Biden makes unconventional Iowa stop to boost Nuns on the Bus outreach tour

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/17/joe-biden-nuns-on-bus-iowa

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Air Force Two flew over Des Moines just as sister Simone Campbell, a Catholic nun, was addressing a small crowd gathered on the steps of Iowa’s capitol building.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “The vice-president is coming to our little tiny event!”

She was not the only observer surprised that Joe Biden had taken time out of more conventional vice presidential duties to fly 893 miles to shake hands, rail against economic inequality and pose for pictures with eleven nuns about to embark on a road trip.

Biden’s trip to Iowa comes just three days after Hillary Clinton visited the state, which holds the crucial first caucus in the Democratic nomination process, fuelling speculation about their potential future bids for the presidency.

The White House claimed Biden’s taxpayer funded trip to support the Nuns on the Bus campaign, which works to increase voter turnout, was official business, and has nothing to do with any 2016 presidential ambitions. So too did Biden himself, during an impromptu interview with the Guardian.

“No, it’s not,” he said when asked if the trip was about the 2016 race. “I haven’t made a decision to run or not run for real, but if the nuns asked me to go to Memphis with them I’d be in Memphis. I’m going to be coming back here campaigning for Democratic candidates. I’m going into 107 races around the country.”

In another reference to a possible presidential run, he added: “There’s plenty of time to make that decision. And that’s the least of my worries and concerns right now.”

Asked if he would be back in Iowa before election day on 4 November, he replied: “Oh I will, I’m coming for a half a dozen candidates.”

Earlier, Biden gave an impassioned, left-wing, speech to a relatively small crowd of around 300, in which he covered his views on Wall Street, immigration, healthcare, the rise of China, tax reform and the minimum wage.

Biden said that Democrats had not been “taking enough nationally” about the squeeze on the country’s middle-class. “Basic, simple, decent, fairness,” he said, outlining his philosophy for the future of the country. “This isn’t a populist rant. This is about how we rebuild America.”

Biden, the first Catholic vice-president, is a strong supporter of Nuns on the Bus, an ostensibly non-partisan but indisputably liberal Catholic group that emerged in the spring of 2012.

This election cycle, the nuns aim to travel to ten states to boost voter participation. The group’s core objective is to fight against what they argue is the corrupting influence of money in politics.

Immediately after his event with the nuns, Biden attended a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, an event to which the media was not invited. It was the vice-president’s 33rd fundraiser ahead of the midterm elections.

“The press has spent a lot of ink saying ‘oh, Vice-President Biden is following secretary Clinton, and therefore this is 2016 presidential stuff,” sister Campbell told the Guardian shortly before the vice-president’s arrival.

“The horror of that is this doesn’t address the urgency of now, it is all about this future game! It is like it is a horse race!”

But wasn’t it possible that Biden was ducking the responsibility of governing now because of his presidential ambitions?

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the sister replied. “Since he’s running this out of the White House, and not the political side, we’ve had to go to elaborate efforts to make sure this is not partisan, not anything political.”