Danville, VA – Vice President Joe Biden told voters in southern Virginia on Tuesday that Republican Mitt Romney wanted to put them “back in chains,” sparking outrage from the GOP campaign.
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Addressing a crowd that included hundreds of black people, Biden said Romney wants to get rid of new Wall Street regulations Obama signed into law after the 2008 financial collapse.
“Unchain Wall Street,” Biden said. “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
Romney’s campaign said the comments marked a “new low” for the Obama campaign.
“The comments made by the vice president of the United States are not acceptable in our political discourse and demonstrate yet again that the Obama campaign will say and do anything to win this election,” said Andrea Saul, Romney’s spokeswoman. “President Obama should tell the American people whether he agrees with Joe Biden’s comments.”
Obama’s campaign stood by Biden, saying the comments were a variation on remarks he makes often about the need to “unshackle” the middle class. The campaign said the metaphor was meant to counter Republican calls to unshackle the private sector from Obama-backed regulations.
Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter called the Romney campaign’s outrage “hypocritical.”
“Let’s return to that `substantive’ debate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan promised 72 hours ago, but quickly abandoned,” she said in a statement.
The flurry over Biden’s remarks underscored what the Obama team knows is a constant risk with the vice president – that his penchant for speaking off the cuff can sometimes result in inartful or off-color comments.
In a less noticed gaffe Tuesday, he told the crowd he was confident their support would help the Obama-Biden ticket carry North Carolina. Biden was speaking in Virginia at the time.
Still, Obama’s campaign sees Biden as one of its most valuable assets. The Scranton, Pa., native has a more natural appeal to working-class voters in battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. He also has willingly embraced the traditional vice presidential attack dog role, often launching the campaign’s most vigorous criticisms of Romney, and now Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan.
Fear not VP Biden. The left-wing media will give you a complete pass, as usual.
Can you imagine the hellstorm that would be brought to bear if some republican or g-d forbid a tea party rep made a similar comment???!!! It’s sickening how low the democrats can stoop (ad basically claiming that Romney is responsible for that woman’s death, this outrageous comment by Biden, etc) and not be taken to task for it by anyone left of center.
GOP rhetoric, big deal, so he said!
how stupid people can buy the liberal crap but they are being sold 23 hours and 56 minutes a day. News network are like pravda today
I better say what Pravada is or the stupid people will not know it is russian’s equivocalness of MSNBC
Interestingly, one will be hard-pressed to find a single black (or Jewish, for that matter) voter who won’t vote for Obama as a result of Biden’s words.
I can’t even call it a gaffe because this is Biden’s standard manner of speech. By now, everyone knows that Biden will be eaten alive by Ryan in the Vice-Presidential debate. But it seems like most people already have their minds made up, so, like this gaffe, I don’t think it will make much difference.
What ridiculous fake outrage! Over nothing!
Biden was referencing the GOP’s often-used remark that they want to “un-chain the Free Market”…so Biden said “They’re gonna end up putting YOU [the people] back in chains!”, and it was an OBVIOUS reference to the GOP’s position on Free Market! It had nothing to do w\slavery!
I don’t care for racial insults, dog-whistle terminology or obvious nasty remarks myself…but that’s just simply NOT what was being said here!
And it reminds me of when Biden was complimenting the President (then candidate, Barack Obama), and made the statement that Obama was a “clean-cut, well-spoken & articulae” and boy…people made a field day out of THAT as well!
Well, if that’s the way he wants to play it, then Obama wants to put us in Auschwitz. So there.
the amazing thing is that the only candidate whose family was slavemasters was Obama’s.
So he made a joke. Big deal. Talk-radio fodder, that’s all. If anybody is not going to vote for President Obama because they don’t like a joke his VP made – with all the real reasons to vote for or against someone – that person needs to re-evaluate.
For the record, it should be noted that not only Biden, but also Obama will change their diction and style of speaking, pertaining to the particular ethnicity, of the audience whom they are addressing. This phenomenon has occurred time and time again, over the last four years. Unfortunately, this Presidential campaign has become the lowest and dirtiest one on record; it is now clear, what the term “gutter politics” means.
Now looka here y’all- I ain’t gonna end up in chains again.
Biden-the best asset the Republicans have.