On Stump in Toledo, Biden Attacks Republican Rivals Madalyn Ruggiero/Associated Press Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. engaged with the crowd Thursday before speaking at a union hall in Toledo, Ohio. TOLEDO, Ohio - Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the White House's preferred emissary to the Rust Belt, swept into his political sweet zone on Thursday, touting the administration's economic record to a spirited gathering at the United Auto Workers Local 12 hall. He talked up the American auto industry, praised President Obama's convictions and criticized the Republican presidential candidates by name - repeatedly - accusing them of being "about protecting the privileged sector." "I am laying out a clear and stark difference between us and our opponents," Mr. Biden said before a friendly crowd of about 500, many of them employees of a Jeep plant, among this northwest Ohio city's biggest employers. Mr. Biden's drop-in to this electorally vital area was billed as a first salvo in a more formal phase of the 2012 presidential campaign. While the re-election effort started months ago - with both Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden appearing at multiple fund-raisers and campaignlike events - the vice president's visit here was the first stump stop that the White House called an official campaign event. Mr. Obama was speaking at the same time in Maryland, defending his energy policies at a rally in often spirited and sometimes sarcastic tones against unnamed Republicans who are promising to bring down gas prices. Mr. Obama said criticism of him - from people "who are running for a certain office" - revealed a streak of ignorance similar to those who predicted that cars would not supplant horse-drawn buggies or that television would never elbow out radio. "If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail, they must have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society," Mr. Obama said to a cheering crowd at Prince George's Community College. But Mr. Biden was more pronounced in his derision of their would-be opponents in the fall. It was perhaps a preview of the hard-hitting tones that the re-election campaign is expected to strike in coming months - with Mr. Biden taking the more aggressive tack to allow the president to remain a bit more presidential. The vice president's rally here had all the trappings of the stump settings where the extroverted deputy is unquestionably at home - 2012 signs (with the zero forming the Obama "O"), campaign buttons and a lectern decked out in a big flag and an "economy built to last" placard. Before his speech, some scattered cries of the 2008"s rallying mantra - "fired up, ready to go" - emanated from pockets of the T-shirted crowd. Mr. Biden's language was also more nakedly political than his typical vice-presidential speeches. It included explicit denunciations of the remaining Republican candidates - Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and particularly Mitt Romney, who the White House still views as its more likely and formidable challenger in the fall. "Stated simply, we're about promoting the private sector; they're about protecting the privileged sector," Mr. Biden said. We're a fair shot, and a fair shake. They're about no rules, no risk and no accountability. For months, Republicans have portrayed the administration as big daddies of bailouts, handouts and entitlements. Speaking in Toledo, home of a Jeep plant and sixty miles from Detroit, Mr. Biden said the administration's decision to support the embattled auto industry in 2009 was correct, despite opposition from many Republicans - namely Mr. Romney, who suggested that Detroit might have been better off had automakers been left to navigate their way through bankruptcy without any government help. "The verdict is in," Mr. Biden said. President Obama was right, and they were dead wrong. The vice president pounded away, chiding Republicans for their assertions that the private sector could have provided the auto industry with the money it needed to get back to stability. It was those red-meat lines, singling out the opposition, that most delighted the crowd. When Mr. Biden said Mr. Santorum had dismissed the administration's support of the auto industry as "a payoff to special interests," one man in the back shouted out with a sarcastic refrain, "Special interests, working people." When Mr. Biden contended that "Gingrich, Romney and Santorum, they don't let the facts get in the way," he was buoyed by a chorus of boos. "Ready to rumble," called out a man in a U.A.W. shirt. "You tell "em." Toledo was the first of four campaign stops for the vice president in crucial states over the next month. He is expected to visit Florida next week, another destination that is familiar turf for the ever-tanned Mr. Biden, who has a long history of support from the state's many Jewish voters, some of whom say the administration is not committed enough to the security of Israel. Mr. Biden is clearly at home in the classic retail political settings of blue-collar America. Unlike his boss - and, for that matter, Mr. Romney - no one accuses Mr. Biden of being distant, professorial or someone who struggles to "connect." "I always felt he was a carefree guy, someone we could relate to" said Mike Kaminsky, a retired U.A.W. member who spent 25 years at Jeep in Toledo. After leaving the union hall rally, Mr. Biden detoured to a local Chrysler parts complex, where he greeted workers during a midafternoon shift change. He slipped off his navy blue suit coat and immediately affirmed his working-class credentials. "I am union and U.A.W.," the vice president declared, "from belt buckle to shoe soles." Mark Landler contributed reporting from Largo, Md.