Vice President Joe Biden headlined two fund-raisers in Chicago on Thursday; one of them allowed press coverage, at the Lincoln Park home of developer Elzie Higgenbottom. Biden paid props to former Mayor Richard M. Daley and former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.
Sun-Times Political Writer Abdon M. Pallasch has the report HERE
Pallasch was the pool reporter….Click below for his pool report….
Below, pool report…..
From: Pallasch, Abdon
Subject: VPOTUS Pool report – Chicago
Vice-President Joe Biden wrapped up a three-state swing at the Chicago home of real estate developer Elzie Higginbottom in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
Biden gave 65 guests an optimistic forecast about the election, talking up the president and talking down his Republican opponents who Biden said were publicly stating that they want to reverse the Supreme Court’s Griswold v. Connecticut decision legalizing contraception.
“I don’t think we’ll be beaten by those candidates. I think we’ll be beaten — if we are – 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,” Biden said.
Talking up Obama’s “ramrod” backbone, Biden told of the president’s decision to go after Osama bin Laden: “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…
That was a gutsy move…
He said, ‘This is the best shot we’ve ever had and we cannot run the risk of not taking it even if it means my career is over.”
Biden gave plenty of shout-outs to former Mayor Rich Daley and his brother, former Obama Chief of Staff “Billy” Daley. Biden noted the first time he came to Chicago their dad Introduced him.
“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.
“The only guy to spend as much or more time with the president since he’s been there is Billy Daley and before that Rahm. He’s [Obama’s] a little like my image of you, Richie. The one thing that always amazed me was the decisive moves you make. You just make the decisions… I consider Billy Daley one of my closest friends in the world.”
“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.”
Biden said Republicans would raise $400 million to $800 million in SuperPAC money to “carpet-bomb” Obama.
“We can put together the best ground game that ever has occurred in the history of American politics,” he said.
An earlier fund-raiser at the home of Greg Hansen was not pooled because he made no formal remarks, the campaign said.
Biden said he taped Face the Nation earlier Thursday in Milwaukee
Abdon M. Pallasch
Chicago Sun-Times
