But is that a good thing for Obama?

The fact is, barring a disaster much bigger than the one that has taken place over the last few days, Biden was going to stay on the ticket. Obama, quite plainly, wasn’t going to change his running mate.

Click here for a photo gallery of Vice President Biden and Paul Ryan

But just because that was basically his only option doesn’t mean it was a good one. And polling tells the story of a vice president who has grown more and more unpopular over the last four years — even before his recent foibles.

Almost every recent poll has shown Biden’s numbers at a low point, with more voters viewing him unfavorably than viewing him in a positive light — though in most cases, it’s only by a few points.

Biden’s favorable rating, which was well into the 50s when he and Obama won the 2008 election and took office in 2009, has fallen to around 40 percent in most polls. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll recently pegged his favorable rating at 35 percent (37 percent negative), while a Fox News poll showed the split at 41 percent favorable and 44 percent unfavorable.

Also, swing state polls conducted recently by Purple Strategies showed Biden has an even more negative image in the four states tested — Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia. In the four combined, his favorable rating was 41 percent and his unfavorable rating was 48 percent.

This isn’t exactly pariah territory. Those numbers, in fact, look a lot like the numbers we’ve been seeing for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. And they’re about where Dick Cheney’s were when he was on a successful reelection ticket in 2004.

In addition, most people don’t pay much mind to the vice president, so even their unfavorable feelings toward Biden tend to be less visceral than they might be for a president or presidential candidate. In other words: We have a hard time seeing a case where Biden’s presence on the ticket would push an Obama voter into Romney’s camp.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. Biden, after all, is Obama’s top surrogate. And he’s going to take the stage next to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in October at a debate. What he says is going to matter and can affect the overall debate.

And some Democrats worry it could go badly.

“There’s no secret about it, especially with the week that Biden has had; I think Paul Ryan is going to school him at the debate,” said one Democratic strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Everybody knows we don’t elect a vice president, but they can be like Sarah Palin was for (John) McCain.”

In large part thanks to Palin, the debate over Biden’s utility on the Democratic ticket is four years late. When Obama tapped Biden for his VP slot in August 2008, there was some consternation that Biden’s history of gaffes could cost the ticket. But suddenly, with the GOP’s selection of Palin, Biden’s gaffes took a back seat (and seemed relatively minor).

Since then, Biden has earned a reputation for being able to talk to some audiences that Obama has a harder time speaking too — in particular, white working-class voters. The Obama campaign notes that Biden has done more than 100 events for it already and got strong reviews in speeches to Latino and African-American groups.

“He has a unique ability, speaking from personal experience, to lay out what the stakes are for the middle class in this election,” Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said. “And on the stump, his candidness is an asset. Americans know he speaks from the heart and he doesn’t come across like a typical politician using warmed-over talking points.”

But Biden isn’t overwhelmingly popular with many demographic groups, and only 10 percent of Americans have a strongly favorable view of him, according to a recent Pew Research poll. The Pew poll — the one recent poll that actually had Biden’s favorable rating higher than his unfavorable rating — shows Biden’s favorable rating with those making less than $30,000 a year is 40 percent. Even among Hispanics, whom Biden seemed to hit it off with at the National Council of La Raza conference, his favorable rating is 38 percent.

(The one group where a majority view Biden favorably? African-Americans.)

The fact is that we don’t know yet whether Biden will be a liability for the Democratic ticket, in much the same way we don’t know whether Paul Ryan will be for the GOP.

But at least for now, Ryan seems to be winning the vice presidential race (for whatever that’s worth), thanks to Biden’s gaffes and an effective GOP pushback on Ryan’s big potential liability: Medicare. And if you told Democrats a week ago that that would be the case, they would have been concerned.

All of this can change, and this week is likely to be a distant memory in early November. But Biden has a tougher task than he did in 2008, when it was all about Palin. And he’s starting off on his heels.

Obama camp fights back on Medicare: Obama’s campaign is fighting back against the Romney campaign’s efforts to distance itself from the Medicare cuts in Ryan’s budget and play offense on the issue.

The Obama team is launching a new ad that notes the AARP has praised the president’s Medicare plan, while it has criticized the Ryan budget’s plan to turn the entitlement into a voucher program.

And on a conference call Thursday, the Obama team accused Ryan of flip-flopping by moving away from his own plan.

“It’s kind of sad to see Congressman Ryan be forced to flip flop on this issue by Gov. Romney,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on an Obama conference call. “They will hasten the insolvency of the Medicare program by 8 years, that’s according to the Medicare trustees. So what they’re announcing is that by the end of their term if they were to be elected, Medicare would have begun to go bankrupt by the end of their term.”

Romney’s campaign has announced that it would restore the $700 billion in Medicare cuts contained on Obama’s health care bill — even though many of those same cuts were in Ryan’s budget.

By doing so, the GOP is better able to contrast itself with Democrats.

Fixbits:

Jesse Jackson says Biden’s “chains” comment has knocked Obama off his message.

Van Hollen, who is the ranking member on Ryan’s House Budget Committee, will play Ryan in  Biden’s debate prep.

Both Obama and Romney will pull their ads on Sept. 11.

White House senior adviser David Plouffe and former president Bill Clinton both raised money for the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA on Thursday, even as the White House and Obama campaign continue to distance themselves from a controversial ad being run by the super PAC.

The Republican National Committee raised $37.7 million in July.

Ad spending has now topped $500 million this campaign season.

A poll from Democratic-leaning automated pollster Public Policy Polling shows Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) leading his reelection race 40 percent to 36 percent.

The first general election ad from Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) in the Wisconsin Senate race hits Tommy Thompson for supporting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Sen. Jon Tester’s (D-Mont.) campaign is greeting Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is in town to campaign for Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), with a full-page ad noting that McCain opposed the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and Rehberg supported it.

Must-reads:

“Old Obama acquaintance voices South Side’s disillusionment with his former ally” — Michael Leahy, Washington Post

“The Medicare feud explained: both sides would cut but GOP more” — James Rainey, Los Angeles Times

“Bill Clinton and the Journalists Who Love-Hated Him” — Adam Kirsch, Bloomberg

“Mitt Romney, Obama camp spar on Medicare plans” — Philip Rucker, Washington Post

Make sure to sign up to receive “Afternoon Fix” every day in your e-mail inbox by 5(ish) p.m.!

EARLIER ON THE FIX:

What we think about the 50 states — in 1 map

Paul Ryan’s stimulus problem

Mitt Romney seeks to shift the tax return debate

Swing state voters don’t see U.S. economy rebounding

4 things we (still) know about Joe Biden

(POSTPONED) Rick Nolan’s 30 year Recess | #FixHangout at 1:30

Obama defends Biden comment but nation’s first black governor doesn’t

Self-funded candidates struggle in Senate races

Why Mitt Romney isn’t releasing his tax returns, part 563

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED:

* A new CNN/ORC International poll of Wisconsin voters taken after Mitt Romney selected Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his vice presidential running mate shows President Obama leading Romney 49 percent to 45 percent. 

* Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) isn’t satisfied with Mitt Romney saying he paid at least a 13 percent tax rate in each of the last 10 years. ”We’ll believe it when we see it. Until Mitt Romney releases his tax returns, Americans will continue to wonder what he’s hiding,” said Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson.

* Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) told reporters that he he opposes federal spending for the National School Lunch Program. “Why not do it at the state level? I’m not against school lunches, but I have a question whether the federal government should be doing as many things as it’s doing, and that would be one to take a look at,” Akin said. The program, which provides cash subsidies and food to schools, is a spending item under the farm bill, which Akin opposes. Akin is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D).

* Former Maine Democratic governor John Baldacci is helping Senate nominee Cynthia Dill raise money. Dill is the Democratic nominee in a three-way race. But national Democrats have been mum on her candidacy, and appear to be hoping that popular independent Angus King will win, wagering that he would caucus with the Democratic Party once elected. Polling shows King is a substantial favorite in November.

* To the surprise of nobody, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says Obama has no intention of dumping Vice President Biden from the national ticket.

WHAT YOU SHOULDN’T MISS:

* Ryan will be stumping in Florida this weekend. On Saturday, he’ll visit a retirement community frequented by Republican presidential candidates. Ryan will be joined by his mother, whom he said in a Sunday interview “is a Medicare senior in Florida.” It’s also worth noting that the company that developed the community has donated money to a pro-Romney super PAC.

* The Indiana Senate race is a statistical tie, according to separate surveys conducted for both House Majority PAC and the Chamber of Commerce. Republican state Treasurer Richard Mourdock and Rep. Joe Donnelly (D) are running against each other. The Chamber had endorsed Sen. Richard Lugar over Mourdock in the GOP primary.

* A new Democratic poll conducted for House Majority PAC in Illinois’ 10th District shows Rep. Bob Dold (R) and Democratic challenger Brad Schneider tied at 46 percent apiece. Dold, a freshman running in a heavily Democratic district, is one of the cycle’s most vulnerable incumbents.

* Chris Cillizza is hosting a Google+ Hangout at noon ET on Friday to talk about Ryan’s first week on the Republican ticket. Washington Post reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Craig Gilbert and Republican and Democratic strategists will join him for the Hangout, which we will stream live in a Fix post and on the Washington Post Google+ page. Do you want to join them? E-mail jenningsng [at] washpost [dot] com with the question you would ask our panel and a link to your Google+ profile, or tweet your questions using #FixHangout.

Tweet #FixHangout

THE FIX MIX:

Animaniacs, meet Skillrex.

With Aaron Blake and Rachel Weiner

That perception obsession has lead us to seek out any and every tool that helps us get at how people think about their politics — and each other.

Today we happened upon an awesome map put together by Renee DiResta at her No Upside blog.  What DiResta did is simple but revealing. In Google she typed in “Why is [fill in the blank state] so…” and let Google’s autocomplete function, which tracks the most common words typed after “so”, do the rest. She mapped the top four auto-completes for each state.  Here’s her — amazing — map:

A few observations:

* One of the top four autocomplete terms for Alabama, Missisippi, Georgia and South Carolina is “racist”. It’s the most common autocomplete in Alabama and South Carolina and number two in Mississippi and Georgia.

* In California, Oregon and Washington State, one of the top four terms is “why is [state] so liberal?” That’s also true in Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts.

* We are a country interested in wind. In North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Montana and Minnesota — to name just five —  one of the top four autocompleted terms was “windy”. Odd.

* Our favorite state autocomplete?  In the Fix home state of Connecticut one of the top four autocompleted phrases is “haunted”. Um, what?

Paul Ryan says his office mishandled constituent requests for stimulus funding, which is why he claimed to have never requested stimulus funds even as the documents told a different story.

The GOP’s new vice presidential candidate has said repeatedly that he has never asked for stimulus funds, but recent reports indicate he has written letters on behalf of local businesses seeking them.

The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that Ryan had sought stimulus funds for local energy conservation groups from the Department of Energy in late 2009, and a 2010 Wall Street Journal report indicated he sought funds for another local group from the Labor Department.

Even Thursday, Ryan continued to insist he never sought stimulus funds.

“No, I never asked for stimulus,” Ryan said in a local TV interview in Cincinnati Thursday.

In a statement provided to The Fix by the Romney campaign, Ryan says his congressional office should have treated the requests as policy work rather than standard constituent service. But he said the buck stops with him.

“After having these letters called to my attention I checked into them, and they were treated as constituent service requests in the same way matters involving Social Security or Veterans Affairs are handled,” Ryan said. “This is why I didn’t recall the letters earlier. But they should have been handled differently, and I take responsibility for that.”

Ryan has said he didn’t request stimulus money for a while. During a 2010 interview with a Boston radio station, he offered a similarly firm statement, according to a Globe report today.

“No, I’m not gonna vote [against] something, then write letters to the government to send us money,” Ryan said at the time. “I did not request any stimulus money.”

Ryan wrote a series of letters between October and December of 2009 on behalf of the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp. and the Energy Center of Wisconsin, as the Globe reported this week.

The Wall Street Journal in 2010 reported that Ryan had also sought funds from the Department of Labor on behalf of a local group and asked his office to square that with his anti-stimulus rhetoric.

“If Congressman Ryan is asked to help a Wisconsin entity applying for existing federal grant funds, he does not believe flawed policy should get in the way of doing his job,” his office said at the time.

After months of his campaign dodging direct questions on the matter, Mitt Romney said Thursday in South Carolina that at no time in the past decade has he paid less than a 13 percent tax rate.

“I’ve paid at least 13 percent and if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent,” Romney said at a press availability in Greer, South Carolina. (The Romney team notes that this is only the second time — the first was at a press availability in Europe — that the candidate has been directly asked about his effective tax rate.)

Here’s Romney’s full answer from today:

Romney’s answer won’t satisfy everyone. (More on that below.) But, in asserting that for the last decade he has never paid less than a 13 percent tax rate, Romney is calling Democrats’ bluff and forcing them now to call him a liar if they argue that he paid any less. In short: The burden of proof has now shifted from Romney to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democratic party more broadly.

Remember that it was Reid who drew national — and international — headlines for his repeated assertion that a “source” had told him that Romney had paid no taxes at all for the better part of a decade. (Reid’s actual quote: “The word is out he hasn’t paid taxes for 10 years.”) Reid has both refused to reveal the source or to back down in any meaningful way from his allegation.

“Harry Reid’s charge is totally false,” Romney said in South Carolina today. “I’m sure waiting for Harry to put up who it was that told him what he says they told him. I don’t believe it for a minute, by the way.”

Reid’s response? ”We’ll believe it when we see it,” said a spokesman for the Senate Majority Leader.

Let’s be clear: For Democratic partisans, Romney’s answer won’t be enough.  They will insist he is either obfuscating or outright lying and that the only way to for him to prove that he is being truthful is to release his full returns. And, as we wrote this morning, that almost certainly won’t happen.

“Given Mitt Romney’s secrecy about his returns, coupled with the revelations in just the one return we have seen to date and the inconsistencies between this one return and his other financial disclosures, he has forfeited the right to have us take him just at his word,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith in a statement released Thursday afternoon.

But with Romney’s on-the-record insistence regarding his tax rate, Obama, Reid and other Democrats will have to, well, put up or shut up in order to keep the “no taxes” story alive.  They will have to say that there is evidence that in some year, Romney paid no taxes –using that approach to attempt to force his hand on releasing more detailed information. Otherwise, they are asking the American public to believe that a major party presidential candidate willingly lied about his financial past. And that’s a major leap.

What smart Democrats should do is not fight the fight over whether Romney is lying about his tax rate but rather continue to push for the former Massachusetts governor to release a more detailed accounting of his financial past.

That seems to be the official White House approach to the issue.  ”This president believes the tradition for presidential candidates putting forward multiple years of tax returns is a useful and valuable one,” said White House press secretary Jay Carney. “It’s not always a comfortable one but it’s one he abided by and one the American people believe is right and expect their candidates to abide by.”

We’ve written before that it’s a lock that Romney’s tax returns will show a financial life that is exotic in the extreme as compared to the average person he needs to vote for him this fall.

Taking that approach — rather than fighting Romney over what rate he paid —  allows Democrats to keep the issue alive, which is a very good thing for them in the context of the campaign.

Romney’s gambit on taxes today is clearly aimed at taking the tax return issue of the table. It almost certainly won’t do that but he has changed the game when it comes to the debate.

There has been a storyline bubbling beneath the surface this election year — The Fix boss wrote on it a couple weeks back — that despite the continued economic hardship in this country, there are signs of progress in a handful of swing states that could, in turn, perform better for President Obama than national polls suggest. The unemployment rate, for example, is either below the national average or trending downward in all eight states rated as swing states by The Fix.

But despite the positive signs in some of those states (and some nationally as well), Gallup polling shows views of the U.S. economy in swing states are pretty much on-par with the rest of the country.

In every state except Minnesota, more voters see the U.S. economy getting worse than see it getting better, and only in North Dakota do more than 20 percent of people see the economy as “excellent” or “good.” Neither are considered swing states.

Among the swing states, just two rank in the top 10 when it comes to economic confidence — a measure that combines current views of the U.S. economy and views of its direction (getting better vs. getting worse): Iowa at No. 5 and Virginia at No. 10.

Half of The Fix’s eight presidential swing states rank 20th or below on the list. And those four states account for well more than half — 57 — of the 95 electoral votes available in the swing states.

If you average out all the swing states, they rank 21st out of 50 states — pretty close to the middle. When you throw in two of the most competitive blue-leaning states (Michigan and Pennsylvania) and two of the most competitive red-leaning states (Arizona and North Carolina), the average falls to 22nd.

Now, it’s true that views of the economy may be slightly better in these states than in the country nationally, but with the exception of Iowa and Virginia, the difference is pretty minimal right now.

What’s more, swing state Nevada has among the worst views of the economy (No. 43) and the swing state with the most electoral votes at stake — Florida — ranks in the bottom one-third of states in economic confidence.

An important caveat: Poll respondents were asked about their views of the U.S. economy — not their states’ economies. And voters in states that are succeeding more than others may be more confident in their own economy than in the country’s economy.

(Indeed, an automated Purple Strategies poll released Wednesday showed more voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania saw the U.S. economy getting worse than saw their state’s economy getting worse.)

The question from there is whether that distinction is significant enough to change their opinion about electing a president who presides over the entire country’s economy.

We’re guessing such a distinction would have more impact on state races, like governor’s contests, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. Elections are won on the margins in these swing states, and if in Ohio — where according to the Purple Strategies poll more see their economy getting better (33 percent) than getting worse (26 percent) — that distinction matters to people’s votes, it could help Obama.

On the whole, though, it’s clear that views of the U.S. economy remain very dim and possibly getting dimmer. A new Bloomberg poll Thursday shows that views of the economy are worse than they have been since January, with 45 percent of Americans seeing the economy getting worse.

And at least when it comes to views of the national economy, that applies pretty equally to swing states.

Vice President Joe Biden

Biden’s trip through the swing state of Virginia has been marred by a series of missteps ranging from slips of the tongue (he pledged to win North Carolina again while in the Commonwealth) to downright gaffes (he used the word “chains” in reference to what a Romney Administration might do to the American public). (Make sure to read Jonathan Martin’s piece on how Biden’s staff tried to manage him — and the media.)

For all of the attention Biden’s Virginia trip has drawn, it has, in many ways just affirmed — or reaffirmed — what we already know about him.  Here’s four:

1. Biden will never totally succeed in this media environment. Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972 — long before Twitter, campaign trackers, You Tube and 24-hour cable television stations.  His political genius is his ability to relate to people one on one and in small(ish) groups, ideally without someone typing every word he says — as he says it — into Twitter. It’s virtually impossible to imagine Biden being elected to the Senate in this day and age; his willingness to engage reporters coupled with his tendency to speak off the cuff would make him a messaging nightmare for a campaign.  Biden isn’t alone as a very successful politician who might not have the same success if he started his political career today rather than several decades. The most obvious other example is Bill Clinton who struggled mightily to deal with the new media realities during his wife’s 2008 presidential bid.  It’s worth noting, however, that the idea of Joe Biden as a presidential candidate in his own right down the line hits a snag on the long history of his struggles to manage message in this brave new world.

2. President Obama knew what he was getting into.  The idea that Obama or his senior campaign team are somehow surprised that Biden has veered off message this week is ludicrous.  Biden’s political brand has been built around his average, well, Joe-ness forever. It’s what has made him such a successful political figure over the past four decades but it’s also what’s kept him from grabbing the ultimate brass ring of his profession: the presidency. In 1988, there was Neil Kinnock. In 2008, there was “articulate” and “clean”. Biden, for better and worse, is Biden.  (While we’re focused on Biden at his worst, it’s worth remembering Biden at his best — like in this recent appearance with firefighters.) So it has been and so it shall be.  When Obama picked Biden for VP, he knew what he was getting. And he’s been reminded of it regularly for the past four years.

3. Biden will be the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Biden’s bad week has re-started — for the billionth time — the rumor mill that he could/might be replaced on the Democratic ticket this fall by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Drudge Report, a popular news aggregator, is currently leading with a Weekly Standard report that President Obama is meeting with both Clinton and Biden today. The Weekly Standard also is reporting that Obama still has three weeks in which to swap out Biden for Clinton. Here’s the thing: That will never happen. Putting aside the fact that Obama seems to genuinely like Biden and value his counsel, pulling a VP switcheroo would reek of desperation for a ticket that, according to the lion’s share of swing state and national polling, is winning the election at the moment. To quote Bob Dylan: “What’s the sense of changing horses in midstream?”

4. Biden is still an asset to Obama. While Biden’s rough week gets all of the attention — and rightly so — it’s important to remember where he was when he made the comments: southern Virginia.  Biden may be the only major Democratic surrogate — with the exception of Bill Clinton — who can be an asset to Obama’s campaign in these sort of working class, heavily rural areas of swing states.  Biden’s ability to speak to so-called “Reagan Democrats” — working class whites with a strong streak of cultural conservatism — in places like Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan and Pennsylvania remains of critical importance to Obama’s winning calculus in those states. Still.

How has Congress changed in the past 30 years? Former congressman Rick Nolan (D-Minn.), who retired from Congress in 1981, will have a unique take on that if his campaign to defeat Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) is successful in November.

Rick and Mary Nolan on Election Night, Aug. 14. (AP Photo/Brainerd Dispatch, Steve Kohls)

Nolan won his 8th District primary on Tuesday and will face Cravaack, a freshman who won a surprising victory over veteran Democratic congressman Jim Oberstar in 2010. Nolan, who served three terms in the House, is underscoring his business credentials in the campaign. He will join the Fix’s Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan for a Google+ Hangout at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday.

We will broadcast the Hangout here in this post and on the Washington Post Google+ page. Do you have a question for Rep. Nolan or the Fix team? Ask it using #FixHangout.

Tweet #fixhangout

And if you are interested in joining the Fix team for future Hangouts — we’re doing them weekly now — e-mail jenningsng [at] washpost [dot] com

Read more on PostPolitics.com

Watch previous Fix Google+ Hangouts

At issue is a comment Biden made at a campaign rally in southern Virginia on Tuesday. The vice president said that presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s approach to financial regulation will “put ya’ll back in chains.” Biden made the remark in front of a racially mixed audience that included African Americans.

Douglas Wilder has offered a harsh response to Biden’s remarks (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Obama told People in an interview published Wednesday that Biden was saying, “you, consumers, the American people, will be a lot worse off if we repeal these [Wall Street reform] laws as the other side is suggesting.”

“In no sense was he trying to connote something other than that,” Obama added.

Wilder, the former Democratic governor of Virginia, took a different view.

“First of all, without question they were appeals to race,” Wilder told CNN on Wednesday. “The important thing I got out of this was Biden separated himself from what he accused the people of doing. As a matter of fact, what he said is they are going to do something to y’all, not to me. Not us. So he was still involved with that separate American.”

Wilder echoed his view in interviews with Fox News and AP. “You can forgive people for gaffes, but there comes a time when you realize you’re forgiving the same guy for making the same mistakes,” he told AP.

Republicans all the way up to Romney have been critical of Biden’s remarks, while the Obama campaign has consistently defended his comments. Wilder is the first Democrat to offer such a harsh rebuke to Biden.

Cory Booker, the Democratic mayor of Newark, N.J., and a prominent Obama surrogate, came to Biden’s defense on Wednesday, telling CNN, ”Please, I beg America, listen to the whole speech by the vice president, don’t let the soundbites that the media’s presenting to you, affect your mind. Listen to the whole speech.” Booker is African American.

VIDEO | At a rally on Tuesday, the vice president told a crowd that Mitt Romney would “put you all back in chains” by unshackling Wall Street.