Thursday, September 06, 2012

ELECTION 2012 - Bill Clinton's Speech

"Bill Clinton to DNC: Barack Obama's Economic Plan Passes Arithmetic, Values Test" PBS Newshour 9/5/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Former president Bill Clinton nominated President Barack Obama as the the Democratic Party's 2012 presidential candidate at the close of the DNC Wednesday. In his speech, he countered the Republican Party's main criticisms of Mr. Obama, heavily emphasizing the president's economic successes and plan for the next four years.

(50:13 min)

Significant excerpts (source National Post)

He (President Obama) also tried to work with Congressional Republicans on Health Care, debt reduction, and jobs, but that didn’t work out so well. Probably because, as the Senate Republican leader, in a remarkable moment of candor, said two years before the election, their number one priority was not to put America back to work, but to put President Obama out of work.


In Tampa, the Republican argument against the President’s re-election was pretty simple: we left him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.

In order to look like an acceptable alternative to President Obama, they couldn’t say much about the ideas they have offered over the last two years. You see they want to go back to the same old policies that got us into trouble in the first place: to cut taxes for high income Americans even more than President Bush did; to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts; to increase defense spending two trillion dollars more than the Pentagon has requested without saying what they’ll spend the money on; to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, especially programs that help the middle class and poor kids. As another President once said – there they go again.


President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. No President – not me or any of my predecessors could have repaired all the damage in just four years. But conditions are improving and if you’ll renew the President’s contract you will feel it.


As their (Republican) campaign pollster said “we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.” Now that is true.

ALSO: "Shields, Brooks Review Bill Clinton's Speech to the DNC" PBS Newshour 9/5/2012

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