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Biden Tells Sarasota Crowd He'll Help Rebuild Middle Class

Associated Press

Eddie Hundley, 8, a third-grader at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., photographs some family friends at a town hall meeting at Booker High School on Wednesday.

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By LINDSAY PETERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 3, 2008

SARASOTA - Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden stoked a crowd of supporters in a Sarasota high school gymnasium today with scornful criticism of the Bush administration and pledges that he and running mate Barack Obama will reverse the policies that have financially drained the American middle class.

The crowd of about 2,000 people, black and white, retirees and high school students, cheered his response to a woman who asked what she should say to her affluent friends who are concerned about tax increases for people with incomes over $250,000.

Tell them, Biden said, "it's time to be more patriotic."

He went on to say that President Bush will be judged harshly not because of the mistakes he made as president, but for squandering the opportunity he had after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Biden asked the crowd at Booker High School to imagine if Bush had said that tax cuts needed to be shelved for the sake of fighting international terrorism and developing alternatives to the use of foreign oil.

"Who in America would have said 'don't ask that of me?' " Biden asked, repeating the question again and again, his voice rising as the crowd roared its approval.

Compared to the usually serious, somewhat professorial tone of Obama, Biden presented himself as a man of the Pennsylvania working class, speaking in the direct, chummy way of a patron in a crowded Irish pub.

But he reined in his characteristic wordiness when asked about Republican presidential candidate John McCain's new running mate, Sarah Palin.

Palin is Alaska's 44-year-old governor. Her limited political experience and family life have been sharply scrutinized for the past several days. But Biden declined to pile on.

"She is a governor of a state," he said. "She warrants respect."

The two vice-presidential candidates will air their differences during their debate, Biden said. Those differences will be based on their political views and nothing else, he said.

Biden criticized McCain's economic proposals, particularly his plans to tax health care benefits to pay for more coverage. But he focused most of his attacks on the policies of the past eight years.

"I have never seen a time when so many people have been knocked down so far and the government has done so little … to help them back up," Biden said.

An Obama administration would help rebuild the middle class, Biden said.

"Obama gets it," he said. "This is a guy who was raised like a lot of us" by a parent who was struggling to pay the bills.

Biden said that under an Obama administration, parents would get more help sending their children to college, including a $4,000 tax credit.

Also, students who are willing to go into public services would receive tuition help.

To ensure that children are prepared when they start school, he and Obama would propose dramatic increases in funding for preschool education.

Asked about health care, he said a primary feature of the Obama plan is the spending of billions on the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases, such as diabetes.

But above all, Biden said, he would fight for services for U.S. veterans.

"I found it shameful, shameful, shameful" that troops were sent into battle without the proper equipment and vehicle armor, he said. Treating the grave injuries will cost billions.

"Before education, before health care," he said, he would push to spend money on veterans' care.

The crowd rose and cheered as Biden said that this was the country's first and most important obligation.

"It's out signal obligation … our signal obligation."

Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834 or lpeterson@tampatrib.com

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