DENVER — Barack Obama says Joe Biden is ready to step in as president. He’s not bad in the role of attack dog, either, wasting no time gnawing at GOP rival John McCain.
“He will have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at” when considering his own economic future, Biden said — a blistering reference to McCain’s embarrassing admission that he didn’t know how many homes he and his ultra-wealthy wife own.
Named Obama’s running mate before dawn Saturday, a feisty Biden appeared with the top of the ticket at an afternoon rally in Springfield, Ill.
He gave a speech filled with subtle jabs and outright punches at McCain, a sharp tone intended to send a message to nervous Democrats: Never fear, the vice presidential attack dog is here — and he’s itching for a fight.
In one breath, he called McCain “generally a friend of mine.” In the next, the Democrat skewered his decades-old Republican colleague and linked McCain to the unpopular President Bush at every turn.
“The American dream under eight years of Bush and McCain, that American dream is slipping away,” Biden said.
He jabbed at McCain, a Vietnam prisoner of war who is arguably the county’s most vocal supporter of the U.S. mission in Iraq, next to Bush. Said Biden: “These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader. A leader who can deliver.”
The senator also used McCain’s own words against him to argue that the Republican can’t change the country when he offers more of the same.
He noted that McCain voted with Bush some 90 percent of the time and read McCain quotes that he said has been “totally in agreement and support of President Bush” on “the most important issues of our day.”
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