It's not every day that the Vice President of the United States calls you out specifically by name and encourages folks to applaud.
Well, it happened to me on Thursday, and really made my day!
Governor Bev Perdue,Secretary of State Elaine Marshall (and U.S. Senate candidate), and I were the only statewide elected officials present. Also in attendance at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill were NC House Speaker Joe Hackney, Senate Majority Leader Martin Nesbitt, and Rep. Verla Insko.
As outlined by WRAL-TV and the Raleigh News & Observer, Vice President Joe Biden "deliver[ed] a vigorous defense of the administration's record" and also had the following to say:
“Now that the heavy lifting is over, we can go out and make our case,” Biden said.As 2012 beckons, the recurring visits here by both the President and the Vice President are proof that North Carolina is ground zero as a swing state.
The vice president said that the Republicans “are wildly out of step” with popular opinion on a broad range of issues from holding oil companies responsible for cleaning up the spill in the gulf to supporting basic regulations to prevent another meltdown on Wall Street.
“They say they want to put on the brakes,” Biden said. “But they really want to do is throw us in reverse. As the president said, they drove the car in the ditch. ...
Biden said there are limits to what government can do.
“Barack and I are realists. Government is not the answer. But we also know we can plant seeds. These seeds that have been planted have generated whole new industries.”