On Tuesday my best friend Daniel Forrester emailed from Washington urging me to predict Barack Obama would choose Joe Biden as his running mate. Nah, I thought. Far too safe a choice. I'll listen next time!
Those of us of a slightly older vintage remember Biden from the 1988 presidential race, when he was forced to pull out after the Dukakis campaign released a video showing he had plagiarised Neil Kinnock's "First Kinnock in a thousand generations" speech. He said...
Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go a university? Why is it that my wife ... is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? ... Is it because they didn't work hard? My ancestors who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come after 12 hours and play football for four hours? It's because they didn't have a platform on which to stand.
Kinnock had said...
Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn't get what we had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.
Perhaps these clips show why Obama thinks so much of Senator Biden...
