Biden makes bid for change

Joe Biden argued that Barack Obama's economic proposals will repaint Montana from red to blue.

"When I got to the Senate some 400 years ago, it was a Democratic state, and it's gonna be a Democratic state again," Biden told about 1,600 people at Flathead High School on Sunday.

For 65 minutes, the Democratic vice president candidate joshed, stressed bipartisanship, attacked the Republican John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket for being sketchy on economic details, discussed some Democratic economic proposals, and praised the late U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana as a mentor.

Montana and Flathead County have traditionally gone Republican in presidential elections.

However, with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators, Montana has been targeted by the Obama-Biden campaign as three previously sure Republican electoral votes that could switch.

Obama has campaigned in Montana five times, his wife once, and now Biden for the first time.

"Isn't this exciting? Montana finally matters," Kalispell Mayor Pam Kennedy said in introducing Biden.

Then her tongue twisted as she mentioned the "O-Biden" ticket.

Then Biden entered, joking his Irish grandmother, the late Geraldine Finnegan, would have loved for his name to be "O'Biden."

Biden launched into praising Obama's abilities to work with Republicans on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which Biden is the chairman.

For more on this story, read Monday's Daily Inter Lake.