The Washington Times - August 17, 2012, 07:39PM

After a gaffe-filled week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden will go back on the campaign trail next week with visits to three relatively “safe” Democratic states.

Mr. Biden will travel on Tuesday for campaign events in Minnesota, where President Obama leads presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney by an average of 10.5 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average of polls.

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On Wednesday, the vice president will campaign in Michigan, where the Democratic ticket is ahead by an average of 7.7 points. And on Friday, Mr. Biden and his wife, Jill, will attend campaign events in New York state, where Mr. Obama leads Mr. Romney by an average of 25.5 percentage points.

The vice president garnered negative attention several times this week on a campaign swing through the battleground states of North Carolina and Virginia. He told a largely black audience that Mr. Romney wanted to put them “back in chains” by easing Wall Street reforms; he urged voters in Virginia to help him win North Carolina; and he wondered aloud why the U.S. couldn’t lead the world in auto manufacturing “in the 20th century,” an observation that was 12 years too late.