Two longtime friendly rivals — Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. John McCain [R-Ariz.] — shared the stage at the Sedona Forum’s opening dinner on Friday, April 26.
The nation’s fiscal struggles, terrorism, gun control, the use of torture after 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15 were among the topics of conversation before a few hundred attendees of the second annual invitation-only event, hosted by the McCain Institute for International Leadership at a Sedona resort. During the talk, Biden also admitted that the beginning of the Great Recession in the months before the 2008 presidential election — which pitted then-Sen. Barack Obama [D-Ill.] and running mate Biden against McCain and running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — is what might have kept McCain out of the White House.
“The truth of the matter is, Barack knows it, I know, had the economy not collapsed around your ears, John, in the middle of — literally as things were moving — I think you probably would have won,” Biden said. “But it would have been incredibly, incredibly, incredibly close. You inherited a really difficult time.”
For the full story, see the Wednesday, May 1, edition of The Camp Verde Journal or the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
