Obama: A Vote For Me Is Vote For Bill Clinton Economy
Over the summer Bill Clinton was reported to be miffed that Barack Obama wasn't talking up the successes of the Clinton economy as a way of making the case that Americans are better off when Dems are in power.
If that's true, Bill will be cheered by the speech Obama gave moments ago in Sarasota, Florida, where he basically said that a vote for him was a vote for a Bill Clinton economy. Here's what he said:
The average working family is $2,000 dollars poorer now than when George Bush took office. When Bill Clinton was president, the average wages and incomes went up $7,500 dollars. So I've got an economic plan that is similar to Bill Clinton's and Senator McCain's got an economic plan similar to George Bush's. Look and see what works and what doesn't.
Those last two lines weren't in Obama's prepared remarks yesterday, but now they appear to have been cycled into his stump speech now.
In another bit of interesting ad-libbing, Obama hit John McCain and Sarah Palin for making a "virtue out of selfishness," and embellished a bit on his "peanut butter and jelly" push-back from yesterday against McCain's efforts to paint him as a closet socialist. Speaking of Obama's desire to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the very rich, Obama said:
John McCain and Sarah Palin, they call this socialistic. Y'know, I don't know when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness. Y'know, the next thing I know, they're gonna find evidence of my communistic tendencies because I shared my toys in kindergarten -- cause I split my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with my friend in sixth grade.
As I argued yesterday, the politics of peanut butter and jelly are more complex than they appear.
They were in the live speech. I watched it.
October 30, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup, yup. I saw the speech live and they were in it.
October 30, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great line. Very simple and direct.
October 30, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
You talkin' about mine or Obama's ? ;)
October 30, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup: polls are tightening just a bit and Obama suddenly finds it good to praise Bill Clinton just a bit where he is highly popular.
Obama is a user and will drop the Clintons the moment he gets elected.
October 30, 2008 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even rednecks have a limit.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/campaign-sign-o.html
I love the sign.
October 30, 2008 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
O that's too too good!
I fucking love that - LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!
October 30, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent.
October 30, 2008 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can't fool all the people all the time.
Democracy NOW!
October 30, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I loved the part where Obama says taking on the issues won't be easy....Bush has dug a deep hole for the past eight years and now he wants to hand the SHOVEL over to McCain?
October 30, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I forgot about that line. It was an excellent metaphor.
October 30, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The Virtue of Selfishness" is a book by Ayn Rand, of course. Rand was the ideological mentor of Alan Greenspan, who has since repudiated some of her ideas in recent Congressional testimony.
I don't know if McCain has read Rand, but I'm sure his campaign staff is full of her "Objectivist" worshippers. This'll have them frothing at the eyeballs.
October 30, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find it unbelievably pathetic that so many supposed grown-ups are influenced by that total hack, Rand.
For a novelist, she was a pretty good typist.
Those books of hers are only fit to be read by 14 year olds and for actual adults to think her philosophy is somehow profound enough to build an entire movement on is the biggest scam since L. Ron Hubbard thought up Scientology on a bar bet, which is how that "religion" came to be.
October 30, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Total co-sign, Tena.
Ugh. Don't even get me started on Rand.
October 30, 2008 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The key to Rand's success was in cloaking Asperger's syndrome as moral ideology.
October 30, 2008 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Huh?
October 30, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
What an interesting comment.
October 30, 2008 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I, for one, would love it explicated.
October 30, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you familiar with Asperberger's Syndrome?
It's sometimes described as a mild form of autism (which is a bit misleading, because there is no one form of "autism", but whatever). Individuals with Asperberger's syndrome exhibit problems with social interactions. In less jargony language, they don't exhibit the same social and emotional responses that individuals without Asperger's do. They may react inappropriately, or fail to make eye contact, etc. This can lead to some misleading perceptions on the part of other people and problems with relationships.
October 30, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I'm familiar big-time. My daughter is autistic. I was just trying to tease out from the poster why it was relevant here. Sorry to have made you write all of that, I wasn't looking to give you work.:)
And I get the what the poster attempts here, I'm just getting kind of tired of all the pop references to autism. I'm not at all sensitive or PC about the subject, I just find using it as a reference to politics a bit lame.
It also is a wicked generalization of people with Asperger's.
Not your post, CT. Want to make that clear.
October 30, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, no problems whatsoever. I read "The Fountainhead" about a million years ago, and I took the comment to suggest that Roark (was that his name?) had Asperger's syndrome.
October 30, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ahh! That's what I was wondering, what the comment referred to. I've never read the book, though I have always been aware of what Rand means to conservatives. There were like a million and a half books at the library waiting for me in line before Rand. lol
October 30, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have you ever read "Send in the Idiots" by Kamran Nazeer? Absolutely fascinating look at autistic kids and their journey into adulthood (the author is autistic). I got pointed to it by one of our researchers here who's looking into the genetics of autism. Great read!
October 30, 2008 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read and LOVED The Fountainhead when I was 19.............that whole iconoclast/renegade thing appealled to me. Didn't pay attention to philosophy......it was a good story, as i remember.
October 30, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I cannot read her.
She is one of the most egregious hacks ever. I actually read the first couple of chapters of Atlas Shrugged and threw the fucking book at the wall and then in the trash and I don't throw books away lightly.
She never could write. She wrote the most turgid potboilers this side of Sidney Shelton.
October 30, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
For a novelist, she was a pretty good typist.
I am so stealing that.
October 30, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think her books are fine. It's the people who worship her who have a problem.
In fact, I'd love to be in a reading group that discussed Fountainhead, Walden, and The Communist Manifesto in one setting, looking for not just the differences, but the similarities as well. All of them contain flaws, and all of them contain gems.
October 30, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said, as usual, Tena.
October 30, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Failed artists are dangerous people.
October 30, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, for certain pyschopaths, war is art continued by other means. Check out 'The Architecture of Doom', a great German documentary, if you haven't already.
October 30, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're having a hell of a group therapy session down there in Florida. Hopefully Bill is feeling better about himself now.
http://pufferfish.typepad.com/
October 30, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I loved the part where Obama says taking on the issues won't be easy....Bush has dug a deep hole for the past eight years and now he wants to hand the SHOVEL over to McCain?
October 30, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mocking your opponent ia a tactic straight out of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" which both Barack and Hillary read as young adults. You can really see some of the best of Alinsky, taken to an audacious level, in this campaign. This community-based direct action that the Obama ground game is based on is the real Chicago Way.
October 30, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love that sign. Even rednecks have had enough. "Rednecks for Obama".
October 30, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's one of the most awesome things I've seen all week.
I especially love the Confederate flag they turned the O in Obama into.
Could that be any more of a sign of what's going on?
October 30, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
It just gives you so much hope. Exactly where we need things to go.
October 30, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
OT...just for shits, grins, and giggle.
I was discussing the campaign today with a small group standing in a store line> One person was full of wide-eyed anger about Obama's tax plan, the economy, and the bail out. I casually chipped in and said, "think about it...none of this would ever have happened if Gore of Kerry had been elected.
I got a lot of laughs from everyone.
October 30, 2008 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
That gave me a chuckle. I'll have to remember that one.
October 30, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
i think it was a good thing for the obama campaign to only use president clinton and senator clinton (and now vice president gore) in events in battleground states.
i remember people were wondering why president clinton and senator clinton weren't campaigning with sen. obama and thought that might be a problem. i think now that we're within a week of election day, the high profile rallies are more effective because they were used so sparingly. if hillary and bill were at every rally since the convention like most people expected them to be, the speech/rally in florida would not have the impact that it may have (it could push obama over the top with some of the undecideds still left).
October 30, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't acknowledge that Sen. Clinton has been on the campaign alll over the country for Obama.
She has not waited - she has been magnificent. She has shown the most amazing amount of character and real love for country.
Props to the Clintons - this was not easy for them.
October 30, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, you have to figure that the way the press played up bad blood between them ultimately made their rapprochement more dramatic in the public's eyes. It also conveys the sense that there are numerous powerful leaders among the Dems, while the other side is full of Larry Craigs and Kit Bonds, if you know what I mean.
October 30, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Co-sign. Hill has been fantastic. And I thought Bill was fired up last night.
October 30, 2008 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Co-sign about a thousand times. Hillary Clinton has been all over. But most people don't realize it, because the national media only salivate when Hillary is with Barack. She's worked hard for him.
My admiration for her strength of character has skyrocketed.
October 30, 2008 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
FTFY
October 30, 2008 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
agreed. I'm proud to have voted for her in the primaries, I'm happy to have already to have voted for Obama in the election, and I'm happy (and maybe a little too expectant--this ain't going to be easy) to see both of them attack health care.
I guess seeing them work together pulls things back together, which is the point. (does that make any sense at all?!?)
October 30, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am a sucker for little kids and especially babies.
The last pic in this series especially moved me. The little girl in the last pic has the most beautiful expressive eyes. The way she is looking at Obama is uplifting.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/30/babies-and-bigger-kids-fo_n_139183.html
October 30, 2008 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish you wouldn't do that to me - it's too early to cry.
;)
October 30, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry. Didn't mean to make anyone cry. I just wanted to share the love.
Here, this one will make you laugh. The kids' reaction to McCain will put a smile on your face. :-)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/21/babies-for-mccain-slidesh_n_136595.html
October 30, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thx Zemer. The Old guy's pics with kids were precious, especially the first one.
I have a whole of collection babies for Obama pics.
October 30, 2008 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a few more if you wish.
http://yeswecanholdbabies.wordpress.com/
October 30, 2008 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thx. Added both to my collection.
October 30, 2008 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
O too funny.
Thanks for that antidote. Jeez that old man is scary!!!!
October 30, 2008 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for sharing those photos. The children know who is nice and who is awful. I love that last picture with mccain and the baby. It would make a fine avatar.
October 30, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
there is another picture with a baby girl who is a cabbage patch kid clone that makes me laugh....she is looking at Obama with a
"who the fuck are you, you ain't my daddy" look....
October 30, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Email from the Obama campaign, just in.
OK, so are we behind re $$$? Doesn't compute to me yet...
I actually sent another $50 this morning (before this email) but looks like I gotta send another.
October 30, 2008 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I sent another 250 last night.
That's my last donation.
October 30, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The early votes have to be coming in in droves today after last night's primetime ad.
Hey Greg, is there a way to find out what kind of increase each state sees in early voting today because of last night? I'm sure we'll all curious to see what kind of upswing Obama got with physical votes, not just polls.
October 30, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gallup looking good for O today! Maintains 7-point lead in the LV expanded and now up 5 in the LV traditional. Dropped from a 9 to 8 point lead in all RV category, but I'll trade the other two for that... I think last night and today the momentum's shifted again. I think it actually began to shift with Obama's "shared toys/peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich" joke yesterday, which wasted McCain's hysterical "socialist" meme.
We're in the homestretch now and gaining speed...
October 30, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well golly gee, every Republican I know still to this day tells me Clinton left our economy in a shambles and Bush "freed us" from that disaster!
In fact, I just had this argument with someone LAST NIGHT who claims any and all economic disasters ended in 2000 and began again in November 2006!
Asked why they thought this? Because that's what he hears every night on Glenn Beck!
I just logged on a few minutes ago, but I do want to thank whoever put the link up showing Joe The Plumber dissing McCain this morning at a rally by not showing up! AND, just mere hours after Obama reached 26 million people!
YUK! YUK! YUK!
October 30, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Really? I know quite a few Bush voters who by '04 were wishing with all their hearts for Clinton to be back in office.
October 30, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I made the trek out to the western Chicago suburbs last night, which is deep Republican Country - the hardcore righties who make up a good chunk of Fox News demographics. They believe everything they hear as long as it bashes Democrats and liberals.
But, like you, I also know a few people who voted for Bush and now feel very, very sorry for doing so.
October 30, 2008 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
According to the front page, 23% of Texans still think he's a Muslim, too, so I hear ya.
*sigh*
October 30, 2008 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could Oilbama, who voted for the Bush Cheney Energy Bill, be any more of a scumbag?
First the clueless freshman Senator, with ZERO legistlative accomplishments, trashes Bill Clinton as a Racist, and tarnishes his economic accomplishments downplaying his Presidential acumen, while bragging about himself and his capacity to bring Hope and Change, and now Oilbama claims a Vote for him is a Vote for a Bill Clinton economy. Oilbama is a scumsucking leech who will say anything to get elected.
October 30, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
ROFLMAO!
You're the bestest parody troll evah!
October 30, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
A Dem who bashes Obama - still bitter about Hillary, are we??
October 30, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Probably. So was Bill Clinton. So was George Bush. So was Ronald Reagan. So is pretty much any other successful candidate for high office in this country. If you want a saint, go to church. I am not really looking for moral perfection in a president. I will be content with mere competence and vision, and Obama has the edge on those over John McCain. If Bill Clinton does not hold a grudge, why are you trying to hold one on his behalf?
October 30, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perfect!
And O/T: I'm making phone calls to voters in Indiana on behalf of the Obama campaign.
(and trying to subtly influence my students here in CT on behalf of Obama. Which is probably unnecessary. One of my advisees just told me that the prevailing sentiment among undergraduates is that if McCain wins, they're all moving to Canada. Bless their little liberal hearts.)
October 30, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Knock off Shays! Puh-leeeze!
October 30, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Will Obama use DNC money if he needs it?
October 30, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been sending $5 every other week for months, and I am done. I am one of those single moms that is one paycheck away from whatever, AND I have never been prouder to contribute to a political campaign.
October 30, 2008 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anybody seen the TPM Trollbegone spray?
October 30, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're pesky, like ticks. You gotta pull them all the way out or the head stays stuck in there and regrows a body.
October 30, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Everyone's voting in a few days. Their minds are made up. Barring some massive event (like a stroke), nothing is going to change between now and Nov.4th. Anyone undecided at this point is ignorant and impulsive anyway. They are either going to cast a knee jerk vote for McCain or against Palin. Obama has made his case, and convinced those he's going to convince. So... essentially, the campaigns are over.
CAN we begin to focus no the next real issue?
WHOEVER WINS
Round up the corporate thieves, take back their stolen money, balance Bush's bull**** budget,
Spit upon all of them as we throw them in jail! OIL Goons, Bank Leaches, and the Executive Admin that paved their way. Pitooooey!
http://thetruthburns.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/put-these-wall-street-criminals-where-they-belong/
October 30, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink