President Barack Obama should stick with Vice-President Joe Biden as his running mate, despite the controversy over Biden’s claims to a predominantly-black Virginia audience that Republicans would “put y’all back in chains,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday.
“Vice-President Joe Biden serves the President well and has and will continue to,” said Emanuel, the former White House chief-of-staff now co-chairing Obama’s re-election campaign.
“That’s not my choice. That’s…the President’s choice. But, I believe Joe Biden has been a good Vice-President.”
Pressed on whether Obama should dump his running-mate, Emanuel replied with an emphatic, “No.” But, he refused to pass judgment on the latest in a series of verbal gaffes by Biden.
“There’s gonna be a lot of time between now and the election. I’m not gonna comment on every event…in the presidential election,” the mayor said.
During a campaign speech in Danville, Va. this week, Biden appeared to get carried away in his attack on the Republican plan to loosen Wall Street regulations and on the budget plan crafted by Mitt Romney’s new running-mate Paul Ryan, chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee.
“Look at….their budget and what they’re proposing. Romney wants to let the–he said in the first 100 days–he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules–unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains,” Biden said.
Romney responded by claiming that Biden’s attack are “what an angry and desperate presidency looks like.” He then took a shot that Emanuel would likely view as a low-blow.
“Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago,” the presumptive Republican nominee said.
