SALON

Thursday, Sep 13, 2012 6:30 PM UTC

Biden plays to younger crowd in Wisconsin stop

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Biden plays to younger crowd in Wisconsin stopVice President Joe Biden shakes hands and greets attendees of the his campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012, at the Zorn Arena on the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus. (AP Photo/Stacy Bengs) (Credit: AP)

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) — Playing to a younger audience, Vice President Joe Biden stressed differences Thursday between the presidential campaigns on education, college debt and entitlement programs more in doubt for future generations.

The education emphasis during a stop at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire figures into the campaign’s newfound urgency to protect a state the Democratic ticket of Biden and Barack Obama won with ease in 2008. Younger voters were a key part of their victory.

Speaking to a crowd estimated by local fire officials at 3,000 people, Biden highlighted tax credits, grant programs and other moves by the Obama administration to defray college costs and increase spending that schools could use to hire more teachers. He portrayed Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney and running mate Rep. Paul Ryan as hostile to those programs.

“They hardly mention education at all except in a negative context,” Biden said.

He frequently pointed to budget proposals by Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, that would cut spending on items like college Pell Grants.

Exit polling in Wisconsin showed Obama beating his 2008 Republican opponent among 18-to-24 year olds by a wide margin, 61 percent to 38 percent.

The stop was Biden’s second this month, a sign of the state’s new importance as an established presidential battleground.

Obama won the state by 14 percentage points in 2008 but Republicans have been on the march ever since. Both sides launched aggressive new ad campaigns in the state this week, hoping to tip Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes their way.

The vice president opened his appearance by paying tribute to U.S. diplomats overseas, particularly the four Americans killed this week at the U.S. Consulate in Libya. But he spent the bulk of his 40-minute speech criticizing the Republican ticket’s domestic proposals.

He said Romney’s tax plan would disproportionately benefit the wealthy. Drawing a contrast, Biden said the Democratic approach is to “promote the private sector, not the privileged sector.”

Democrats at the event didn’t hide their urgency. Western Wisconsin, which has vacillated between the parties in recent elections, could prove critical this time.

“As Wisconsin’s west coast goes, so goes Wisconsin,” said Kathleen Vinehout, a Democratic state senator. “This fall, as Wisconsin goes, so goes our country.”

President Barack Obama was last in Wisconsin in February. Romney last visited in August.

Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman named last month to Romney’s ticket, campaigned near Green Bay on Wednesday. It was his third large-scale rally in his home state in about a month.

___

Associated Press Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta in Washington and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.

More Brian Bakst.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations