Former president Bill Clinton brought the delegates to their feet as he told them that the nation couldn’t afford to “double down on trickle down.”
If Ronald Reagan was the Great Communicator, Clinton is the Great Explainer. In a 45 minute long speech that wandered quite a bit from his prepared statement (one of the biggest laugh lines of the night about voting for the man who married Michelle Obama was ad libbed), Clinton methodically made his case that not only is America better off now than four years ago, but that Barack Obama must be re-elected.
As some might remember, Clinton had his own problems when he was president. Clinton also had to deal with a combative Congress and he brought that experience to bear in his speech, saying, “I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats.”
He argued that Obama has been good for the economy, something others have tried to do, but with nowhere near the same effect. He argued, from the view-point of a former president whose budgets delivered surpluses, that Romney’s numbers do not add up. A very direct attack on what is supposed to be Romney’s strength.
Some big laugh lines:
“People ask me all the time how we delivered four surplus budgets…I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic.”
“Their pollster said, ‘we are not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.’ Finally I can say, that is true.”
What did you think of Bill Clinton’s speech? Did it make you feel nostalgic for the ’90s? Or did you think that he just rambled on too long?
You can read the transcript (minus the extemporaneous parts) here.
Photo credit: whitehouse.gov