Vice President Joe Biden, completing a three-state campaign trip in Chicago last night, told 65 supporters that there are a few conditions under which Team Obama might lose in November: “by something happening in the Eurozone or something happening in the Gulf, which could be difficult for us, or this barrage of SuperPAC money.”
“But even with that, I feel good,” he said, according to the White House pool report, noting that Biden stressed, “I don’t think we’ll be beaten by those candidates.”
“We’re going to win this election,” Biden said, because Obama is the best candidate. “The second reason we’re going to win is because of all of you. Thank God there’s rooms like this I’ve been able to go in to all around the country. You guys are putting us in the game.”
He warned that Republicans would raise $400 million to $800 million in SuperPAC money to “carpet-bomb” Obama.
Biden, who recently told donors that there wasn’t as “audacious” military operation as the one to get Osama bin Laden in 500 years, spent plenty of time revisiting the Abbottabad raid.
“He went around the table, the entire national security team, and asked them, ‘What is your position?’ Every single person equivocated. Not one person said ‘Go!’ except Leon Panetta. As Billy can tell ya, sitting in all those meetings when he was chief of staff, literally, he turned to me, I’m the last guy, I sit to his right and he said, ‘What do you think, Joe?’ I said, “Mr. President, you still have three days. I think you should do two more things… He went upstairs… He came out through that diplomatic entrance. He turned to Tom Donilon — who’s a hell of a National Security Advisor — and said, ‘Go!’ He knew, if it was wrong, he was an ex-president. He knew he was a one-term president.”
The vice president also spent time waxing about a couple of guests, former Mayor Rich Daley and his brother, former Obama Chief of Staff “Billy” Daley, “one of my closest friends in the world.”
“I never had an interest in being a mayor ’cause that’s a real job. You have to produce. That’s why I was able to be a senator for 36 years,” Biden said.
However much Biden may wish to think otherwise, Carter did not lose because Desert One went badly; he lost because he was a lousy president. Obama was never in danger of losing if the bin Laden raid went badly, but because he too is a lousy president. Isn’t it interesting that the political calculation of an election was foremost, over the national interest or the lives of the Seals.
Joe, you don’t have to worry about the Eurozone or the Gulf. Just drive around and see the gas station signs as they change from $3.xx to $4 per gallon and higher. All those gas station signs are the REAL “Obama must go!” signs.
And the Repubs raising only $400 million to $800 million? Wasn’t it just a couple months ago that you guys were going to raise $1 billion for the campaign? How is that working out for you?