Biden Speaks With the Fishes

So, after canvassing on Saturday from about 10am-3pm, I hopped in the car and shuttled up to Dubuque. My chat with Robin and a quick snarfing of a burrito at Chipotle (John Spernoga's favorite joint) had put me a little behind schedule. I rolled into Dubuque at about 5:20, with the event set to begin at 5pm.

Of course, if you can count on anything more than death and taxes, it's politicians being late to their events, so as I walked in to Mississippi River Museum (my dad's favorite spot in Dubuque, a very well done new museum/aquarium) Senator Biden had just arrived. His campaign workers excitedly ushered me in saying, "Oh, he just got here! Hurry!"

I made my way up to the second floor, where I got a good view. Something like the photos on the right.

The first guy to speak was some local party chair. He was terrible, but well intentioned. Older guy. Poor speaker.

Then Richard Schiff got up. He played the White House Communications Director on the West Wing and won an Emmy or two. (The picture on the right sucks, but that's the best my $225 cell phone could do given the lighting.) He gave a great speech. Basically, he's liked Biden for a while. He had his wife's very large family over for Xmas, and they were all over the map in their support. By the end of the holiday, he's convinced them all. Now, they're all working for Biden. His message: if everyone just did this, we wouldn't be stuck with the Big Three media darlings.

So on came Senator Biden. He speaks directly, which everyone loves. He spent most of his time making his case through the Bhutto assassination and his readiness to lead the country right NOW. He mentioned his 30 plus years in the Senate and said he just wanted everybody to look him over, kick his tires, and if they thought somebody else was better, fine.

He has a plan for everything, and when he started answering questions, you could start to get some of the criticism that is often leveled at him for his verbosity. Everything had a 3 or 4 point plan, but then he, literally, would start adding sub-points to points of the plan. Then he's wrap up by saying, "Well, I've probably already bored you, so I'll stop there."

Now, obviously, issues like Pakistan are immensely complicated and deserve very complex analysis. But he's on the campaign trail. I will try to give some more in-depth analysis of Biden later. I have yet to make it through all the literature I picked up. I also asked one of the campaign workers about Biden's Bankrupcy Bill of a few years back that pissed off so many Progressives. The guy shot me an email within hours--very classy--and I have yet to investigate it fully.

So, before I left, I made it downstairs and took a picture of Richard Schiff. I felt a little silly and paparazzi-ish, but whatever. I live to serve my readership. I then hit the the bathroom before hitting the road. Who walks in right after me? Richard Schiff. He had, uh, more serious business to attend to than I. :)