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| Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally at the Culinary Academy Events Center, Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012, in Las Vegas. Biden, on Thursday, derided the campaigns of Republican challenger Mitt Romney and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan as being built on negative views of "makers" and "takers" in America, with half the population dependent on the other for support. |
NEW YORK (AP) -- Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday compared his rival's policies to a gun pointed at Americans, and the GOP nominee's son said he's tempted to "take a swing" at President Barack Obama as emotions run high in the closely fought White House race.
The
barbs are being delivered with a smile, but their sharpness is a
reflection of just how tight the race is 19 days out. Democrats are
pushing the accusation that Mitt Romney is being dishonest, with Obama's
refrain since Tuesday's debate that the GOP nominee is offering "a
sketchy deal."
"I don't think they were just sketchy," Biden said at a rally in Las Vegas. "I think they were Etch-a-Sketchy."
Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid warmed up the crowd in Nevada by saying
Romney is "giving used car salesmen a bad name." Reid then introduced
Biden as a man "who has shown us his tax returns" - a contrast to
Romney's refusal to release more than the past two years. His red-meat
offering whipped the partisan crowd into whoops and applause as Biden
took the stage.
Biden accused GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan of sharing a cynical vision of Americans with Romney.
"Ryan
has written a book called the `Young Guns' with two other members of
the House," Biden said. "Unfortunately, the bullets are aimed at you."
Romney
campaign spokesman Brendan Buck responded that Biden's "over-the-top
rhetoric" was disappointing but not surprising. "In the absence of a
vision or plan to move the country forward, the vice president is left
only with ugly political attacks beneath the dignity of the office he
occupies," Buck said in a statement emailed to reporters.
Ryan,
speaking at a campaign stop in Ocala, Fla., before Biden delivered his
comments, accused Obama of sending a divisive message.
"He's
basically trying to disqualify his opponent with a sea of negativity,"
Ryan said. "He's trying to divide this country, pitting people against
each other. He's trying to win this election by default. You know what?
We're not going to let him get away with that."
The
finger-pointing and recrimination comes after a heated debate this week
between Obama and Romney. The GOP nominee's oldest son, Tagg, was asked
by a North Carolina radio host Wednesday how it to hear the president
"call your dad a liar" - a word Obama never used although he repeatedly
said Romney's statements weren't true.
Tagg
Romney laughed at the question. "You want to rush down the debate stage
and take a swing at him. But you know you can't do that because, well
first cause there is a lot of Secret Service between you and him, but
also because it's the nature of the process," he said.
Another
Romney son, Josh, said in an appearance on ABC's "The View" on Thursday
that his brother didn't mean it but was responding to the emotions that
arise in the heat of the campaign.
"That
brother has slugged me a couple times. I assure you President Obama has
nothing to worry about," Josh Romney quipped. "You really don't like to
see your dad get beat up by the media or President Obama or whatever it
is, so you take it pretty personally. But I think that was just
something he was saying off the cuff and I assure you he didn't mean
it."
Their mother, Ann Romney, also appearing
on "The View," said the negativity of the campaign is very difficult for
their family and she initially didn't want to go through another
campaign after losing the 2008 Republican primary. She said she agreed
to a second run because she feels her husband is uniquely qualified to
bring economic hope and prosperity to America.
But
she didn't hesitate when co-host Barbara Walters asked whether her
husband's political career will end if he doesn't win on Nov. 6.
"Absolutely," Mrs. Romney said. "He will not run again, nor will I."
The
bickering between campaigns was supposed to take a break Thursday night
as both candidates address the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation
Dinner, a white-tie gala at New York City's Waldorf Astoria Hotel that
has been a required stop for politicians since the end of World War II.
Obama also played for laughs on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" while
he's in Manhattan for an episode that would air late Thursday.
The
president campaigned earlier Thursday in tightly contested New
Hampshire and asked the state's voters to give him more time in office
to get the economy back on track. "I need your help to finish what we
started in 2008."
The Romney campaign was
shifting resources and some workers out of North Carolina, a campaign
official saying he was more confident of a victory there. The state's 24
Republican campaign offices - Obama has 54 - will remain open and the
get-out-the-vote efforts will continue, campaign official Michael Levoff
said.
The evening's political dinner is named
for the four-term Democratic governor of New York who lost the 1928
presidential race to Republican Herbert Hoover. Smith was the first
Catholic to run for president and the dinner named for him is organized
by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York for the benefit of needy
children.
In keeping with tradition, both
candidates have prepared lighthearted fare for the event. That was the
case almost precisely four years ago when Obama and GOP nominee John
McCain poked fun at themselves and each other just a day after an
intense presidential debate at Hofstra University on Long Island.
As
in 2008, this year's dinner follows a confrontational debate, also at
Hofstra, lending an air of drama to the pivot from acrimony to humor.
Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki mocked the high expectations that
both campaigns set for their rivals before the debates.
"I
will say Mitt Romney has practiced for longer than any presidential
candidate in history for tonight," Psaki told reporters traveling with
Obama. "And we expect him to be drop-on-the-floor funny. And the
president will make his way through."
What's
more, the dinner's host is Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, president of the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has clashed with the Obama
administration over contraception provisions in the new health care law.
Dolan has said he received "stacks of mail" protesting the dinner
invitation to Obama. But Dolan has sought to avoid playing political
favorites, even delivering benedictions at both the Republican and
Democratic national conventions this summer.
On
the celebrity front, Obama picked up the endorsement of rock star Bruce
Springsteen, who also backed the Democrat in 2008 and Thursday
campaigned for Obama in Ohio with former President Bill Clinton.
"For
30 years I've been writing about the distance between the American
dream and American reality," Springsteen said, reading from a statement
on his music stand. "Our vote is the one principal way we get to
determine that distance."
