TALLAHASSEE, FL — Joe Biden’s first foray into Florida’s more conservative northern regions was met with a group of about 30 very vocal pro-McCain protesters, who disrupted the rally in the shadows of Florida State University’s football stadium from 300 yards away with a constant stream of chants — and a steady siren from a megaphone carried by one of the protesters.
Biden carried on for 5 minutes without mentioning the omnipresent wail, but as he launched into the section of his speech outlining just how John McCain is exactly like George Bush, he couldn’t resist a dig at the protesters’ expense
“The fact of the matter is, maybe those McCain folks can hear this, they’d be interested back there,” Biden said. “They can hear this, I’ll say it loudly as I can.”
“I thought it was a siren, it’s just a whine, I guess,” he continued to laughs. “It’s gonna be okay folks.”
But later, Biden used the protesters as an example of the types of people an Obama administration needs to reach out to in order to unite the country.
“We can’t move past the politics of division unless after this election is over, if God willing we win, we reach out to the people in the outer parking lot,” he said. “I know you find some of that obnoxious, but…, we’ve got to reach out, we’ve got to end this. Somebody’s got to be big enough to stand up and end this.”
“They’re good folks,” he said of the protesters. “They’re committed to John’s notions, but we know what they don’t know. We know that we can do this. This is not some hat trick. This is not something beyond our capacity.”
Biden told the assembled faithful that they could help shut up these protesters and others like them. “If you work with us in the final hours of this campaign all the way through to the polls closing on Tuesday. Not only will we, but they, the people in the parking lot, they’ll be calling Barack Obama something else. They’ll be calling him President Barack Obama,” he said.
