Biden defends Obama, challenges Romney

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008 gave the Democratic ticket greater heft on foreign policy, often a perceived weakness for Democrats in presidential races.


Now, just shy of the first anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the president's reelection campaign is trying to use Biden to turn national security into a political weapon against Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee.

In a blistering speech Thursday in New York, Biden quoted Romney as saying in 2008 that it was "not worth moving heaven and Earth, spending billions of dollars" trying to catch the Al Qaeda leader.


Biden then suggested Democrats print a campaign bumper sticker: "Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive."


"You have to ask yourself, if Gov. Romney had been president, could he have used the same slogan in reverse?" Biden asked. "People are going to make that judgment. It's a legitimate thing to speculate on."


Whether that argument gives President Obama an advantage at the polls, or simply blunts a Republican line of attack, is unclear in an election season that is likely to hinge on pocketbook concerns.


But as Obama prepares to make his first official public campaign appearances on May 5, Biden's speech represents an effort to quickly frame the election on Democratic terms.


Next month will give Obama two opportunities to show himself as a confident leader on the world stage, with the Group of 8 leaders summit at Camp David and a NATO summit in his hometown of Chicago.


If he succeeds, Obama will be the rare Democrat to control the national security debate. In 2004, John F. Kerry highlighted his military service record at his nominating convention, only to see the issue backfire when a conservative-backed ad campaign questioned aspects of his Vietnam record.


Obama's identification as the child of a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya, with a grandfather who fought in World War II, reinforced his claim to be a politician who could both transcend norms and be anchored in the nation's past. The emphasis of the personal narrative emerging in 2012 differs in some respects from the details stressed four years ago.


Gone, at least for now, are the frequent references to Obama's mother once relying on food stamps to get by.


As the president and Romney battle for women's votes, a story about Obama's grandmother hitting the glass ceiling in her work is prominent.


For his part, Romney likes to talk about how his father "grew up poor." But that's not the whole story.


His father, George Romney, grew up in a family that suffered financial losses and enjoyed prosperity. The elder Romney pursued an upwardly mobile path to become chairman of American Motors before being elected governor of Michigan.


On Tuesday night in Manchester, N.H., after another string of primary victories, Mitt Romney recalled the hardships his father faced growing up.


"Only in America could a man like my dad become governor of the state in which he once sold paint from the trunk of his car," Romney said.

Romney joins a parade of politicians who have played down their wealthy pedigrees and played up humble family roots in hopes of convincing voters they understand their concerns. George Romney was born July 8, 1907, in Chihuahua, Mexico, but turmoil from the Mexican revolution later forced the Romneys to flee back to the U.S.


The family suddenly went from owning a large Mexican ranch to being nearly penniless.


Over time, though, Mitt Romney's grandfather became prosperous, but along with many other Americans suffered financial setbacks during the Great Depression.