Bill Clinton: Barack Obama is ready to lead
Bill Clinton was the first of the major speakers last night. After an almost endless amount of applause, he quickly got down to business.
“Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she’ll do everything she can to elect Barack Obama. That makes two of us. Actually that makes 18 million of us.”
Clinton hearkened back to his first presidential run in 1992. He faced many of the same criticisms as Obama currently faces. “Together, we prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be Commander-in-Chief. Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won’t work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.” (Clinton was 45 in 1992; Obama is 47.)
Clinton also made the call Republicans have been really hammering Obama about. Point blank, Clinton said “Obama is ready to lead.”
Clinton had some great moments of the positivity of the American spirit abroad: “The world has always been more impressed by the power of our example than in the example of our power.”
He also had a hard attack for John McCain and George Bush, after a moment to praise McCain’s record of service: “on the two great questions of this election, how to rebuild the American Dream and how to restore America’s leadership in the world, he still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years, a philosophy we never had a real chance to see in action until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented.
They took us from record surpluses to an exploding national debt; from over 22 million new jobs down to 5 million; from an increase in working family incomes of $7,500 to a decline of more than $2,000; from almost 8 million Americans moving out of poverty to more than 5 and a half million falling into poverty and millions more losing their health insurance.
Now, in spite of all the evidence, their candidate is promising more of the same: More tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that will swell the deficit, increase inequality, and weaken the economy. More band-aids for health care that will enrich insurance companies, impoverish families and increase the number of uninsured. More going it alone in the world, instead of building the shared responsibilities and shared opportunities necessary to advance our security and restore our influence.
They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more. Let’s send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks. In this case, the third time is not the charm. ”
Overall, just an incredible speech. I can’t wait to see him on the trail.
He ended it with a line that bridged his campaign’s and Obama’s:
“If, like me, you still believe America must always be a place called Hope, then join Hillary, Chelsea and me in making Senator Barack Obama the next President of the United States.”
