In case you needed proof of an enthusiasm deficit on the left, you need look no further than Vice President Joe Biden’s rally at Penn State earlier this week. The event was a hybrid campaign booster and get-out-the-vote effort held this past Tuesday afternoon in the campus’s student union building.

Organizers estimated some 1,000 attendees, citing room capacity, but roughly a third of the hall was either off-limits for stage and cameras, or otherwise empty on the fringes. Indeed, the rally was originally to be held in a 7,000-seat hall, where the Clintons campaigned in 2008 during the presidential primary, but was moved to the smaller venue due to comparably lackluster demand.

On a campus of 40,000, in a hamlet of 80,000, in a county that went blue for President Obama in 2008, that the vice president attracted only 1,000 — generously speaking — is rather remarkable.

Prior to the rally, be-suited staff distributed homemade signs with phrases like “LGBT for Joe,” “PSU <3s Joe,” and the rather odd, “Fact Based Voter!”

Biden’s remarks were generally well received by a crowd, which was probably roughly two-thirds student and one-third administrator or local resident.

The vice president spoke mainly about the challenges that the Democrats progressive agenda faced from a hostile and angry Tea Party-fueled electorate. Biden received a surprisingly flat response, though, to his talking points on tax cuts for middle class (rather than the “wealthy”) and tuition assistance.

As Battle ‘10 reported earlier this week, the president warned about the power of the Tea Party to influence the election.

“I don’t think the people are going to give them a chance again if we make the case, if we’re honest with them,” Biden told the crowd. “This is not your father’s Republican Party. This is the Republican Tea Party, no this is a different deal, guys. This is not Bob Dole. This is not Howard Baker. This is not straightforward conservative, conservative Republicans, like the Tafts of the world. This is a different breed of cat.”

“Folks,” continued the vice president. “if we allow this to be a referendum on whether people are happy where they are now, we’ll lose, and we’ll deserve to lose if we make it a referendum. … We have to do everything we can to make this a choice, an honest choice.”

Meanwhile, as is typical of college campuses, students held their own counter-events.

“The Penn State College Republicans hosted a recruitment event outside while the vice president spoke,” club vice chairman Anthony Christina told Battle ‘10, saying “we got a great response from students who stopped by our tent.”

Sam Settle, president of Young Americans for Freedom, led a protest outside of the building. Their protest, called a “Rally for Jobs,” was “meant to highlight the fact that the Obama administration, despite having been brought to power by the youth vote, has done nothing for the youth,” Settle told Battle ‘10.

“Young people are employed at under 50 percent,” said Settle, and “college tuition costs are rising faster than health care costs, and new policies threaten our access to private student loans.”