I’m proud of Council’s 1972 endorsement of Joe Biden when he was running as a 29 year old long shot against a popular and moderate Republican, Caleb Boggs.
Nobody thought Biden had a chance but Council did. Influenced by the legacy of JFK American University speech which called on the Soviet Union and the US to achieve a nuclear test ban treaty that would help reduce serious nuclear tensions and move us away from the specter of nuclear war, Joe Biden, in the midst of the Cold War, talked sense on nuclear arms and other issues.
Ten years earlier we bet on long shot George McGovern, and 10 years later we stood with long shot George Mitchell. We never forgot our good political sense and neither did McGovern, Biden and Mitchell. Their contributions are well known and long lasting in making the world safer from nuclear war, arms races and countless domestic contributions ranging from fighting hunger, battling for campaign finance reform and advancing civil rights. Unanticipated consequences can bring good results.
Now in the midst of this intense campaign I believe Vice-President Biden has come up with three lines that match Obama’s pointed response to Romney’s misguided and uninformed response to the tragic killings in Libya.
President Obama said pungently: “Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.”
Vice-President Biden’s three marvelous lines:
“One Presidential candidate has a Swiss bank account, the other doesn’t.
At the National Council of La Raza conference Biden rolled out the line:
“Romney wants you to show your papers, but he won’t show you his.”
At the Democratic Convention:
“Osama bin Ladin is dead; General Motors is alive.”
David Cohen,
Washington DC
September 14, 2012
