"Obama, Obiden, Ohio, 08" Chant Ripples Through Campus Crowd

Biden Extols Ohio Crowd to Vote, So Republicans Can Call Obama Mr. President

Tale of Two Joes, The Senator and The Geographer

OhioNewsBureau

with John Michael Spinelli

Bowling Green, Ohio: In the small northwestern Ohio town of Bowling Green Saturday night, Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden spoke before several thousand people who gathered in crisp weather at the center of the state university located there, and said he expects Republicans in general and the the John McCain campaign in particular to continue to call the top of his ticket more bad names in the remaining hours before Election Day, but advised the crowd that if each of them do their job and vote and then convince others who have yet to vote to vote of Mr. Obama, the only name Republicans can Obama is Mr. President.


Before Mr. Biden summitted to the podium outside University Hall at Bowling Green State University in Wood County, about 25 miles south of the City of Toledo, Lt. Gov. Lee Fischer said Ohio is the ultimate swing state and joked that "as BG goes, so goes Ohio, and as Ohio goes, so goes the nation." He told the energized audience that they were the "most powerful people on earth" at this time. No Republican after 1856 has won the White House without winning Ohio.

Fischer, who served as Ohio attorney general and a state senator, and who some speculate could run for US Senator in 2010 when two-term George V. Voinovich decides if he will or will not run for a third term, schooled and then rehearsed the many students intermixed with adults in the chant of the four "Os": Obama, Obiden, Ohio, 08.

Following a short, poignant introduction by Dr. Jill Biden of her husband, Joe, who became a US Senator from Delaware at the age of 29, used his stump speech warmed up the crowd who had been standing for quite some time under a clear sky and chilly temperatures. Repeating for the most part the speech he gave just a few hours earlier in Marion Ohio to the south, Biden said America is not better off now than it was before the Bush years, and said it's isolated in the world and domestically in a hole. The person who would make the nation better off, he said to no one's surprise, is Barack Obama, who in an average of polls in Ohio show him nearly five percentage points ahead of Mr. McCain with two days left before those who haven't already cast their ballot go to the polls.

Biden hit on the popular Democratic themes of "restoring the Middle Class," jobs and health care. "The economic crisis we're in is the final verdict of the last eight years," he blared into the microphones, eliciting an enthusiastic response from the crowd that was primed to cheer no matter what he said. He touched on the the fact that Ohio's unemployment rate (7.4%) is up while real incomes are down.

In a light hearted moment of his speech, Biden laughed as he mocked McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin calling each other "Mavericks." Biden, a Catholic, who said they are more like "sidekicks" than mavericks, then made the sign of the cross. The crowd laughed.

The silver-haired Biden, who uses the phrase "ladies and gentleman" before making a point as much as Mr. McCain uses his patent phrase "my friends" before making his, said the 122,000 home foreclosures in Ohio this year shows that Wooster Street (a main street in the community) needs as much help as Wall Street. "We can change (this election) through our will, " Biden said of the need to vote Mr. Obama into the White House.

In a poignant moment following his address, Joe the Senator met Joe the Geographer. The later was watching the proceedings from his wheel chair in the area reserved for the disabled. Joe the Senator came down the stairway from the dais and shook hands with Joe the Geographer, a former BGSU professor of 35 years who had come be at what might be the last political event of his life of this magnitude. The two Joes, one running for vice president and one fighting cancer, found each other as the former bent down to greet and speak with the other. Joe the Geographer told Joe the Senator that the cancer inside may not grace him with another six months or so of life, but assured the Scranton, PA nativethat he had already voted for him and Barack the Senator. Biden hoovered over Joe the Geographer for a while, soaking in what the man who had educated, counseled and served as a guiding light to so many students over the decades had to say despite his failing health.

About the author

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. He now serves as the OhioNews Bureau Chief for ePluribus Media Journal. Find ONB archives here.

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