Vice President Joe Biden's recent "chains" remark a poor choice of words, but not a racially tinged one, said Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, on Sunday's Meet the Press..
Biden raised eyebrows earlier in the week during a stop in Danville, VA, when he argued that Republicans wanted to deregulate financial institutions and "unchain Wall Street." He went on to tell an audience that included hundreds of black people that "they're going to put y'all back in chains."
"It was certainly an indelicate choice of words," said O'Malley.
O'Malley, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and a potential 2016 presidential candidate, added that he didn't think Biden's argument had anything to do with race."There's not a racist bone in Joe Biden's body," he said.
Instead, O'Malley argued, Biden was merely playing on GOP claims about "unshackling" the economy.
During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Obama senior campaign advisor Robert Gibbs also argued that Biden's remarks were not racially motivated. It's "no more race baiting than when John Boehner says, ‘let’s unshackle Wall Street, let’s unshackle big business,’” argued Gibbs.
Douglas Wilder, Virginia's former Democratic governor, and the nation's first elected black governor, slammed Biden on CNN earlier this week. "Biden's remarks brought race into the campaign and they were not necessary," Wilder said.