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November 01, 2007
Biden vs. Giuliani
Kudos to Biden for figuring out what the rest of the Democrats taking Giuliani on directly. He already had the line of the night at the debate when he diagrammed the average Giuliani sentence as having three parts, "a noun, a verb, and 9/11," and now he's getting the Giuliani campaign to whine back in response. One of the services low-polling but highly-respected candidates like Biden can perform is to help define the media's understanding of what is and is not credible on the Republican side. The press acknowledges Biden's role as a foreign policy expert, so for him to single out Giuliani as uniquely unqualified and ill-informed might actually have an effect. Lord knows it's true.
November 1, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
What's fascinating is how off-key and sour the Giuliani camp's response was. Biden stung them. I hope, as the lower-polling candidates head towards the point of bowing out, that they recognise their value to the overall cause of getting the eventual nominee elected, and start laying into the GOP field with the appropriate mixture of scorn, mockery and venom.
The press acknowledges Biden's role as a foreign policy expert
Don't discount the 'if it's Sunday, it's Joe Biden' effect, either. I think he's got an overinflated ego and doesn't know when to shut up -- i.e. he's a Senator -- but his unerring capacity to appear on one of the gasbag shows three weeks in every month gives him a certain amount of popular recognition.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Nov 1, 2007 10:06:59 AM
"A noun, a verb, and 9/11" should be on bumper stickers, I swear, it's awesome. And as pseudo says, the Guiliani campaign is really dropping the ball in its response.
Posted by: Persia | Nov 1, 2007 10:21:30 AM
I thought it was great how he said just flat out that Giuliani is not remotely qualified to be president.
Posted by: JewishAtheist | Nov 1, 2007 11:44:56 AM
Not entirely OT, but I heard the Capitol Steps do a song to the tune of "Stairway to Heaven" about Giuliani that went "and he's relying on nine eleven" and it was pretty fucking hysterical.
Posted by: chowchowchow | Nov 1, 2007 12:18:40 PM
I think the rapidity and nastiness of the Giuliani campaign response is a tell. It tells us that he is extremely sensitive about his performance on 9/11. I think those firefighters might be getting to him.
Karl Rove had it right: attack your opponents on their PERCEIVED strengths.
Posted by: Chris Andersen | Nov 1, 2007 12:45:09 PM
It's absolutely a tell. Or rather, it's the overdone 'you didn't hurt me' you always see from a boxer after a punch that really hurt.
Now, can his GOP competitors use it? Dare they?
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Nov 1, 2007 1:02:00 PM
Kudos to Biden for figuring out what the rest of the Democrats taking Giuliani on directly.
You seem to be missing a few words here, Ezra.
Posted by: Johnny Pez | Nov 1, 2007 5:31:32 PM
That’s too funny. And just what makes Biden uniquely qualified to judge anyone?
Could it be his plagiarism of Neil Kinnock?
Could it be his repeated racist statements regarding clean blacks, Indians at 7/11,
Could it be his racist statements regarding blacks not being able to learn as well as whites?
Biden attempted to explain why some schools perform better than others -- in Iowa, for instance, compared with the District. "There's less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with," Biden said.
He even commented that he worried that his son could be gay, like there is something wrong with that..
Posted by: Patton | Nov 1, 2007 8:29:32 PM
Biden hit upon how to tackle Guiliani in the general election: reduce the Myth of Rudy Guiliani to Rudy Guiliani, the man. As others have said, Guiliani has no anti-terrorism experience, but rather disaster response experience. He said the right things at the time of 9/11, but that does not translate into actually fighting terrorism. Democrats should tackle this head on if he is the general election opponent (I still think Romney will end up pulling it out, but I could be wrong).
Posted by: The_Question | Nov 1, 2007 9:11:37 PM
