Biden Dismisses Comparisons of Buttigieg to Obama

(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden assailed Pete Buttigieg on Saturday, refusing to accept comparisons of the young mayor to Barack Obama and unleashing a harsh ad that denigrates Buttigieg’s municipal experience.

Biden, who acknowledged in Friday’s debate that he’s unlikely to win Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary against the surging Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, argued Saturday that Buttigieg in particular is ill-equipped to defeat Donald Trump and lead the U.S. as president.

“Oh, come on, man. This guy’s not a Barack Obama,” Biden snapped at a reporter who asked about the comparison.

Yet that precise comparison was made earlier Saturday at a Buttigieg event at Keene State College, where lines of people waiting to get in snaked through the student center.

Actor Michael J. Fox introduced Buttigieg and said he felt the same way about the former mayor as he did when he first met Obama. Both, he thought, were future presidents.

“I met him, this was early on, and he was just starting to make a splash,” Fox said of Obama. “And I talked to him, and I was so impressed with him, and I called my wife afterward, and said, ‘I just met the next president of the United States.’ And I felt the same way when I saw Pete.”

But Biden, Obama’s vice president, was having none of it.

“I have a great deal of respect for Mayor Pete and his service to the nation,” Biden said earlier Saturday. “But I do not believe we are a party at risk if we nominate me. And I do believe we are a party at risk if we nominate someone who’s never held a higher office than the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Yeah, I do,” Biden said in Manchester, New Hampshire.

“Do I think there’s a difference between getting a city budget passed, smaller than the city of Manchester or getting three Republican votes” for the 2009 Recovery Act, which sought to revive the flagging U.S. economy, the former vice president asked. “Yeah, I do,” he said.

But the former mayor said his experience as a small city mayor is “very much the point.”

“There are so many communities, rural areas, small towns, industrial cities and even pockets of our biggest cities, who have felt completely left behind by the ways of Washington,” Buttigieg said at a campaign event in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

The Biden campaign piled on the criticism, releasing a savage online ad that compares their respective achievements. It highlights Biden’s work on the Affordable Care Act and the Iran nuclear deal in contrast to Buttigieg’s mayoral accomplishments getting lights installed under a bridge and reducing regulations for pet chip scanners.

“We’re electing a president. What you’ve done matters,” the 77-year-old candidate’s video says of his 38-year-old opponent.

But Buttigieg said people outside of Washington were “tired of being reduced to a punchline by Washington politicians” and “want to see themselves and their stories in the future that we’re going to create together.”

Biden is battling to recover from his fourth-place finish in Iowa. His campaign believes it will begin to show strength in Nevada and South Carolina, which vote later in the month and in the more than a dozen states that will follow on Super Tuesday, March 3.

While Biden focused his attention on Buttigieg, who poses the most direct threat to his appeal to moderate voters, he also kept up his criticism of Bernie Sanders, who leads most New Hampshire polls. Biden reminded the crowd in Manchester that Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist” and said he believes the Vermont senator’s far-left positions are likely to hurt Democrats in November’s election.

Later in the afternoon, Biden pushed back on the idea that his campaign is flagging.

“Look, reports of our death are premature,” he told a group of canvassers at one of his Manchester field offices.

He also offered an explanation for why he’d gotten tougher on Buttigieg earlier in the day.

“I’m not picking on Pete. I’m just responding to Pete,” he said, mentioning recent comments from Buttigieg that Biden has interpreted as criticisms of the Obama administration. “By the way, one of the reasons why that city, South Bend, did well was because I was able to direct about $65 million there from the Recovery Act.”

In New Hampshire, Biden was also sure to note Buttigieg’s struggles with African-American voters. The former vice president has strong support from that group, keeping his campaign confident that it can mount a comeback in primaries beginning in late February.

“Mayor Pete says the only time the Democrats win the presidency is when we nominate someone new,” Biden said. “But here’s what he never mentions: The only Democrats to win the presidency is where we have overwhelming support from the African-American community and don’t take it for granted. That was true for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. It’s just a reality.”

(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

--With assistance from Emma Kinery.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Lebanon, New Hampshire at jepstein32@bloomberg.net;Tyler Pager in Manchester, New Hampshire at tpager1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Magan Crane

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