"There are maybe 250 people gathered (50 of them are with the media); Watertown has a population of 30,000. The event is open to the public--no one needed a ticket to get in--but the room is only about 65 percent full. The turnout suggests that Joe the Vice President might not connect with working class voters (the kind who populate Watertown) as much as the White House believes he does."In contrast, Sarah Palin attracted a warm and enthusiastic crowd of 20,000 to Auburn, New York (a town with a population of 27,317) last June.
In a subsequent posting, McCormack reports:
There are signs that Biden may be a toothless attack dog. He was only able to fill a small venue to about 60 percent of its capacity, and a new poll released by Siena college this morning shows that Biden is not popular in the district. The vice president's favorable rating is only +4 (41-37 percent); Hoffman's favorable rating is +14 (47-33 percent).We wonder, how many votes having Biden campaign in the district will cost Bill Owens and the Democrats?
And then there was the content of the speech itself. The vice president's 35-minute speech meandered through childhood recollections -- such as his lifeguarding on Lake Ontario and watching his father leaving Scranton to look for a job in Wilmington -- and attacks on Republicans.
Biden lit into Republicans for not doing anything about global warming, but one of liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava's few conservative positions was opposition to job-killing cap and trade. And as gas prices have begun to rise, Biden decided to pick a fight with Sarah Palin over drilling for oil.
Hoffman, Baby, Hoffman!
Stacy McCain has more from Watertown here and here.
- JP
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