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Well, at least BILL Clinton agrees with Obama
I just saw this over at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bill-clinton-flashback-al_n_96433.html
This is what Bill was saying in 1991 when he was running for President:
"You know, he [Bush] wants to divide us over race. I'm from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they're gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they've been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, 'What happened to everybody's job? What happened to everybody's income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?'"
Compare these remarks to Obama's statement, reported by Mayhill Fowler for Huffington Post's OffTheBus:
Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter). [...]
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
I wonder if Hillary thought he was being condescending, but kept it to herself like she did her misgivings about NAFTA?
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Comments (6)
Truth is irrelevant, seems. But I think it will win out, long run, meaning November.
April 13, 2008 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
We'll see. BTW, someone else posted this first, which is probably why it is not going anywhere. (I didn't see it until after I posted it or I wouldn't have done it.)
Thanks for the comment anyway, Tom
April 13, 2008 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If [Republicans] could cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, middle-class Americans would see fewer benefits from their tax dollars, feel more resentful paying taxes, and become even more receptive to their appeals for tax cuts and their strategy of waging campaigns on divisive social and cultural issues like abortion, gay rights, and guns."
-- Bill Clinton, in his 2004 memoirs, My Life
April 14, 2008 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
And Jim Webb does, too. See this op-ed piece in the WSJ from 2006.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246
April 14, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
And this too
Bill Clinton, in his 2004 memoirs, My Life, making the same argument as Sen. Barack Obama.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/13/historical_quote_of_the_day.html
My Life "If [Republicans] could cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, middle-class Americans would see fewer benefits from their tax dollars, feel more resentful paying taxes, and become even more receptive to their appeals for tax cuts and their strategy of waging campaigns on divisive social and cultural issues like abortion, gay rights, and guns." - Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
April 14, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
What offends me most is that Clinton and McCain are giving the true racists a reason to celebrate their supremacy without having to use the words 'Uppity Nigger' behind their breath and now, the can get away with it. That 20% Who Only Vote White she knew she could reach.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Secrecy_and_propriety_in_Kentucky.html#comments
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/wayne-lapierre.html#comments
Secrecy and propriety in Kentucky
Um:
U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis, a Hebron Republican, compared Obama and his message for change similar to a "snake oil salesman" [at a Northern Kentucky Lincoln Day dinner].
He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner that he also recently participated in a "highly classified, national security simulation" with Obama.
"I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button," Davis said. "He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country."
April 14, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
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