Vice Presidential candidate Biden stumps in Kalispell

By DAVID ERICKSON / Northwest Montana News Network

The Flathead Valley continues to be a political hot spot. On Sunday, Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, became the latest national candidate to stump here in the last several months when he spoke at the Flathead High School gym.

More than 1,500 people packed the gym. As usual, Biden was jovial and energetic, oftentimes working himself into a frenzy on key issues. His speech, however, was not a fiery diatribe against the opposing candidates, but rather a folksy appeal to the voters.

Biden spent the majority of the one-hour talk describing specific economic plans that an Obama-Biden administration would implement if they're elected. He noted that while he thinks there are some places that should be drilled for oil, there is a big opportunity for alternative energy.

"We're going to create 50,000 new green-energy jobs," he said. "We'll spend $150 billion over four years on alternative energy production and renewal programs."

The senior senator from Delaware also spent a good portion of his speech listing Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's positive characteristics.

"I watched this new guy, Sen. Obama, come into one of our hearings, and I watched him ask questions," said Biden, who is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. "I turned to a colleague, and I said, 'This guy's good.' He was incisive. He was informed. He was prepared. And he was extremely courteous and polite when working with his Republican colleagues."

Biden told the audience that the GOP's portrayal of Obama as a "crazy liberal who nobody'll want to work with" is not true.

Biden also took on President Bush's response to the attacks of 9/11.

"I'm not talking about the mistakes they made after 9/11," Biden said. "Anybody would have made mistakes after that. I'm talking about the opportunities they squandered to unite the country."

After a thunderous applause, Biden described how he would have asked the country to make some tough sacrifices to reduce America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

Biden was surprisingly non-aggressive when it came to attacking his Republican counterpart, Gov. Sarah Palin, who Sen. John McCain recently picked to run for vice president.

"She gave a good political speech (at the Republican National Convention)," Biden conceded. "But her silence on the issues was deafening."

Biden, who's been a senator since 1973, said he welcomes the chance to debate Palin on specific issues in the coming months.

"John McCain once famously bragged that he voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time," Biden said. "I challenge you to name one big-ticket item where they differ from George Bush. For real. Not the small stuff. The big issues. How can they claim to be the agents of change?"

Biden also addressed several issues important to Montana.

He said he and Obama would invest $60 billion on infrastructure, such as railroads, sewers, roads and bridges. He cited the public rail transportation systems in China as an example of what could be done.

"China has all kinds of problems with pollution and things, but if they can have a modern public railway system, then why can't we?" he asked.

The latest statewide polls show Obama and McCain in a statistical dead heat leading up to the Nov. 5 general election.