Vice President Joe Biden came to Minneapolis to give the Democratic Party faithful a pep talk touting President Barack Obama’s record and level a harsh attack on Mitt Romney’s policies that he said would cut programs for the middle class to provide tax cuts for millionaires.

Speaking to 1,500 partisans who packed a large hall at the Depot on Tuesday, Aug. 21, Biden said Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, and his running mate, Paul Ryan, are “good men,” but he said their policies offer the country “one of the starkest choices in memory.”

He said the GOP ticket would “let big banks write their own rules,” outsource more jobs overseas and make deep cuts in student financial aid, health care for the poor and Social Security for future generations, “all for massive tax cuts for the very wealthy.”

“They call their plan for the economy new, bold and gutsy,” he said. “What’s gutsy about giving millionaires another tax break? What’s bold about cutting Medicare and education and research and development? …

“What’s new about their plan? It’s not only not new, it’s not fair, it’s not right” for the middle class and the working poor, he said.

By contrast, Biden said, “the middle class is coming back” under Obama’s policies.

“If the middle class does well, everybody does well,” he said.

The president’s programs have saved 1 million and added 200,000 auto industry jobs, helped create 4.5 million jobs and provided 3 million more Pell grants to college students, Biden asserted. They have given veterans the health and education benefits they deserve, cut taxes for middle-class families and helped them refinance mortgages.

If re-elected, he pledged they would continue focusing on creating more middle-class jobs.

Noting that Democrats often complain that Republicans do a better job of boiling down their policies to bumper-sticker slogans, Biden offered this one: “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive. That kind of sums it up.”

Biden was introduced at the rally by Justin Ihle of Brooklyn Park, whose 5-year-old son was born with a genetic condition that has caused tumors in his heart, brain and kidneys. His health care expenses could have been catastrophic for the family, he said, had Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act not protected them from losing their insurance coverage.

“We didn’t have to worry about William being dropped from insurance because of a pre-existing condition … thanks to ‘Obamacare,’ ” Ihle said.

“This health care reform is a big deal.”

Biden said 298,000 Minnesota who had pre-existing conditions in the past now have health insurance.

Republicans were prepared for his assault.

Even before he spoke, Minnesota GOP Chairman Pat Shortridge issued a statement chiding the vice president for his verbal blunders, including his comment last week that banks would keep people “in chains” if deregulated.

“After careful study and analysis, it appears that Joe Biden’s gaffe tour is a clever campaign strategy by the Obama team,” Shortridge said. “Rather than spending time talking about the Obama-Biden team’s failed economic record, reporters are spending their time covering the vice president’s latest gaffes.

“Because VP Biden brings all of the president’s failed economic policies — cap-and-trade, regulating farm dust as a pollutant, massive spending and debt, the medical device tax — with none of the president’s eloquence, it’s important that the Obama administration put up a smoke screen. Time to cue up the Biden rhetorical magic.”

The rally was scheduled two days before Romney is slated to visit the Twin Cities for two fundraising receptions. He has no public events scheduled so far.

Minnesota has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1972, the longest streak in the nation. But J.P. Barone, the veteran 4th Congressional District DFL chairman, said Obama and Biden can’t take the state for granted, and the vice president’s visit shows they aren’t.

“Minnesota is always potentially a swing state,” Barone said. “I think Biden’s visit will help make sure that it remains potentially a swing state.”

Obama campaign spokeswoman Kristin Sosanie said the visit was “a sign the campaign is heating up.”

“People are excited to have a big name coming into town,” she said. “It’s a great booster for our grass-roots volunteers.”

Minnesota House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, said the polls he has seen show “the president is running fairly strong here.” He expects the Democratic ticket headed by Obama and Sen. Amy Klobuchar to spark a much larger voter turnout Nov. 6 than in 2010, when DFLers lost control of both the state House and Senate. That will help all Democrats on the ticket, he said.