I Just Returned

from the Washoe County Democratic Party fundraiser featuring Senator Joseph Biden. About 125 tickets were sold for the event, and it appeared close to that number were at the Garage bar at the Grand Sierra Resort to hear him speak. There were lots of local media around, too, to cover the event.

Biden will be in town for the next couple days, until after Wednesday's debate in Carson City. Before he spoke and answered a few questions, mostly relating to foreign policy, he met and shook hands with just about everybody who attended, including yours truly. He has a very firm handshake, almost a bone crusher handshake, and my right hand was aching for a few minutes afterwards. He also had several staff with him as well as his sister and her husband around to keep their eyes on him.

Anyway, after he mingled around with the crowd, he took the stage to talk a few minutes about why he thinks he should be president of the United States. In short, he believes he has the experience it takes to handle both the foreign policy and domestic policy problems facing this country thanks to the mess our dictator has made.

Before talking about the issues, he said he would donate $1,000 to the Washoe County Democratic Party towards the purchase of the new sign (which will cost over $4,000). The reason, he said, is he wants to see Nevada turn blue, and he believes it can. Then he told some stories about when he was first elected to the Senate back in 1972. At the time he was elected, he wasn't quite 30 years old, and he had been the fifth-youngest person ever elected to that body. However, he nearly gave up the seat when his first wife and three children were in a bad car wreck when they had gone Christmas shopping that year. Tragically his wife and baby daughter died. That was almost the end of his career, but Senator Mike Mansfield encouraged him to stay on and suggested that he commute from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, to Washington in order to be able to spend time with his family. He raised his two sons by himself until he remarried almost thirty years ago. Thirty-four years after being sworn in as senator, Biden still commutes by train every day to and from his home to Washington. The point being, of course, that Biden understands the problems facing this country because he has experienced similar problems in his own life.

The same is true when he suffered from cranial aneuryisms twenty years ago. They almost cost him his life, but he was fortunate enough to have great medical care through Walter Reed Hospital and also superior health insurance. He estimated his health problems cost "well over $800,000." If he hadn't had insurance, he noted, his wife and family would have been wiped out financially. But 46 million people, he said, don't have what he had, and he wants to change that situation.

But Biden mostly talked about foreign policy. He said this administration has left this country in a very deep hole. The middle class have been more uncertain about their future the past fifty years, and they need somebody who can deal with the problems facing this country, including in the area of foreign policy. It is going to be a very difficult decade ahead. He believes people are looking for somebody who can restore this country's values and direction, certainly reverse the mess that has happened the past six years. In Iraq the president took us into a war unnecessarily, without a sufficient number of troops and without the equipment necessary to fight the war. He took us to war without any plan at all. Biden has laid out a plan for over a year, but our dictator's lack of a plan has cost us "dearly." The price of our dictator's "folly has been excessive." The war must end, Biden said. He had a lot of experience in the Balkans, and he and former president Clinton butted heads over this issue. Biden argued that we needed to go to war over the Balkans, and Clinton eventually agreed to do so. Biden saw a lot of the problems firsthand. He said he learned there was a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things. As we know, it didn't cost one American life and the country has been more united, unlike this disaster in the Middle East. Biden said the problem is you need "a political solution to stop the sectarian violence."

For over a year, Biden wanted to put a political solution to the Iraq mess. But other people trying to resolve the problem haven't answered the question "what next." What do we leave behind there? Do we leave behind chaos? We are told we have to continue the escalation of this war or else we have to leave now and hope something good will follow. But what we need to do is make sure we don't have a situation where the problem metasticizes into a civil war. He is concerned about Iran as well. His plan has gotten a lot of support over the past several months. His plan is on the web called "planforiran.com." He talked about separating the factions and giving them "breathing room." He talked about them having control over their daily lives.

At the same time, you have to draw down American forces--now. The reason is we have to make them understand we cannot be their "cops." They have to make some hard political decisions. We also have to make Iraq the "world's problem" and not just our problem. He would have the U.N. Security involved with Germany and several Muslim nations all join in an international conference to agree to a federal system in Iraq. Iraq is sectarian, not a democracy. There is no way a strong central government can be sustained. His arrangement is doable. The last thing the parties want in this situation is to metasticize into a civil war. There is a way but not the president's escalation. The president claims that those in Congress who criticize his actions are embolding the enemy, but Biden believes it is Bush's failed policies that are embolding the enemy.

Biden concluded he believes this country needs somebody who has the depth of experience in foreign policy and somebody who understands what they are going through. People know we need a national energy policy and must reverse global warming. But people doubt whether Washington politicians can understand what they are going through such as paying their bills, filling their gas tanks, and so forth. That's when Biden talked about his own personal experiences, some of which I mentioned earlier in this post, to illustrate how he understands what people are going through.

Biden said this is the single most exciting time to run for president since 1932. The president can literally turn this country and world around. It is not "hyperbole." It is reality. Other leaders are scared to death of the lack of vision in this country. It is time to lead with our values as well as with our military. He stressed voters aren't stupid; they are smart. They didn't elect our dictator the first time, and we underestimated the hold 9/11 had in 2004 (Biden didn't mention the obvious fraud in THAT election). He is running for president because he believes this is the dawning of a new century if we have the courage to lead. This country seems to bounce back after great tragedy. He saw a country ready to react after 9/11, but it wasn't called to react. Biden wondered how it would have been had JFK been president at the time of 9/11. It would have been a far cry from what happened under Bush. The Democratic Party shouldn't be timid, it shouldn't be afraid to challenge the American people. They are ready, they are in control.

Biden answered a few questions from the audience, including questions about Iran, Afghanistan, what he would do about Bush and Cheney (he said he wants to move on and not deal with the past because he would spend all of his first term trying to deal with the messes of the previous adminstration), and so forth.

I took some still pictures of the event, and I will post those up within the next couple of days if they turn out.