DNC: Biden's time

Obama’s VP talks energy and Amtrak in his acceptance speech 5

After formally receiving the nomination as Barack Obama's running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden took the stage. His speech focused on his middle-class roots and the lessons he learned from his parents, and transitioned into emphasizing a call to revitalize the "American dream."

While emphasizing his friendship with John McCain, he criticized the Arizona senator as wrong on everything "from Amtrak to veterans." (See our bit on McCain's Amtrak record here.) He criticized McCain for failing to support renewable energy in the Senate, while advocating policies that will increase tax breaks for the oil industry. "John voted again and again against renewable energy -- wind, solar, biofuels. That's not change, that's more of the same."

An Obama-Biden administration, he said, will make "alternative energy a national priority ... creating 5 million new jobs, and finally breaking us from the grip of foreign oil."

Watch the speech:

Kate Sheppard is Grist’s political reporter.

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  1. hapa's avatar

    hapa Posted 1:18 pm
    27 Aug 2008

    and then...he spat in putin's eye. virtually declared georgia an american protectorate. exactly the right opening statement for a period of negotiation regarding international energy security.

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  2. Colin Wright Posted 2:42 pm
    27 Aug 2008

    Eyes on the Prize...I caught that too, hapa. I suppose by picking Biden the dems are trying to blunt the Fox-Limbaugh criticisms that Obama is a "softie". So Biden choose to come across as the "bad cop", by bringing up stories that he a tough, scrapper with a sort of testosterone-driven image that will play with the Right. (And at least the dems kept away from the patrician-types like Kerry, who really turn off the blue-collar voters.)
    But one hopes that Obama will not become the Cold War militarist that Biden was portraying!
     

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  3. hapa's avatar

    hapa Posted 2:58 pm
    27 Aug 2008

    que sera sera.i guess i should preserve the hair on my head. five years from now i'll probably really want to have some left to pull out.

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  4. caniscandida Posted 9:34 pm
    27 Aug 2008

    Putin vs. GeorgiaThe Russian incursion into Georgia is a very complicated issue, with grave implications regarding the security of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine, and perhaps even Poland.
    Biden's point seems to be (though he barely more than implied it last night): It is in our interests to cherish Georgia's incipient movements toward democracy and friendship with Europe and the US; we should make clear to the Russians that these countries are independent; but of course we also know that maintaining a cordial dialogue with the Russians is of great importance.
    There was nothing about establishing a protectorate.

    Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

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  5. mtas7 Posted 2:50 am
    28 Aug 2008

    Is that a military contract in your pocket?When I heard him state that we were going to rebuild Georgia, I immediately thought of more taxpayer money being siphoned a la Haliburton. Is war and shoddy overseas construction jobs the only way the old guard has to make money? How about taking alternate energy, education and healthcare to a new level? Reforestation and restoration of the environment? Oh, but that would be a longterm goal...and we wouldn't want to disappoint the members of Congress/shareholders who look at the world as a 5-year P&L statement.

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