ONE FINAL QUESTION BY JOE: WHY SO NEGATIVE?
Herald buttonholes Biden as he bails
NASHUA, N.H. — Joe Biden tried to brush off a lackluster showing in New Hampshire -- despite a display of his notorious testiness earlier in the day when pressed by a Herald reporter on why he decided to blow off his primary party.
“We’ll be back to defeat Donald Trump,” Biden told Granite State backers, live streaming from South Carolina.
Biden’s campaign said early Tuesday he was skipping his own watch party at a Nashua hotel to get a jump on campaigning in South Carolina, where his base is stronger.
When a Herald reporter asked Biden why he was skipping his own election night party, Biden insisted, “I’m not leaving early” — though he acknowledged moments later that he was.
“I’m going down to South Carolina, and then I’m gonna be talking to everybody up there. And why are you so negative?” Biden told the Herald reporter.
Valerie Biden Owens — who greeted Biden supporters in New Hampshire, said,
“The results aren’t what we hoped . ... Our dad used to say that it doesn’t matter if you get knocked down, it just matters how quickly you
get up.”
Nashua Democrat Keith Withycombe said Joe is “still the odds-on favorite candidate.”
“Nobody is going to remember Iowa or New Hampshire,” Withycombe said at the Nashua watch party from which Biden was conspicuously absent. “If he can make it to Super Tuesday, he’s still got a very good chance to win the nomination.”
But the last-minute decision to blow off the party cost Biden at least one voter. Judy Dickson in Manchester said she switched her vote from Biden to Elizabeth Warren because of it.
“What a baby,” Dickson said.
Dickson said she originally liked Biden’s populist spirit, but she said, “I just think he’s lost it. I don’t think his advisers are any good. Whoever told him to leave is stupid.”
Democrat Jane Stewart wouldn’t say who she cast her ballot for after leaving the polls, but said Biden’s decision to skip town before the votes are tallied in New Hampshire “wasn’t very cool” and that the move “tells voters he doesn’t care.”
Biden made a last-minute stop at a Nashua polling place to glad-hand supporters and bring hot coffee to canvassers.
“He showed up here in the rain and cold to talk to the people. He’s a genuine guy. He left a good impression here,” said Al Dwyer of Weymouth, Mass.
Biden’s front-runner status in New Hampshire plummeted recently.
Sunday, Biden stunned New Hampshire voters when he called a woman a “lying dog-faced pony soldier.” In addition to being shocking, it was also mystifying, as political observers tried to determine exactly what he meant.
In Iowa, Biden mixed it up with a voter who questioned him on climate change.
“You oughta go vote for someone else,” Biden said, repeatedly poking voter Ed Fallon in the chest.