PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Vice President Joe Biden helped kick off President Barack Obama's re-election campaign Monday, telling New Hampshire supporters that they need to get to work now while the administration focuses on more pressing concerns.
Biden followed up a policy speech at the University of New Hampshire with a quick stop at a Portsmouth hotel to speak to about 50 prominent Democrats and volunteers for Organizing for America, the campaign's grassroots mobilizing and fundraising operation. He said while Obama is focused on re-election, the administration also must focus on the "crises in our path," from the economy to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It's going to be a while before we're doing the kind of active campaigning you're used to," he said. "You literally have to take the lead here. ... We have a first-rate campaign organization, but you are the troops on the ground."
New Hampshire voters, with their tradition of holding the earliest presidential primaries, know better than most how to organize at ground level, he said.
"It's in your blood, it's in your DNA," he said. "We plan on winning New Hampshire again in 2012."
As a presidential candidate in 2008, Biden dropped out just before New Hampshire's Democratic primary, which was won by Hillary Rodham Clinton. The state chose Obama and Biden in the general election.
Biden barely mentioned Republicans in his speech, other than his oft-repeated statement that "this is not your father's Republican Party." He praised Obama as someone who has faced every tough decision with "absolutely steely certitude" and who will win re-election by emphasizing education, innovation and infrastructure.
"We cannot win the 21st century simply by rebuilding the economy of the 20th century," he said.
Joe Keefe, former New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman, said the state's Democrats are ready to get back to work.
"What's happening both in Concord and Washington has Democrats pretty fired up," he said. "No one expected the Republicans' agenda to be so radical."