Rendell Wants Biden.

Filed in National by on July 29, 2008

Fast Eddie of the North wants Papa Joe to be Vice President.

From Bloomberg News:

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would add expertise in foreign policy and the war on terrorism to the Democratic ticket, Rendell said in an interview on Bloomberg Television on Monday.

“They would mesh together very nicely,” Rendell said.

Rendell, 64, who backed New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, said Biden is a “good campaigner” and “would compliment Senator Obama’s tremendous domestic policy experience.”

Rendell also points out that Biden was born in Pennsylvania, which may help an Obama-Biden ticket garner votes there.  Well, no matter who Obama’s running mate is, Obama will win Pennsylvania.  Like New Jersey, Republicans like to think that Pennsylvania is in play every four years, and every four years they sink money into the state, and every four years, they lose it.

So one gaffe prone fast talker wants another to be Vice President.   No surprise there.

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  1. mike w. says:

    I don’t know that Biden’s “mentally qualified” to be Vice President…..

  2. JoeBiden says:

    I don’t know that mike w. is “mentally qualified” to be a blogger, so let’s call it even.

  3. jason330 says:

    Obama is about not making mistakes. Biden does not fit with the brand.

  4. delawaredem says:

    Mike W, you are in no position to argue that anyone is mentally unqualified to be anything. Your party has nominated a candidate whose some consider too unstable to be dogcatcher. Your President has a lower IQ than his dog. And your presidential hero, Ronald Reagan, was mentally incompetent during the entirety of his second term.

  5. Dominique says:

    Just out of curiosity, when was the last time a VP carried a state?

  6. Steve Newton says:

    Didn’t Cheney carry Wyoming? I don’t remember.

  7. Unstable Isotope says:

    I like Biden better than Kaine (anti-choice) and Bayh (DLC).

  8. liberalgeek says:

    Yeah, but it wasn’t in play. TN to Clinton/Gore was likely Gore’s doing.

    You could also go back to Quayle delivering Indiana.

  9. delawaredem says:

    VPs actually delivering a state (without VP ticket would not have won):

    Johnson 1960–Texas
    Mondale 1976–Minnesota
    Bush 1980–Texas
    Gore 1992–Tennessee

  10. jason330 says:

    I just thought about a “pro” argument for Biden. Obama is going to need a pit-bull because his style is to be above the fray (ha, in your face haters!). So he’ll need a fighter to respond to all the GOP lies and bullshit they’ll try.

    Biden would be good at that.

    Still, you have to think electoral college. I’ll bet it will be someone none of us know about yet.

  11. mike w. says:

    By the way, my “mentally qualified” statement was in reference to Biden’s ignorant, rude, and condescending statement seen here from the Democratic debates.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=E9aIb-IplqY

    He also exclaimed “I hope he doesn’t come after me now.” Jeez – talk about paranoid.

  12. mike w. says:

    Rendell said,

    “Biden would compliment Senator Obama’s tremendous domestic policy experience.”

    Tremendous domestic policy experience?”

    You’ve got to be kidding me?

  13. Pandora says:

    sigh… mike, you are so predictable.

  14. mike w. says:

    Well his snide comments certainly displayed his contempt for his fellow citizens.

    I certainly don’t have much respect for a man with such an elitist attitude towards others. Saying that gun ownership is proof of mental imbalance is a supreme ignorant thing to say. If anything, it makes one question Biden’s mental state, since he’s the one worried that a gun owner that simply asked whether Biden was willing to defend his Constitutional Rights might “come after him.”

  15. liberalgeek says:

    Nice trick, pony. Keep doing that one.

  16. Pandora says:

    I challenge Mike to NOT post a single gun reference (of any kind) for the next 48 hours. Think he can do it?

  17. mike w. says:

    “one trick pony eh?” I guess it’s easier for you to say that then try to address/refute my comment. You may not like it because “Oh Noes! He said GUNS!,” but it’s a perfectly valid criticizm of Biden.

  18. mike w. says:

    Also, Obama may win Philly & Philly suburbs, but don’t be so quick to assume he’ll win PA.

  19. JohnnyX says:

    How to generate a Mike W. post:

    1. Find a Mad Libs book.

    2. Fill in all noun spaces with one of the following: guns, gun owners, Constitutional Rights.

    3. Fill in all adjective spaces with: elitist, condescending, ignorant, rude, etc.

    4. For proper nouns, either Joe Biden or Barack Obama will suffice.

    5. Verbs may include: defend, deny, take, and so on.

    Rinse and repeat.

  20. Pandora says:

    Sad, but true, JohnnyX. Think he’ll take up my challenge? (see above) I honestly don’t think he can do it. (I’m double-dog daring you, Mike!)

  21. JohnnyX says:

    …and I triple-dog dare you! (but for your own sake, Mike, please don’t lick any frozen flagpoles)

  22. mike w. says:

    Well considering this post is about OBAMA and BIDEN it’d be a bit hard to omit those words from my comments now wouldn’t it?

    This is funny, you devise a silly “challenge” for me that amounts to “I’ve got nothing, so I challenge you to shut up,” because you’re either unwilling or unable to engage in rational discourse or address points I make.

  23. Pandora says:

    Come on, Mike. You are obsessed with guns. They pepper almost every one of your posts. Prove there’s more to you than guns. Take the challenge.

  24. mike w. says:

    “…and I triple-dog dare you! (but for your own sake, Mike, please don’t lick any frozen flagpoles)”

    A Dumb and Dumber reference. That shows true maturity.

  25. mike w. says:

    “Come on, Mike. You are obsessed with guns. They pepper almost every one of your posts. Prove there’s more to you than guns. Take the challenge.”

    Right, that’s why every single one of the posts on my blog is centered around guns……

    BTW – I don’t see the word “gun” in post #13.

  26. JohnnyX says:

    No, Mike, it has nothing to do with being unwilling or unable to engage in rational discourse and everything to do with the fact that no matter the subject matter of the post on this blog, the only fucking thing you ever seem to post about is GUNS GUNS GUNS.

    I know it’s an important issue to you, but it really just gets tiresome.

    And by the way, it’s a reference to “A Christmas Story,” not Dumb and Dumber, you jackass. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XlPwsmkPHI)

  27. mike w. says:

    ” it has nothing to do with being unwilling or unable to engage in rational discourse and everything to do with the fact that no matter the subject matter of the post on this blog”

    OK then, in that case I challenge you to address the points I made in comment # 15.

  28. Pandora says:

    Give it up, JohnnyX. Mike won’t take the challenge, because LG was right. He’s a one trick pony. He’s one of these single issue voters. And, Mike, we’ve all gone around and around with you for weeks. Personally, I’m weary. Bring something else to the table… if you can.

    BTW, I loved the Christmas Story reference!

  29. Von Cracker says:

    “A Dumb and Dumber reference. That shows true maturity”

    Ugh. Your juxtaposition shows something too, and it isn’t impressive.

    Might as well say: “A religious quote. That shows true baseball knowledge.”

  30. mike w. says:

    http://delawareliberal.net//2008/07/28/america-has-become-a-country-that-rewards-cruelty-and-stupidity/#comment-44911

    Comments #33 & 35 folks. Just one of many examples. Also, I’m pretty sure there’s no mention of the word “gun” in my last 4 blog posts. It may be titled “Another Gun Blog” but I blog about more than just guns.

  31. JohnnyX says:

    Ok, here ya go:

    – Is gun ownership alone proof of mental imbalance? No. My dad’s a gun owner and NRA member and one of the most balanced people I know.

    – Does a guy cradling an assault rifle (or a crazy looking weapon at the least if it’s not in fact an assault rifle) and calling it his “baby” make me a little nervous? Maybe not nervous where I’d think he’s “coming after me,” but the guy does seem a little off to me (call that “mentally imbalanced” if you wish).

    Not because he owns a gun, more because I think anthropomorphizing any object (car, guitar, gun, etc.) is a little weird. It’s an especially strange juxtaposition that this guy chose because a baby is typically thought of as a gentle, relatively harmless thing – assault rifles, not so much so. That is what Biden was trying to point out, I think and I see what he was getting at. Maybe calling the dude mentally imbalanced is a bit harsh – but Biden has never been known for subtlety. Do I think that what he said was “elitist” (my least favorite right wing buzz word of 2008)? To be honest, not really.

    How’s that for you?

  32. Von Cracker says:

    You mean the YouTube guy who was strapped like Jesse the Body in Predator? That guy was over the top, you must admit. So if Biden decided to have a little fun and be over the top too, I can’t blame him.

    What is disturbing is your willingness to use words and phrases without truly knowing what they mean. I gather that the word ‘Elitism’, to you, means when someone disapproves of something that you hold dear. That’s not elitism; it’s just a difference of opinion.

    And no, Biden doesn’t want to take away your 2A right to own a gun, and many of his supporters are gun owners, obviously.

  33. Pandora says:

    Mike referenced: http://delawareliberal.net//2008/07/28/america-has-become-a-country-that-rewards-cruelty-and-stupidity/#comment-44911

    Comments #33 & 35 folks. Just one of many examples. Also, I’m pretty sure there’s no mention of the word “gun” in my last 4 blog posts. It may be titled “Another Gun Blog” but I blog about more than just guns.

    So I went back and looked at that one post, and Mike was correct about those two comments, however on the same post… comments 2, 5, 6, 10, 20, 34, 40, 48, 49, 52, 55, 68, 76, and 77 were all about guns.

    Are you seeing our point yet, Mike?

  34. mike w. says:

    Aside from the fact that it’s black and the term “assault weapon” was used (which btw, is a useless, politically constructed term) what makes the gun he had “scary” and a camo deer rifle “not scary/less scary?” It didn’t even have a “high capacity magazine.”

    I have a scary “assault rifle” that shoots these tiny rounds, one of the least powerful rounds in existence. Yet Biden, Obama and his ilk would ban it because they’re completely ignorant and it looks scary.

    I agree that referring to objects as your “babies” is weird, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he phrased it that way knowing it might elicit exactly the kind of condescending, emotional response that Biden provided. He knew damn well what the Dem candidates (and the audience) thought of his “assault rifle” before he made the video, and was likely poking fun at them.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.22_Long_Rifle

    “But then I think anthropomorphizing any object (car, guitar, gun, etc.) is a little weird.”

    As do I. But many of you folks have done a wonderful job of that in the gun threads, ascribing all kinds of evil actions and characteristics to an inanimate hunk of metal & plastic. Blaming a tool for killing is a perfect example of anthropormorphizing an object.

  35. mike w. says:

    Pandora – You asked, I provided you with several examples. I can’t help if you ignore them.

    And by the way, the post those comments came from was about a shooting, so of course discussion of guns would be involved.

  36. Pandora says:

    Mike, you supplied the post, not me. There are a lot of different posts on DL that have nothing to do with guns. Pick one, and comment – w/out referencing guns.

  37. mike w. says:

    “I gather that the word ‘Elitism’, to you, means when someone disapproves of something that you hold dear. That’s not elitism; it’s just a difference of opinion.

    And no, Biden doesn’t want to take away your 2A right to own a gun, and many of his supporters are gun owners, obviously.”

    Hardly. Elitism has to do with the attitude a person in a position of power has towards others and how that person conducts him/herself.

    And yes, Biden does want to infringe upon my 2A rights. He has a long history of it. The only way you can honestly claim he’s pro 2A is if you’re completely ignorant of his record on the subject. Let me guess, you think Obama is no threat to gun rights either?

  38. mike w. says:

    “Mike, you supplied the post, not me. There are a lot of different posts on DL that have nothing to do with guns. Pick one, and comment – w/out referencing guns.”

    I have. Several times. Oh, and I supplied several comments where I did not reference guns. You conveniently ignored them and instead focused on comments where I did mention guns.

  39. JohnnyX says:

    Never in my post did I call the gun scary. I said it was “crazy looking” which, if you’d like a more precise translation, means to me on a first glance it looked kinda sorta similar to an AK-47 which I know is the sort of thing you typically see rebel militias running around with.

    If it’s nothing like an AK-47 and is in fact a relatively benign weapon but I just don’t realize it then, gasp, you’ve exposed me. My gun knowledge is limited to the .22s and 12 gauges I shot at Boy Scout camp years ago and those guns that I’ve virtually shot in video games. Yay, you win, want a prize?

  40. mike w. says:

    Either way, by “crazy looking” you were inferring that it was somehow “more dangerous” than some other gun based purely on cosmetics.

    The AR-15 and AK47 are totally different weapons. Also, 99.99% of the civilian-owned ones in this country are actually semi-automatic clones of the ones you see in rebel militias. Fully automatic weapons are ridiculously hard to get and extremely expensive.

  41. JohnnyX says:

    Well, um, yeah – something that looks like it might potentially shoot a whole lot of bullets in close succession does seem more dangerous to me than something that shoots one at a time (say a revolver).

    I’m defining dangerous in this case to mean “number of people that could potentially be shot / killed by said weapon in a given amount of time.” It would seem to me that the coefficient for that would be a bit higher for a semi-automatic than for a simple six shot revolver.

    Isn’t that just common sense?

  42. mike w. says:

    “Well, um, yeah – something that looks like it might potentially shoot a whole lot of bullets in close succession does seem more dangerous to me than something that shoots one at a time (say a revolver).

    Isn’t that just common sense?”

    No, it’s not. To fire a revolver you must pull the trigger once for each round fired. The “assault weapon” he’s holding is no different. You have to pull the trigger each time you fire a round. The only difference is that the round is being fed into the chamber from the bottom via a magazine, instead of through a rotating chamber in a revolver.

    And like I said, I have an “Assault Rifle” that fires the exact same little .22 round you shot in boy scouts. Definitely on the low end of the “dangerous / lethal” scale as far as guns go despite looking dangerous, and being classified as an “assault weapon” by ignorant anti-gun politicians.

  43. liberalgeek says:

    The point I think was that the “assault weapon” that he holding could more be an automatic weapon than a revolver. Are there automatic revolvers?

  44. JohnnyX says:

    Yeah, what I was saying was on first glance, as someone who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of guns (sorry, wasted my time in college studying molecular biology instead…hehe) the AR-15 looks like it could hold a big magazine and dispense far more bullets than a revolver (or some other handgun with a small clip) would before someone would have to reload.

    If the point that you’re trying to make is that any restrictions on guns should take into consideration their relative lethality as opposed to what they look like, then I’d actually tend to agree with you there. But again, justifiably or not and like it or not, the AR-15 looks “scarier” or “crazier” or whatever you want to call it to most everyday gun ignoramuses like myself.

  45. mike w. says:

    LG – It was not a full auto M16. He even explains how the gun works in a subsequent video addressed to Biden. 99.999% of the “assault weapons” you see are not full-auto (unless you’re entering DAFB or some other military installation, where the M16’s are all capable of full-auto)

    Full-auto pistols exist, but are extremely rare. You can assume that every pistol you see in the holster of a citizen (or a cop) is either semi-auto or a revolver.

  46. mike w. says:

    “the AR-15 looks like it could hold a big magazine and dispense far more bullets than a revolver (or some other handgun with a small clip) would before someone would have to reload.”

    That is true, it can (although the mag in his was small) however magazine capacity doesn’t make a gun “more dangerous.” Cho’s pistols were capable of accepting high-capacity magazines. He did not use any, but that didn’t matter. He was methodically slaughtering unarmed victims. The extra few seconds it took for him to reload were meaningless.

  47. mike w. says:

    “If the point that you’re trying to make is that any restrictions on guns should take into consideration their relative lethality as opposed to what they look like, then I’d actually tend to agree with you there.”

    No, not at all. Lethality is no reason to ban certain types of firearms, nor is cosmetic appearance. That’d be like banning red cars with over 200 horsepower. Cho for example, could just as easily have killed 32 people that day with a 100 year old bolt-action (where each round must be loaded and expelled by hand.)

  48. JohnnyX says:

    Heh, well it’s certainly debatable what difference (if any) it would have made if any of the VT students were armed.

    I won’t deny it’s possible one of them could have taken the guy out a little earlier before he killed so many people. Then again they might have also taken out some innocent classmate(s) in the process. Or if they were a bad shot, could have missed Cho and pissed him off more so that he just ended up doing even more damage.

    But really “What if” debates like that are kind of pointless so I’d prefer to not get into it. What I will just say which I think we can agree on is that the tragedy might have been prevented by getting the guy some help before everything came to a head. I don’t blame the guns themselves for VT, I blame Cho’s untreated mental illness – and letting the guns into the hands of someone who was in that case most certainly not mentally capable of handling them. I’m hoping that both of us would agree guns should be kept out of the hands of criminals and people with diagnosed severe mental illnesses.

    Anyway, I’m off to lunch now…check you later mike.

  49. JohnnyX says:

    I’m sorry mike, the bolt action comment is preposterous. With a weapon that slow, it is almost certain that a student or group of students could overpower the guy before he could kill that many people.

    Re: the red cars over 200 horsepower. OK, point well taken. Just because it has the potential to do harm doesn’t mean it’ll be used for that purpose, fine. Then again, cars are designed to transport people places. Guns are designed…well…pretty much to be used to kill things.

  50. mike w. says:

    “I’m hoping that both of us would agree guns should be kept out of the hands of criminals and people with diagnosed severe mental illnesses.”

    We’re in total agreement on this point. Where we differ is on the methods. What laws will keep criminals from getting guns without infringing upon my rights?

    For example, it’s a proven fact that criminals by and large don’t use “assault rifles” or ANY rifles to commit crimes. (we’re talking single % points here for all rifles/shotguns in existence) Yet Obama & Biden still push for “Assault Weapons Bans”

    More/stricter gun laws won’t do it. Chicago bans ownership of handguns, and you can’t carry a gun period in Illinois, yet people are constantly being shot & killed. D.C. , Baltimore, Philly all have a plethora of highly restrictive gun laws that clearly aren’t keeping criminals from getting guns.

    Cho should have been adjudicated mentally ill by a judge. Had that happened and had such an order been filed with the FBI he would have been unable to legally purchase his guns. It was a failure of the system that more laws wouldn’t solve.

    What guns are “designed” to do is irrelevant, but i’d rather not get into that subject again. It’s already been covered in detail.

  51. JohnnyX says:

    Good debate, Mike. Henceforth I shall no longer think of you as “murderboy” when I see your name show up in the recent posts column. Although you have to admit that it’s kind of an amusing nickname.

  52. mike w. says:

    Agreed. I got a good laugh out of it.

  53. TRUTH TELLER says:

    Joe would be the best pick not only for his knowledge but he’s a fighter and would tear up McSame’s spokesmen. Who of us can forget that famous line which defined Rudie in three words A noun A verb and 911