Vice President Joe Biden made a reference to possible future political ambitions at a stop Wednesday at a restaurant in Florida.
A short while after an earlier rally -- where the vice president boasted of "being a good Biden" today -- Biden slipped into a characteristic moment, to the delight of DC's chattering class.
NBC's Carrie Dann, who is traveling with the vice president, describes the scene:
At an off-the-record stop at a restaurant called "400 station" in Sarasota, Joe Biden spoke on the phone with the brother of a voter who wanted him to chat with her Republican relative.
After chatting about the health insurance law, he concluded, "Well look, I'm not trying to talk you into voting for me, I just wanted to say hi to you, okay? And after it's all over when your insurance rates go down, then you'll vote for me in 2016. I'll talk to you later."
Biden is among the handful of Democrats included in early speculative lists of possible presidential candidates in 2016, at which point the former Delaware senator would be 73-years-old.
His viability as a candidate, though, might well hinge on the outcome of the 2012 election next Tuesday, when a second term for President Barack Obama is far from certain.


What an absolute joke Joe Biden is, he fits the bill of a democrat vp perfectly, they've had so many great ones. You don't hear much about Joe, because Obama can't control what comes out of his mouth. He is a complete idiot!!!
oh, come on now people. Your insurance rates are going up because of Obama?
I worked for the insurance industry for over 30 years and your insurance rates have been going up way before President Obama was in office. I watched as they designed their plans to raise your rates every year and lower your benefits and make you pay more and more out of pocket so they could get their greedy hands on your money without having to pay anything out.
At least under Obamacare they will actually have to start paying out some benefits.
Sure there is room for improvements... we just have to get rid of those lobbyists that work for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries so they can negotiate prices to lower the costs.
Nope they will not go down because of 0bama, he has nothing to do or say about that. BUT they will go up faster now because of him and 0bamacare.
O and Joe gotta go.
And having been in the insurance business, you surely know that increasing benefits drives higher premiums.
Affordable Care is all about heavy subsidies; offering credits to purchase insurance from private companies. (Sounds voucher-like, doesn't it?)
M.J.... maybe we should go back to what the original concept of insurance should be.
Is it for insurance companies to provide coverage for something people are paying for in case they may need it or is it to make a few people wealthy?
you are right they have always gone up but not by nearly as much! yeah now instead of the insurance company deciding what treatment they will pay for it will be and independent unelected panel of 15 people that make the decisions about what healthcare should pay for great I'd rather take my chances with the insurance company and just cancel my policy it i have to and put the money I'm saving towards my care but with Obamacare I will have to pay a penalty with that money
If I would not vote for him to be Vice President why would I vote for him as President???
O and Joe gotta go in Nov.
Romney's Campaign trained poll watchers to mislead voters at the polls:
The Romney campaign held 6 - 8 training sessions across Wisconsin in the past 2 weeks. Poll workers are under orders to say they are "concerned citizens" if questioned.
Link to Romney poll watcher training schedule + Romney volunteer observer documents
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TWO EXAMPLES of misleading information distributed by the Romney Campaign:
CLAIM: Page 8 lists 10 items as "The ONLY acceptable forms of "Proof of Residency".
FACT: The list is incomplete. There are many other documents people can use to prove residency that are not included, such as letters from public schools, student loan papers, correspondence with a Native American tribe in WI, vehicle registration, and food stamp correspondances. In addition, the list fails to mention that homeless voters may use an affidavit froma public or private social service agency as proof of residency.
CLAIM: If a handicapped voter is unable to come to the polls to vote, an assistant can deliver the ballot to the voter if the CEI verifies the elector's proof of residency.
FACT: Under Wisconsin law, the CEI (Chief Election Inspector) does not have to verify proof of residency so long as the voter is registered.
The Romney campaign knows that confusing & inaccurate information on Election Day slows down the voting process, discourages voters who wait in line, and drives down turnout. GOP voter suppression has been HUGE in this election cycle. Citizens have the legal right to vote. Election workers should be forwarding this right, not creating obstacles to voting. Forwarding disinformation is an attempt to eliminate our voices, inhibit progress and maintain the status quo.
I think you are in the wrong place we are talking about health insurance Let's do this!
Ya insurance cost quite possibly could be lower if this idiot and his leader are still even thought of in 2016. Why???? Because most people will be out of work and those that are still working will be paying the insurance for those not working just like the liberals like it. And yes those working might have lower insurance costs because they have a lower taxable income so they qualify for more of the bleeding heart liberals entitlement programs. This guy is an idiot and this whole administration is a smoke screen of lies and deception and I can't believe there are still people who go along with it.
Since Obamacare started, my insurance rates have increased over 50%. Mr. Biden, I'll give you this challenge. If you can get my insurance rates below where I started, then I'll give you my vote.
In other words...not bloody likely.
Owebamacare is going to screw poor people. Say a single mother working for a company that employs 49. The burden will be on the mother. If she is barely making ends meet, how is a $750 penalty going to help the situation? She will have to pay it and STILL not have health insurance. My premiums have gone up almost every year in the last 18 years. I will have paid $19710.00 this year alone.
Romney is like a used car salesman, one hand on your wallet and the other in your girlfriend's/wife's blouse.
He will say anything to get into the White House so he can screw over all of the middle class. Middle class replublicans, he doesn't care about you. Mitt cares only about the 1% and you are too foolish to see it.
I'm a 76 year old, and I just got Medicare Advantage program for 2013, and I am shocked at the increases.
Essentially, my monthly premium has gone up 54%, and my copay to see my doctor or go to the hospital either for in or out patient care has gone up 33%, and my copay for emergency room care has gone up 25%.
I urge all seniors to look at what has happened to the cost of their Medigap insurance before they vote.
.... AND YET MORE LIES FROM FOX NEWS .... REPUBLICAN PARTY USING LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES ..... JUST PATHETIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .... and voters don't see it ... or refuse to see it???
U.S. says CIA responded within 25 minutes to Benghazi attack
Intelligence officials dispute a report by Fox News that officers in Libya were ordered to 'stand down' after the diplomatic compound came under attack.
By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times November 2, 2012
WASHINGTON — CIA security officers in a Benghazi post responded within 25 minutes to a call for help from a nearby State Department compound after it came under attack Sept. 11, officials said Thursday, seeking to refute a Fox News report asserting that CIA managers ordered them to stay put.
In releasing a detailed timeline of CIA actions that night, senior intelligence officials have put aside long-standing concerns about revealing the extent of the agency's presence in Benghazi in order to push back against what officials say are baseless allegations that aid was withheld.
"At every level in the chain of command, from the senior officers in Libya to the most senior officials in Washington, everyone was fully engaged in trying to provide whatever help they could," a senior intelligence official said in a statement. "There were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support."
Fox News asserted in a story last week that CIA managers had ordered agency security officers to "stand down" and remain in their own facility, known as the Annex, when the attack on the diplomatic compound began about 9:40 p.m. and that there was an hour delay before officers disobeyed orders and went to help repel the attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and State Department officer Sean Smith.
Among those who rushed to help was Tyrone Woods, a former Navy SEAL who was part of the CIA security team and who later died in the attacks.
The Fox story also asserted that the CIA "chain of command" refused to pass along requests from its officers for military aid and that special operations forces in nearby Sicily could have been sent to help but were not. Intelligence and Pentagon officials strenuously denied that Thursday.
They insisted there was no viable military option to disrupt what amounted to a series of sporadic attacks in a crowded city full of people sympathetic to the U.S. There were no armed drones in the region and airstrikes were not called for, officials said.
"Let's say we were able to get an aircraft there. Do you go in and start strafing a populated area without knowing where friend or foe is?" a senior Defense official asked. "If you did that, you could kill the very people you are trying to help."
A special operations team was sent to Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, but the team arrived after the attack ended, said the senior Defense official, who would not be quoted by name discussing potentially classified
information.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta learned of the attack shortly after it began, about 4:30 p.m Eastern
time, Defense officials said, and discussed it in a previously scheduled meeting with the president. Obama ordered him to pursue whatever options were feasible, a Defense official said.
Panetta "ordered all appropriate forces to respond to the unfolding events in Benghazi, but the attack was over before those forces could be employed,"Pentagon spokesman George Little said.
Shortly after 11 p.m. a surveillance drone had arrived from elsewhere in Libya — about an hour after it was requested, officials said. But the video feed was not seen by the president, contrary to some news reports. And the feed did not offer analysts a clear understanding of what was happening on the ground, officials said.
After the CIA team arrived at the compound, "over the next 25 minutes, team members approach the compound, attempt to secure heavy weapons [from Libyans], and make their way onto the compound itself in the face of enemy fire," the senior U.S. intelligence official said.
The senior intelligence official disclosed that the CIA also sent a second six-member team from Tripoli on a chartered plane to help repel the attack. The team included Glen Doherty, another former SEAL, who was later killed when attackers fired mortar rounds at the CIA Annex.
The team arrived around midnight but got bogged down at the airport. Ultimately, it learned that "the ambassador was almost certainly dead" and headed to the agency facility "to assist with the evacuation," the official said.
It arrived with Libyan support at the Annex at 5:15 a.m., just before mortar rounds began to strike. Woods and Doherty were killed as they fired on militants from the roof. The mortar attack lasted 11 minutes, the official said.
The drone overhead was not armed. Even if it had been, there were no viable targets, officials said.
"The officers on the ground in Benghazi responded to the situation on the night of 11 and 12 September as quickly and as effectively as possible," the intelligence official said. "The security officers in particular were genuine heroes. They quickly tried to rally additional local support and heavier weapons, and when that could not be accomplished within minutes, they still moved in and put their own lives on the line to save their comrades."