How Bill Clinton boosts Obama’s re-election bid at U.S. Democrat Convention

UNITED States’ (U.S.) former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday lent his signature charisma to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign at the Democrat Convention, arguing that his party’s candidate had placed American on a path to renewed prosperity.

Therefore, Clinton declared before hundreds of delegates and by extension, millions of American voters and viewers globally that Obama deserved four more years to finish the job. Early in his speech, Clinton formally nominated Obama as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. “I want to nominate a man who’s cool on the outside — but who burns for America on the inside.”

The two-term former president told the Democratic convention that he believed “with all my heart” that the 44th president had led a remarkable, if incomplete, recovery. Addressing a split electorate less than nine weeks ahead of November’s election, Clinton said Obama had saved the economy from collapse and laid the foundation for the kind of growth seen during his own presidency in the 1990s. “No president – not me or any of my predecessors -– no one could have fully repaired all the damage he found in just four years,” Clinton said.

“He has laid the foundations for a new, modern successful economy of shared prosperity, and if you will renew the president’s contract, you will feel it. You will feel it.”

“Folks, whether the American people believe what I said or not may be the whole election, I just want you to know that I believe it,” Clinton said, his voice faltering slightly. “With all my heart I believe it.” After holding 15,000 of the Democratic faithful in Charlotte, North Carolina enthralled for over 45 minutes, Clinton was joined on stage by a smiling and energised Obama, leading to frenzied applause.

The Democratic standard bearers – estranged during Obama’s long 2008 primary battle with Hillary Clinton – then embraced on stage, symbolising a renewed determination to defeat their Republican rivals in November.

Obama also addressed the convention late yesterday night at the same venue. The campaign had cancelled plans for the president to give his nomination speech in a vast outdoor American football stadium, in which they had hoped to recreate the celebratory atmosphere of his 2008 convention address. Officials said they could not risk thunder and lightning disrupting the event, Obama’s best unfiltered chance to take his case to voters before the November 6 election, and moved the big set piece inside.

Setting the context for that address, Clinton, who was president between 1993 and 2001, offered a point-by-point rebuttal of the policies of Obama’s rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. “The most important question is, what kind of country do you want to live in?” he asked. “If you want a you’re-on-your-own, winner-take-all society, you should support the Republican ticket,” he said, referring to Romney’s vows to cut spending, ease regulations and reduce the size of government. Clinton also tried to give some empirical weight to the great ideological rift over economic policy that has come to define this election cycle.

“Since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats, 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private sector jobs. “So what’s the job score? Republicans, 24 million; Democrats, 42,” he said to cheers. Meanwhile, Clinton is as popular now as when he was inaugurated in 1993, with a 66 percent approval rating, according to a recent CNN poll. Even Romney campaign spokesman, Ryan Williams, praised the former president, saying that unlike Obama, he had “worked with Republicans, balanced the budget, and after four years, he could say you were better off.”
“President Clinton’s speech brought the disappointment and failure of President Obama’s time in office clearly into focus,” he said in a statement.

National polls put the rivals neck-and-neck, but Romney lags in key swing states and seems not to have received the bounce he was hoping for from last week’s Republican convention. “I want a man who believes with no doubt that we can build a new American Dream economy,” Clinton said. “After last night, I want a man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama,” Clinton quipped, drawing cheers and smiles from the First Lady the night after her own rousing convention speech.

In a roll call Democrats from all 50 states one-by-one announced their support for Obama, officially handing him the party nomination.

Source: Guardian

Romney’s camp faults Obama’s speech

President Barack Obama implored Americans to grant him a second term, warning Thursday that Republican rival Mitt Romney would kill the economic recovery and is not cut out to lead. Four years after he claimed power on a euphoric tide of hope, Obama bluntly warned the United States faced its most stark choice between rival political visions in a generation, and said he never said change would be quick or easy.
“The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place and I’m asking you to choose that future,” he said, warning that his Republican rival would gut the middle class and return to “blustering and blundering” abroad.

Sketching an agenda to create millions of jobs, cut $4 trillion from the deficit and revolutionize energy policy, Obama refused to abandon the hope of 2008, saying: “know this, America: our problems can be solved.”
The president spoke at the Democratic National Convention, exactly two months before the election, hoping to break open a knife-edge race with Romney, who paints him as out of ideas to nurse the sickly economy back to health.

Obama, 51, directly confronted the deflated hopes spawned when he became America’s first black president amid expectations he would lead a era of transformation. “The election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens — you were the change,” Obama said, citing his ending of the Iraq war, more rights for gays and lesbians and near universal health care. “If you turn away now — if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn’t possible — well, change will not happen.”
As 20,000 supporters packed into a sports arena chanted “four more years,” Obama launched a blistering critique of Romney and potential vice president Paul Ryan, candidates he said would lead America into dangerous waters abroad.

“My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy, but from all that we’ve seen and heard, they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly. “After all, you don’t call Russia our number one enemy — and not Al-Qaeda — unless you’re still stuck in a Cold War time warp. “You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally.

“My opponent said it was ‘tragic’ to end the war in Iraq, and he won’t tell us how he’ll end the war in Afghanistan. I have, and I will.” All night, at the last session of the convention, key Democrats lauded Obama as a steely commander-in-chief. Senator John Kerry suggested: “Ask Osama bin Laden if he’s better off than he was four years ago.”

Vice President Joe Biden said the president had a “spine of steel.”
Obama proclaimed that with him, Americans could stay with “leadership that has been tested and proven.”
Again and again, Obama cast the election as a choice — between his policies designed to lift up the pained middle class, and Romney’s “trickle down” policy that he said risked a return of recession. “When you pick up that ballot to vote — you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation,” Obama said, forecasting fateful choices looming on jobs and taxes and war and peace.

“America, I never said this journey would be easy, and I won’t promise that now. Yes, our path is harder — but it leads to a better place. Yes our road is longer — but we travel it together. We don’t turn back. We leave no one behind.”

Obama cast his speech as a rallying call for Americans to unite to tear open the gridlock that has paralyzed Washington, warning Romney would fire teachers, impoverish students, all to give more tax breaks to millionaires. “We’ve been there, we’ve tried that, and we’re not going back. We’re moving forward,” the president said, drawing lusty cheers. Obama also posed as a teller of hard truths, arguing that recovery was bound to be hard from the worst recession in decades.

“You elected me to tell you the truth,” Obama said.
“And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades.” Obama took the convention stage knowing that history suggests a sickly economy often dooms an incumbent president seeking re-election.

Romney, who made his own convention pitch to voters a week ago, did not immediately comment on the speech, but his campaign manager Matt Rhoades accused the president of laying out policies that had already failed.

“He offered more promises, but he hasn’t kept the promises he made four years ago,” Rhoades said.
“Americans will hold President Obama accountable for his record. They know they’re not better off and that it’s time to change direction.”

It seemed unlikely that Obama’s speech would break open the race with Romney, but it appeared to hit the mark in the hall. “This once in a lifetime experience was more than a rally cry, but a call to action. I’m more ready than ever to answer the call for Obama,” said John Matthew Borders IV of Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Tiffany Raspberry of Brooklyn, New York said she had never been prouder to be a Democrat.

Source: Vanguard

Obama orders God, Jerusalem back in party platform

US President Barack Obama ordered Democrats Wednesday to reinsert references to God and Jerusalem in their party platform, quickly moving to snuff out a damaging political row. The controversy had threatened to detract from the party’s drive to draw a sharp contrast with Republican nominee Mitt Romney on the eve of Obama’s crucial nominating speech on Thursday.

Delegates at their Charlotte, North Carolina convention had faced a torrent of Republican criticism and some from within the party after dropping pro-forma references to God and the party’s support for Jerusalem being recognized as the capital of Israel. A campaign official told AFP that the president, who has been hammered by Republicans who see him as too tough on Israel, personally intervened to have language on Jerusalem, a feature of past party platforms, restored.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Obama had also questioned why the party ever dispensed with language in the 2008 platform referring to America’s “God-given” potential. Amid chaotic scenes, Democrats began the second day of their nominating jamboree amending the platform they had adopted just 24 hours earlier.

Sensing the move may rile influential religious and Jewish voters, convention manager and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, asked for approval of a revised document. Proposing the motion, former Ohio governor Ted Strickland said “faith and belief in God is central to the American story” and “President Obama recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and our party’s platform should as well.”
But when a voice vote was called the “nays” appeared to match the “ayes.”

“I — I — I guess, I’ll do that one more time,” said an obviously flustered Villaraigosa. Despite the second attempt leading to a similar response, Villaraigosa declared: “In the opinion of that chair, two-thirds have voted in the affirmative. The motion is adopted, and the platform has been amended.” That sparked a chorus of boos from the floor.

Since 1992, Democrats have stated unequivocally that “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” but the US embassy remains in Tel Aviv pending an agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians on “final status” issues. The status of Jerusalem is one of the most contentious issues of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a thorny issue in US politics.

Democrat and Republican White Houses have long stated that Jerusalem’s final status should be decided by negotiations between the two parties. But thanks in large part to the influence of Jewish voters in key battleground states like Florida, relations with Israel are a hot button issue in US elections.

The platform is a largely symbolic document, which is often ignored by the powerful executive branch.

Source: Vanguard

Obama nominated after Clinton's rousing speech

 

In an impassioned speech that rocked the Democratic National Convention, former President Bill Clinton proclaimed Wednesday night, "I know we're coming back" from the worst economic mess in generations and appealed to hard-pressed Americans to stick with Barack Obama for a second term in the White House.

Obama strode onstage as Clinton concluded his speech. The 42nd president bowed, and was pulled into an embrace by the 44th as thousands of delegates jammed into the convention hall roared their approval.

Not long afterward, the delegates formally awarded Obama their nomination to a second term in a post-midnight roll call of the states, The Associated Press reports.

Clinton, conceding that many struggling in a slow-recovery economy don't yet feel improvement, said circumstances are indeed getting better, "and if you'll renew the president's contract you will feel it."

To more cheers, he said of Obama, "I want to nominate a man who is cool on the outside but who burns for America on the inside."

Clinton spoke as Obama's high command worked to control the political fallout from an embarrassing retreat on the party platform, just two months from Election Day in the tight race with Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Under criticism from Romney, the Obama camp abruptly rewrote the day-old document to insert a reference to God and to declare that Jerusalem "is and will remain the capital of Israel." Some delegates objected loudly, but Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, presiding in the largely-empty hall, ruled them outvoted. White House aides said Obama had personally ordered the changes, but they did not disclose whether he had approved the earlier version.

The convention concludes Thursday with Obama's acceptance speech before a prime- time national TV audience. Aides announced he would speak in the convention hall rather than a nearby 74,000-seat football stadium as originally planned. They cited weather concerns as the reason for the switch in a city that has been hit by heavy rains in recent days.

Obama's campaign hoped Clinton's speech would prove especially persuasive in an era of sluggish economic growth and 8.3 percent unemployment. Clinton is exceptionally popular 12 years after he left office, particularly among white men, a group among whom Obama polls poorly.

The speech was deemed so important to Obama's election prospects that convention planners delayed his formal nomination to a second term until Clinton had finished speaking. The familiar roll call of the states began well after television prime time in the eastern part of the country, and was on pace to last until well past midnight.

The speech was vintage Clinton, overlong for sure, insults delivered with a folksy grin, references to his own time in office and his wife Hillary, all designed to improve Obama's shaky re-election prospects.

The convention hall rocked with delegates' applause and cheers the former president strode onstage to sounds of "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow," his 1992 campaign theme song.

He sought to rebut every major criticism Republicans leveled against the president at their own convention last week in Tampa, and said that in fact, since 1961, far more jobs have been created under Democratic presidents than when Republicans sat in the White House â€" by a margin of 42 million to 24 million.

Clinton accused Republicans of proposing "the same old policies that got us into trouble in the first place" and led to a near financial meltdown. Those, he said, include efforts to provide "tax cuts for higher-income Americans, more money for defense than the Pentagon wants and ... deep cuts on programs that help the middle class and poor children."

"As another president once said, 'There they go again,'" he said, quoting Ronald Reagan, who often uttered the remark as a rebuke to Democrats. There was another reference to Reagan, whom Democrats routinely accused of advocating "trickle down economics" that favored the rich.

" We simply cannot afford to turn the reins of government over to someone who will double down on trickle-down," Clinton said.

Obama flew into his convention city earlier in the day and arrived in the hall in time for Clinton's speech.

On an unsettled convention day, aides scrapped plans for Obama to speak to a huge crowd in a 74,000 seat football stadium, citing the threat of bad weather in a city that has been pelted by heavy downpours in recent days.

Source: The Nation