Last night former President Clinton knocked his speech out of the park. President Clinton was able to communicate to both delegates and the American people about the progress that the economy has made and will make. President Clinton stated loudly “neither he nor any of his predecessors could have fixed the mess that the economy was in within the four years that President Obama has been in office.” It was clear that President Clinton was in rare form as he was able to touch on all the issues that were key to the swing state voters. President Clinton said repeatedly that when President Obama took office he inherited an economic climate that was losing over seven hundred thousand jobs each month. President Clinton went on to say that President Obama was able to put a bandage on that bleeding of job loss and has put together a streak of months with positive job creation. Nevertheless, the second night of the convention was much like the first with President Clinton hammering home the need for change in the way the middle class is treated. Bill Clinton stated that the economy is developed through the middle out not the top down. President Clinton championed the middle class and stated the middle class needed the tax break more than the wealthy. President Clinton then restated an astonishing fact “Who’s right?” Well, since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What’s the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 million!” The theme of the night, and for the convention for that matter, was to outline ways to grow the middle class, which has been shrinking for the last 30 years. President Clinton outlined President Obama’s plan of increasing spending in infrastructure and education. President Clinton also said President Obama has encouraged college education when others have called it snobbish. President Clinton’s speech was one of the greatest he has delivered since leaving the office of the presidency. He emphasized the middle class and was able to make the face of the Democratic Party the face of the middle class. President Bill Clinton said it best “ We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think ‘we’re all in this together’ is a better philosophy than ‘you’re on your own.’” It is clear that the middle class is the focus of the convention and the campaign for presidency. As James Carville has famously said,“ It’s the Middle Class, Stupid!”
~Andrew Cheek~
