Name: GOP 'empty vessel' Biden attack sticks with Minnesota voters
Brand: washingtonexaminer.com
SKU: washingtonexaminer-com-793
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

GOP 'empty vessel' Biden attack sticks with Minnesota voters

preview

HERMANTOWN, Minnesota — The Republican strategy of caricaturing 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as a puppet for his party's more liberal members is resonating with Minnesota voters.The GOP has upped its attacks on the two-term vice president and Delaware's 36-year senator as "an empty vessel" and "Trojan horse" for the Left since he named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate last month. And voters, , are parroting the rhetoric ."He's not running the show. There's people with more money and power behind him running it," Republican Gerald Yourczek told the Washington Examiner outside a Biden event near Duluth, in northern Minnesota.Yourczek, 52, is a heavy equipment operator from Eveleth on Minnesota's Iron Range, . He said what scares him most about Biden is "he wouldn't be able to lead," that "someone else is going to be doing the leading for him."The GOP tactic seizes on Biden this cycle breaking with the political precedent of candidates pandering to their parties' more extreme elements during the primaries before spouting more centrist positions palatable to a general electorate for the fall fight.Biden's appeal to centrists and independents was a key narrative of the Democratic convention. Yet he adopted several liberal policies championed by Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts . Those stances included shifts to the left on , , and climate change mitigation.For Yourczek, that hurt Biden's standing with some of his friends in Minnesota, a Democratic state since 1976 after Richard Nixon last won it in 1972. Trump was defeated by Democrat Hillary Clinton in Minnesota four years ago by 1.5 percentage points."You're seeing a lot of them that were Democrats that are jumping ship. A lot of people are jumping ship just for the Second Amendment thing alone," he said.Fellow Trump backer Lee Conradi, 72, agreed that Biden had triggered defections, speaking to the Washington Examiner outside Hermantown's Jerry Alander Carpenter Training Center ."I've talked to more and more people that have been lifetime Democrats that all of a sudden they're for Trump because what's going to happen to this country if Biden wins," the Duluth retiree said. "I can't believe they're running him."Barb Sutter, Minnesota's Republican National Committeewoman, echoed Conradi, saying it was "very troubling ... that a party would put him up as their candidate.""I'm sorry, but there's clearly something not quite right with him. I mean, I don't think he's a well man," she said of Biden, 77, who will turn 78 before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2021, making him possibly the oldest president ever.Dena Roberts, a 54-year-old out-of-work Excelsior bartender, added: "It's embarrassing to watch, to be honest with you. You can't even watch him."Democrats who also gathered outside the union training center to support their nominee, though, dismissed the criticism.Camden Anderson, 25, pointed to the Democratic primaries and how centrists, such as home state Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, endorsed Biden to prevent Sanders from gaining more momentum."It shows that he is more of a centrist moderate trying to pull people from the Right over," said the communications specialist, who drove more than two hours from Lakeville, near Minneapolis, to see Biden.Lynn Welshinger, 72, was pithier in her response."I think they're more concerned about not being a socialist, but Trump wants to be a dictator, so I don't think that's any better," the Duluth retiree said.The Trump campaign evoked the "empty vessel" line as recently as Sunday, citing Biden's reticence to release his potential Supreme Court appointee list as evidence.Biden's slip-up last week in which he played into Republican hands as well.

HERMANTOWN, Minnesota — The Republican strategy of caricaturing 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as a puppet for his party's more liberal members is resonating with Minnesota voters.The GOP has upped its attacks on the two-term vice president and Delaware's 36-year senator as "an empty vessel" and "Trojan horse" for the Left since he named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate last month. And voters, , are parroting the rhetoric ."He's not running the show. There's people with more money and power behind him running it," Republican Gerald Yourczek...

public

Naomi Lim

The Washington Examiner is an American conservative news website and weekly magazine based in Washington, D.C. It is owned by MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, which is owned by Philip Anschutz. From 2005 to mid-2013, the Examiner published a daily tabloid-sized newspaper, distributed throughout the Washington, D.C., metro area. The newspaper focused on local news and political commentary. The local newspaper ceased publication on June 14, 2013, whereupon its content began to focus almost exclusively on national politics, switching its print edition from a daily newspaper to a weekly magazine format.

GOP 'empty vessel' Biden attack sticks with Minnesota voters

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS