 He'd fit his own background growing up amid coal mining hardships in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Reporters traveling with a candidate ignored Biden's curious remarks. They considered it unnewsworthy because he'd previously been crediting Kinnock. A Maureen Dowd of the New York Times who had not been there magnified the events that day later with the help of the staff of Michael Dukakis' rival campaign. With a front-page account of Biden's deception, it led to new accusations of plagiarism and so forth.