Washington | Feb 1

AFP - US Vice President Joe Biden spelled out a blunt re-election message for his boss President Barack Obama on Tuesday -- "Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive."

Biden's comment at a Texas fundraiser came as Obama stepped up his drive to claim credit for rescuing the iconic US car industry, as he took a spin around the Washington auto show and declared "the US auto industry is back."

The vice president boiled down Obama's State of the Union message into some pithy sound bites at a fundraiser in Fort Worth expected to raise more than $150,000 for the re-election campaign.

Biden hailed Obama as a champion of America's hard-pressed middle classes as they emerge from the deepest recession since the 1930s and said the president had kept his promise to pull US troops out of Iraq.

"But the best way to sum up the job the president has done --- if you need a real shorthand -- Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive," Biden said, adding that he was passing on a line suggested to him by a supporter.

Biden also suggested that the bitter race for the Republican nomination was helping his and Obama's chances in November's presidential election.

"For the first time, the Republicans are not hiding the ball. ... They are saying what they believe, God love them. They are not even pretending."

"This is going to be one heck of a race. I think we are doing better and better every day, ... in no small part because they are making it clear what they are for."

GM regains crown as world's top-selling automaker