Constitution.

But the politics of biography is a game played by all sides in Washington and did not begin with Obama and his own compelling life story.

Ordinary Woman: Sonia Sotomayor and the Fight Over ‘Empathy’....

In V.P. Debate, Palin Goes Folksy, Biden Gets Emotional – and Nothing Changes the Game

By: Associated Press

Even before she reached the podium, the first words out of Sarah Palin's mouth set the tone for her debate night: "Hey, can I call ya Joe?"

It was an unabashedly, one might even say relentlessly folksy and down-home Palin that greeted Americans Thursday night, with phrases like "Doggone it," "You guys," "Darn right" and, one she must have been saving 'til the end, "Say it ain't so, Joe!" You became "ya," change was "comin'" and a class of third-graders even got a "shout-out" from the Alaska governor.

And whether viewers loved or hated it -- a result likely to split down party lines -- it was clear this was a much more comfortable candidate than the one who faced CBS News' Katie Couric in those painful interviews.

In V.P. Debate, Palin Goes Folksy, Biden Gets Emotional – and Nothing Changes the Game....

Avoiding the Dan Quayle Trap: 20 Questions We Hope the V.P. Hopefuls are Asked Tonight

By: Tomika DePriest

Millions will tune in tonight for the vice presidential debate between Delaware Sen. Joe Biden and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. This will be an opportunity for the American public and media to judge who has best understanding of key foreign and domestic issues and mastered the art of speaking in sound bites, and which candidate’s message -- on the top of the ticket -- clearly has resonated with voters.

Both Biden and Palin have received mixed reviews in the media regarding their ability to stay on message with their respective parties and avoid gaffes. Some Democrats and Republicans may be holding their collective breath, hoping their candidate doesn’t come off as confusing or contradictory. Neither party wants to see their candidate morph into this campaign’s Dan Quayle. After all, the vice presidential debate is occurring on the heels of Palin’s botched Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson interviews and after a string of Biden blunders, both in interviews and at campaign events. Either way, each candidate will have to rise to the occasion in a way that leaves the audience with a clear understanding of who they are and from where they come.

Avoiding the Dan Quayle Trap: 20 Questions We Hope the V.P. Hopefuls are Asked Tonight....

Clinton Praises Obama’s Readiness, Judgment While Joe Biden Shows His Mettle as V.P. Pick

By: Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb

Call it the Redeem Speech.

Instead of basking in the glow of a nomination that could usher him and his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, back into the White House, former President Bill Clinton stood before the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night urging Americans to vote for someone else – Barack Obama.

And he did it without hesitation.

“I am here to support Barack Obama,” Clinton began his speech after a long and enthusiastic welcome from the crowd.

“You heard Hillary last night say that she would do everything she can to elect Barack Obama. That makes two of us. Actually, that makes 18 million of because, like Hillary, I want all of you who supported her to vote for Barack Obama in November,” Clinton said, referring to the 18 million people who voted for Clinton in the primaries.

Clinton’s enthusiastic support of Clinton even drove the crowd to chant Obama’s slogan: “Yes We Can!”

“Yes, he can,” Clinton said. “But first, we have to elect him.”

It was a speech that may have finally laid to rest suggestions that Clinton would be unable to let go of the disappointment that his wife did not win the Democratic nomination for president and fully, wholeheartedly embrace Obama.

“If the goal is big enough, sure, he can work with Obama and I think Bill Clinton wants a Democrat elected,” said Michael Frisby, a public relations executive who covered the Clinton White House as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

The Clintons came under fire during the primary contests because of the Clinton’s campaign’s dismissiveness of Obama’s candidacy; the suggestion that voters in the caucus states didn’t really represent the will of the people or that black voters were voting solely on the basis of race and that his wins didn’t matter because previous black candidates Rev. Jesse Jackson and/or Rev. Al Sharpton fared well in some of the same states – particularly South Carolina – and didn’t win the nomination; calling Obama’s position on the war a “fairy tale;” to some, diminishing the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., by saying it took a president for his efforts to reap benefits and, near the end of the campaign, Hillary Clinton calling herself the candidate of “hardworking white people” left both the Clintons with a long row to hoe with some black people.

But several people were ready to bury that story line.

Clinton Praises Obama’s Readiness....

Democratic Party Set to Kick-Off Historic Convention, Buoyed by Excitement Over Obama

By: Michael Cottman and Sherrel Wheeler Stewart

When Sen. Joe Biden, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s choice for vice president, made his speech Saturday in Springfield, Illinois, 975 miles away in Denver, Colorado, crowds gathered around televisions in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt Hotel to watch.

“People were excited,” AFL-CIO executive vice president Arlene Holt-Baker told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “There was applause. You could just feel it in the air." Outside and throughout the city, there also was heightened security.

As thousands descend on the Mile High City this week for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, there is lots of talk about the event's excitement, but Democrats must face the challenge of carrying that excitement through to the November presidential election.

At least 50,000 people -- convention participants and protesters -- are expected in Denver for the convention, and millions are expected to tune in on Thursday night when Sen. Barack Obama officially accepts the Democratic nomination for president.

Democratic Party Set to Kick-Off Historic Convention....

Barack Obama Taps Joe Biden to Be Running Mate

By: Liz Sidoti and Nedra Pickler, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama named Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate early Saturday, balancing his ticket with a seasoned congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues.

Obama announced the pick on his Web site with a photo of the two men and an appeal for donations. A text message went out shortly afterward that said, "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee."

Biden, 65, has twice sought the White House, and is a Catholic with blue-collar roots, a generally liberal voting record and a reputation as a long-winded orator.

Across more than 30 years in the Senate, he has served at various times not only as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee but also as head of the Judiciary Committee, with its jurisdiction over anti-crime legislation, Supreme Court nominees and Constitutional issues.

In selecting Biden, Obama passed over several other potential running mates, none more prominent than former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, his tenacious rival in dozens of primaries and caucuses.

Barack Obama Taps Joe Biden to Be Running Mate....