Biden Says McCain Slow to Realize Economy's Woes

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden on Saturday ripped Republican John McCain, saying he's clinging to President Bush's "failed economic policies."

Eleaonr Kissel, 3, hold up a sign from the shoulders of Tom Kissel of Evansville, Ind., at a rally for Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., Saturday, Nov. 1, 2008, in Evansville, Ind. (AP Photo/ Daniel R. Patmore)

(AP )

Biden mocked McCain's recent criticism of the Bush administration as too little, too late.

"All of a sudden he's seen the light," Biden told a small crowd at Marion Harding High School in Marion in north-central Ohio.

"If John had seen the light, he would really have to acknowledge the economic crisis we're in is the final verdict on the failed economic policies of George Bush," Biden said.

Biden finished off a two-day trip through swing state Ohio on Saturday, his sixth visit here as a vice presidential candidate.

Both campaigns are paying multiple visits to Ohio in the last days before Election Day.

Biden told about 2,000 supporters at Bowling Green State University that McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, were resorting to name calling and negative campaigning and warned that it will increase in these final days of the campaign.

"It will probably get worse," Biden said, adding that McCain was stooping to the divisive politics of former Bush aide Karl Rove.

Biden sought to assure the college students in the crowd that better days were ahead, telling them not to give up hope. He pointed out that the country was in the beginning of an unpopular war in Vietnam when he graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965.

"We've been able to overcome every obstacle in our way," he said.

Biden took a jab at McCain for getting an endorsement Saturday from Vice President Dick Cheney. "I'm not surprised. Dick Cheney has been wrong on everything else the last eight years."

Earlier in Evansville, Ind., Biden said that he and Democratic nominee Barack Obama would take a bipartisan spirit to the White House in working to revive the nation's economy and restore America's reputation in the world.

"We have to unite this country," Biden told about 1,600 people at a downtown rally. "We need to move past the political attacks that we have seen in the last few weeks of this campaign."