The Democratic vice-presidential nominee stepped off the raised speaking platform at Flathead High School, took the microphone and moved through the crowd, sharing the insights of his Irish father and the lessons he learned from his political mentor, the late Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana.
From his father came: “Don't tell me your values. Show me your budget, and I will tell you your values.”
What's important, Mansfield told a young Biden, is to figure out that good. Rather than question people's motives, Mansfield said, seek out their judgment.
Heeding those lessons, the Delaware Democrat said he's been able to pass aggressive and difficult legislation, including the crime bill, by working across the political aisle.
Of his running mate, Biden said, “He never attacks someone's personality; he does not take cheap shots.”
As a senator from Illinois and now the Democratic nominee for president, Obama is incisive, informed, courteous and polite, Biden said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this guy is something else,” he said. “This guy is tapped into the mother lode. He has tapped into a yearning within the American people he shares that is unlike anything else I have ever seen. At every critical time in our history, we seem to have the right person with the right temperament delivered to us.”
For more than an hour, Biden talked to the crowd, informally sharing family stories and political ideals. Biden used the opportunity to let people know more about his personal life, his political highlights and his straight-talking style, which was on full display.
“I have a bad habit of telling people what I think,” Biden said, getting an appreciative laugh from his audience.
He talked about his three youngest granddaughters having a sleepover with the Obama children during the second night of the Democratic National Convention.
He introduced himself, too, putting the crowd at ease. When the mayor of Kalispell accidentally introduced him as Joe O'Biden, he quipped that his grandmother would love hearing that from up in heaven.
He talked about the issues in the presidential campaign as well, hitting on health care, taxes, the need to rebuild the national economy, alternative energy, overseas exports and education.
He received the strongest endorsement from the crowd when he touched on the energy issues that have catapulted Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer onto the national stage.
“Did you hear your governor?” he asked the crowd. “He knocked them dead (at the Democratic National Convention).”
Montana, in Biden's estimation, knows how to protect the environment while also developing its energy resources. An Obama administration would create “five million new green jobs that cannot be exported,” he promised.
The economy loomed large in all his remarks Sunday afternoon, most aimed at the middle class, which Biden defined as “anybody who would be in trouble after two weeks without pay.”
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, don't understand the economy or the middle class, Biden insisted.
“If I walked from here to Bozeman, it would take me a long time,” he said. “But if I walked to Bozeman, I don't think I would run into a single person that thinks the economy is doing good - unless I ran into John McCain.”
The crowd collected in the high school gym was a healthy mix of young and old, Democratic, Republican, undecided and curious.
Kurt Lewis of Whitefish came with his 13-year-old daughter, Hanna, hoping to hear something that would help him mark the ballot come November.
“I'm totally open,” he said. “Whoever has the best ideas has my vote.”
If McCain or Palin come to the Flathead, he'll be there, Lewis promised, listening to their pitch.
“Everyone talks about change, but I haven't seen a lot done,” Lewis said.
Biden, though, assured the crowd that Obama-Biden is the ticket of change.
“I am fascinated to find out that all of the sudden John McCain and Sarah Palin are the agents of change,” Biden said. “Name me one single place where John McCain and Sarah Palin differ from Bush.
“John McCain votes
90 percent of the time with the big ticket items,” he said, and then quipped: “I can hardly wait to debate the agents of change.”
Fired up and forceful, Biden said it is outrageous to hear McCain say there is “great progress in the economy,” given the national unemployment rate is at 6.1 percent, people are losing their homes, hundreds of thousands of people don't have health insurance, and 440,000 young people were admitted to college this year but did not go because they could not afford the cost of higher education.
Under Obama-Biden's watch, things will change, Biden promised. How?
Here's his list:
- $150 million will be invested in renewable energy and coal gasification research and development, and 5 million new green jobs will be developed that can't be exported.
- $60 billion will be invested in the country's infrastructure, creating a stronger nation while putting qualified people to work.
- Families that want to send a child to college will get a $4,000 tax credit, and families that are poor will get that $4,000 refunded.
- Students who give back to their country or their communities by committing to the Peace Corps or the military or who use their education to benefit the poor and rural America will receive additional help.
As he smoothly moved through his speech, Biden became more animated, building momentum toward an energetic closing that brought the gymnasium to its collective feet.
He took swipes at the keynote speakers at the Republican National Convention and at President Bush.
“I thought Governor Palin made one heck of a political speech,” Biden said. “It was good - what she said was she was tough and she was confident. But her silence on the issues was deafening.
“I did not hear a word about health care. I did not hear about education. I didn't hear about Afghanistan or Pakistan.”
“I didn't hear her utter a word about what we are going to do about the energy crisis,” he said. “Ladies and gentleman, God love John - he didn't do much better.”
His nickname for Bush, he said, is “Houdini” because what else do you call a person who took office from the Democrats with a $231 billion operating surplus and a projected $5.5 trillion surplus, and turned it into an $80 trillion projected deficit?
“I think President Bush and Vice President Cheney are going to judged very harshly by history,” Biden said. “Not for mistakes they made. But for squandering the opportunities they had to unite the world.”
Just imagine, Biden asked the crowd, if in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Bush had stepped before the nation to explain the tragedy in the style of Theodore Roosevelt, John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan - if he had asked of the American people to make sacrifices in order to make the nation stronger.
Imagine, he said, a president who would have responded by asking for support for an ambitious energy bill that would help America untether itself from its dependence on oil and the countries that supply it - and calling for a meeting of the world's major powers to jointly bring about the demise of the rise of radical fundamentalists.
“Every great president has taken advantage of crisis to turn it into opportunity,” Biden said.
As the crowd got to its feet to applaud and whistle, Biden continued, drawing more thunder as he concluded dramatically: “I think America is really waiting for a president to come along to lead them, to challenge them and lay out in a fair and decent way a shared responsibility for a future we should be able to make so much better than our past - not just get by.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I believe and I am not naive - I have been there for seven presidents - I believe with every fiber of my being that America is ready. I am ready. Barack Obama is ready.
“We will change this nation.”
Through the roar that shook the gymnasium, Biden thanked the room for support.
“Thank you. We need you. Rise up - now's the time.”
It was a closure Rose Behrens of Kalispell described as “emotional.”
Said Karen Morehouse of Kalispell: “I was very impressed with him. I got to know this man and his qualifications a lot better.”
Even Lewis was moved by Biden's speech.
Although he left the event still undecided, Lewis said he's leaning toward the Democratic presidential ticket because of Biden.
“It was enlightening,” Lewis said. “It was nice to hear what he had to say in person and get to know his personality.”
“The whole thing with the mayor messing up with introduction, and him bouncing back and learning from it was great,” he said. “He seemed like a guy you would see around town.
“It was energizing.”
Reach reporter Betsy Cohen at (406) 523-5253 or by e-mail at bcohen@missoulian.com.
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