Scratching My Head. . .

New York Daily News:

Vice President Joe Biden defends Tea Party against 'racist' claims
By Michael Sheridan

Tea Partiers have gotten some support from an unlikely source -- the Vice President of the United States.

VP Joe Biden told ABC News' Jake Tapper on Sunday that he doesn't think the ultra-conservative group is "racist."

"I wouldn't characterize the Tea Party as racist," he said on Sunday's "This Week." But "there are individuals who are either members of or on the periphery of some of their things, their -- their protests -- that have expressed really unfortunate comments."

The remarks come on the heels of the NAACP's move last week to demand that Tea Party leaders "repudiate it's racist elements."

Sarah Palin was quick to defend the group.

"I am saddened by the NAACP's claim that patriotic Americans who stand up for the United States of America's Constitutional rights are somehow 'racists,'" she said via Facebook.

The Tea Party also came under fire most recently for a billboard in Iowa that features Obama along with Adolf Hitler and Communist leader Vladimir Lenin. Members of the group fought amongst themselves over the sign's over-the-top message.

"That's just a waste of money, time, resources and it's not going to further our cause," said Shelby Blakely, a leader of the national group Tea Party Patriots.

"The purpose of the billboard was to draw attention to the socialism. It seems to have been lost in the visuals," said Bob Johnson, co-founder of the 200-person North Iowa Tea Party.

The billboard has since been covered up.

Tea Party protests and marches have often been criticized for allowing signs and slogans that mock President Obama in a way that some have labeled "racist."

But Biden's support of the group suggested the group's anger was more about political issues, not racial ones.

"I don't believe, the president doesn't believe that the Tea Party is -- is a racist organization. I don't believe that," Biden said. "Very conservative. Very different views on government and a whole lot of things. But it is not a racist organization."

BUT That's not going to be enough to save the GOP butt in November says he.

Newsmax:

Election Shocker Awaiting GOP, Biden Promises
Sunday, 18 Jul 2010 11:14 AM

Vice President Joe Biden has a warning for the pundits: Democrats are going to shock everybody with how well they do in the November election.

And he's paraphrasing Mark Twain in saying reports of the Democrats' demise "are premature."
"We're going to win the House and we're going to win the Senate," Biden told ABC's "This Week" in an interview that aired Sunday. "I don't think the losses are going to be bad at all. ... We're going to be in great shape."

While Democratic lawmakers in charge of the party's election efforts joined the vice president in predicting that Congress will remain in their control, their GOP counterparts pointed to voter unease with one-party government as they forecast a good showing for Republican candidates.

Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Republicans would have a net gain of slightly more than 40 House seats, just enough to take back control. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who chairs the party's Senate campaign committee, said it was anyone's guess which party will be in the majority after fall elections.

Biden's cheery prediction was in stark contrast to last weekend's talk show comment by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs that enough House seats are "in play" that Republicans could gain control of the House.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other House Democrats were angered by Gibbs' remark; Gibbs later said he thinks Democrats will retain their House majority.

"I think we're going to shock the heck out of everybody," Biden said.

Predictions that the GOP will rout the party in power, he said, rely on polls taken pretty early in the campaign season, before voters start focusing on the Republican candidates who will be on the ballot.

"This is July," Biden said. "The most vulnerable time any public official finds himself in is when they have no opponent."

Polls for both President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have shown declining support through the spring and early summer as the economic recovery has sputtered, BP's oil well has gushed in the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. casualties in Afghanistan have kept rising.

Republicans contend voters are furious about Obama's health care and stimulus plans among the examples of what they say is a federal government run amok.

"These are gigantic packages to deal with a gigantic problem we inherited," Biden said.

He blamed most of the voter angst seen in the polls on the still struggling economy and widespread misunderstanding of big administration initiatives.

"I don't think they know the detail of what's going on," he said.

The vice president predicted that as voters start to understand those details and begin considering the alternative policies that GOP candidates are offering, they'll start to come around.

Republicans, he said, "are about repeal and repeat — repeal what we're doing and go back" to policies of the past decade that have been tried and found wanting.