Vice President Joe Biden rallied with Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley in Dubuque today, telling the crowd of Democratic activists that Republicans don’t “get” the plight of the middle class.  Biden also defended the Obama Administration’s efforts over the past 18 months.

“Only the almighty could have taken eight years of devastation and turned it completely around in two years, but guess what? The alternative is stark,” Biden said. “When we compare out vision to the lack of vision of Ben Lange and his Republican colleagues, the choice is so clear. These guys have no new ideas.”

Lange is the Republican who is challenging Braley’s bid for reelection. Lange has been the beneficiary of independent groups that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign ads attacking Braley. Biden told the crowd that if Braley loses, it sends the wrong message to conservative political organizations like the “American Future Fund” that have attacked Braley.  

“They will have made a point, and they will have made a point to other bright, young congressmen that if you screw around with us, we’ll come in with a couple million bucks at the end so that every other Democrat out there next time out will go, ‘Whoa, whoa, man.  I don’t know if I can handle that,'” Biden said.  Senator Tom Harkin, who was on stage with Biden, amplified the point, telling Biden: “You’ve got it.”

It was Biden’s second stop in Iowa this month. Biden spoke at a closed-to-the-public event for Congressman Leonard Boswell in Des Moines on October 12th.