Vice President Joe Biden, making his fourth trip to New Hampshire in the past three months, officially kicked of the local 2012 Obama presidential campaign in a speech at the new Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester. Biden’s previous three trips to the Granite State all were in the guise of official business, but the Manchester rally was sponsored by the New Hampshire Obama-Biden 2012 campaign organization.
The Vice President was introduced by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who had recently been named one of the co-chairs of Obama-Biden’s 2012 campaign, according to the Foster Daily Democrat . Biden delivered a rousing speech to a crowd of several hundred people, including party faithful, local politicians and arts students who attend the Institute.
His speech articulated the main themes that President Barack Obama will use in running for re-election: That the Democrats are for fairness, the Republicans are out of touch with the middle class, and Democrats will defend the middle class and women’s rights, which are under attack by the GOP.
Biden’s rhetorical strategy included talking to Shaheen, who sat behind him as he spoke at a lectern and whom he called “Jeannie” as they had served together in the Senate. Biden raised his voice frequently in angry denunciations of Republican policies, then would speak softly and intimately to the audience. He used 3×5 cards rather than a teleprompter.
The vice president alternated from leaning on the lectern, holding his hands once before him as if in prayer as he spoke in confessional tones to the crowd, to thunderous blasts of rhetoric befitting a revivalist preacher as he “spoke” with his hands. It was a first-rate performance that wowed the crowd. At one point, Biden said that New Hampshire reminded him of his native state of Delaware. He then kidded the Granite State Democrats for rejecting him in 1988 and 2008 when he campaigned for president in the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.
Back on subject, Obama said of the Republicans, “I don’t think they’re bad. They don’t understand.”
He explained that Mitt Romney and the other GOP hopefuls didn’t understand the economic troubles faced by the middle-class, who are the backbone of America. The GOP would not help the middle class hurt by stagnating wages, “under-water” mortgages, and the high cost of financing a college education for their children.
The vice president painted a picture of a Republican Party that was enabling the very rich not to pay their fair share of taxes and equitably shoulder the burden of the costs of two wars and the economic meltdown that occurred in 2008.
“The one thing Americans hate most is being played for a sucker,” Biden said.
Biden claimed that the GOP has given up on public education and was in favor of creating an alternative, parallel educational system. He denounced this development as universal education created the middle class and made America the economic powerhouse that it is. Biden said it was because of our middle class that Europe and China could not come close to America economically.
The Democrats would win in November, Biden promised, as they had the best candidate in Barack Obama and policies that would protect ordinary Americans.