Joe Biden: How Not To Run For President
February 1, 2007, 8:31pm
Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden Jr. hoped to make a statesmanlike splash yesterday with this video against a troop surge in Iraq as he officially announced his candidacy for president in 2008:
Instead, he made a bigger splash when he told the New York Observer that one of his rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, is the “first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
And that bit of racial insensitivity reminded many Biden watchers about his other bout with racial insensitivity last summer. “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts [in Delaware] unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
That gaffe worked to the financial advantage of Raj Bhakta, an Indian-American congressional candidate in neighboring Pennsylvania who used Biden’s words to solicit donations of $7.11.
Bhakta lost his race, but Biden is the one looking more like a loser to a lot of folks these days.
Categories: Delaware, Illinois, Producer's Picks, Iraq, Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., Presidency 2008, Barack Obama, Race, Joseph Biden Jr.
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