Joe Biden NAACP Speech is No Better Than the Romney Speech

“…Where everyone has skin in the game and no one gets played for a sucker.”

Vice President Joe Biden has never been known for his tact or eloquence; that’s President Barack Obama’s territory. In his Thursday morning speech at the 103rd Annual NAACP convention, he tried his best to give the crowd what they wanted. However, one thing is clear; Biden is no Obama.

Biden made his speech one day after Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, stood before that very same crowd to gain support from the traditionally democratic audience. Unlike Romney, Biden was met with a friendlier reception (only boos when he said he was ending his speech).

Since President Obama could not attend in person, he sent a little video imploring the crowd to stick with him through the next election as intro to Biden’s speech. Although Biden's speech was almost three times the length of Obama’s video clip, he never managed to rev up the crowd quite like the president. Nonetheless, in true Biden fashion, he did make a few memorable statements (like the one above) and get the people cheering when he reiterated Obama’s dedication to increase funding for education, decrease the unemployment rate, and protect the recently passed health care bill.

To be honest, both speeches leave much to be desired. Romney deserves credit for at least showing up to the convention and staying true to his convictions, no matter how unpopular they were with the audience. Yet Romney’s speech was still full of the same empty rhetoric that has been a sore point for him throughout his campaign. Biden, on the other hand, stayed on message; highlighting all the successes of the Obama administration and instilling just enough fear of what life would be like with Romney as president (bye, bye Obamacare). Yet, his attempts at adding a little “color” to his speech was cloying and it didn’t help that the nagging question of why Obama didn’t make an appearance for his staunchest supporters. Nonetheless, both men did the best they could with what they had to work with, but only time will show if it even mattered at all.