On Saturday evening, Vice President Joe Biden’s son and Delaware attorney general Beau Biden tried to attack presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, but the punch ended up hitting North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue instead.
“I’ve never met a successful politician who didn’t run again,” Biden said during his keynote address at the North Carolina Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner, in an attempt to attack Romney’s decision against running for re-election after his sole term as Massachusetts’ governor. Biden had characterized that comment as “off script” just before making it.
The crowd “collectively groaned,” according to the Raleigh News and Observer, because Perdue had decided against running for re-election this year.
Perdue’s administration has been plagued with its own scandals and gaffes — including alleged sexual harassment among staffers at the North Carolina Democratic Party (NCDP) and Perdue’s suggestion that the country “suspend” congressional elections in order to “help this country recover.”
Biden’s father is also infamous for his many political gaffes. While President Barack Obama was signing Obamacare into law, for instance, Vice President Joe Biden infamously said, “This is a big fucking deal.” The vice president recently forced his boss to flip-flop on the gay marriage issue faster than planned, as well.
And, in April, Biden caused audience members to stifle laughter when he declared, “I promise you, the president has a big stick.”
That NCDP sexual harassment scandal doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon, because the alleged victim, former staffer Adriadn Ortega, announced this week that he is suing the NCDP and its chairman David Parker. Parker had pledged to resign along with alleged perpetrator Jay Parmley – who did resign – amid the scandal.
But, in a bizarre turn of events, the NCDP executive committee refused to accept Parker’s submitted resignation, and Parker kept his job. Local news outlet WRAL reported that Parker had lobbied executive committee members to vote to reject his resignation.
In addition, several of Perdue’s top aides and associates have faced criminal indictments for alleged violations of election law.
With all the gaffes and scandals coming out of the NCDP, the North Carolina Republican Party decided to poke fun at the chaos. Ahead of the event, the NC GOP released a “scavenger hunt” challenge for people going to the NCDP convention, asking them to find several embarrassing political scenes and items.
Looking back, NC GOP spokesman Rob Lockwood told The Daily Caller that the NC GOP did not include a “Biden-gaffe’” on the scavenger hunt list “because we figured it was too easy.”
“I personally think that Biden’s criticism of Governor Perdue in her own house was a tad tacky,” Lockwood added in an email. “But hey, this is the NCDEM Party, anything goes.”
The dinner Beau Biden keynoted was the pinnacle of Saturday’s NCDP state convention. The president’s campaign was nowhere to be found at the event, the News and Observer reported, even though Obama’s re-election team and national Democrats have put tremendous focus on North Carolina by choosing the state for the Democratic National Convention for later this year.
Democratic strategist Gary Pearce argued that national Democrats’ decision to send Beau Biden, rather than a more prominent Democratic Party figure, was a sign the NCDP is in the “doghouse” with the DNC and the Obama White House — and a clear attempt to try to keep the NCDP away from even more national scrutiny.