Biden Teaches Palin the Meaning of "Maverick"

babylonsister

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Fri Oct-03-08 06:53 AM
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Biden Teaches Palin the Meaning of "Maverick"

Edited on Fri Oct-03-08 06:59 AM by babylonsister

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/367825

Biden Teaches Palin the Meaning of "Maverick"
posted by John Nichols on 10/03/2008 @ 12:38am

snip//

Again and again, when Palin went populist, Biden went after McCain.

Take the point at which Palin was ready to lead the rabble to the barricades.

"(Let's commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again," she announced. "Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our saving�"

Biden did not ridicule his opponent's pretense.

Rather, he suggested that, while Palin could talk all she liked about rallying the masses against Wall Street, she would have a hard time getting John McCain on board for the revolution.

"Two years ago, Barack Obama warned about the sub-prime mortgage crisis. John McCain said shortly after that in December he was surprised there was a sub-prime mortgage problem. John McCain, while Barack Obama was warning about what we had to do, was literally giving an interview to The Wall Street Journal saying that �I'm always for cutting regulations.' We let Wall Street run wild. John McCain and he's a good man, but John McCain thought the answer is that tried and true Republican response: deregulate, deregulate," Biden told Palin, and America.

"So what you had is� overwhelming deregulation. You had actually the belief that Wall Street could self-regulate itself. And while Barack Obama was talking about reinstating those regulations, John on 20 different occasions in the previous year and a half called for more deregulation. As a matter of fact, John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health care industry deregulate it and let the free market move like he did for the banking industry."

That was an ouch moment.

And it got more painful for Palin when, toward the end of the debate, Biden took the word the Republican clung to so fervently Thursday night � "maverick" � away from her, and from John McCain.

"Let's talk about the maverick John McCain is. And, again, I love him. He's been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people's lives," Biden carefully explained. "He voted four out of five times for George Bush's budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year and over $3 trillion in debt since he's got there. He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against -- he voted including another 3.6 million children in coverage of the existing health care plan, when he voted in the United States Senate. He's not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college. He's not been a maverick on the war. He's not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table. Can we send -- can we get Mom's MRI? Can we send Mary back to school next semester? We can't -- we can't make it. How are we going to heat the � house this winter? He voted against even providing for what they call LIHEAP, for assistance to people, with oil prices going through the roof in the winter. So maverick he is not on the important, critical issues that affect people at that kitchen table."

A Republican named Sarah Palin tried to convince Americans that she was running on a populist ticket.

But Joe Biden reminded the voters sitting at those kitchen tables, in those small houses with big mortgages, that the man who heads that ticket, a Republican named John McCain, is not on their side.

And, in so doing, Biden did not merely score a debating point. He did what a vice presidential candidate is supposed to do. He helped the man who heads his ticket, a Democrat named Barack Obama, stake a significantly stronger claim on the presidency.