Clinton Saves Obama in Charlotte

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who is still popular among Americans, tried to explain at the Democratic National Convention why the American public still needs Barack Obama. He managed to do so — much better than Obama has at times.

When it comes to outstanding presidents that are remembered by contemporary Americans — figures who they saw in the flesh and heard with their own ears rather than simply reading about them — there have only been two of them: Ronald Reagan, a Republican, and Bill Clinton, a Democrat. The Republicans’ misfortune is that the first one “was,” whereas the latter still “is.”

Yesterday at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, Clinton showed today’s politicians, including Barack Obama, how to effectively talk to people.

Obama himself asked Clinton to officially offer his nomination as a presidential candidate of 2012 on behalf of the Democratic Party. After the speech given by the former president, he went on stage to embrace Clinton heartily.

Only four years ago, such thing would have been impossible: During the Democratic primaries of 2008, Obama defeated Hillary Clinton, Bill’s wife, in an aggressive campaign. He almost distanced himself from Bill Clinton and, between the lines, suggested that the former president had neither ambition nor a great vision. Obama set serious goals for himself with the intent to change America. In contrast, during Clinton’s two terms, he only wanted to improve upon a country that he already saw as good.

During Wednesday night (Polish time) it was revealed that Bill Clinton generously forgave Obama past pride. He fulfilled the task that he was assigned with exceptional spirit and faith, which was lauded by commentators from both the left and right. Yet the Clinton family would benefit from Obama’s possible defeat in the coming election against the multimillionaire Mitt Romney. If Hillary Clinton decided to run for president in 2016, she would probably have a greater chance to succeed if she were opposing a Republican president rather than by being the successor of Obama after two terms.

“In Tampa, the Republican argument against the president’s re-election was actually pretty simple,” said Clinton. “We left him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in!”

Clinton tried to present himself as a kind of arbiter between Democrats and Republicans. He is quite credible in this role, as he possesses one merit typically ascribed to GOP members. In 1993 he assumed office with a national debt; seven years later he left office with a budget surplus — the only president to do so in modern history.

One major proposal of the Republican candidate’s campaign is the reduction of the national debt. However, as Clinton said in Charlotte, after eight years of Republican George W. Bush’s administration, which lowered taxes and started two expensive wars, Obama inherited a record deficit. Moreover, it added to the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s.

“No president — no president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years,” argued Clinton. “He began the long, hard road to recovery and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses and lots of new wealth for innovators. Is the president satisfied? Of course not. But are we better off than we were when he took office. When President Barack Obama took office, the economy was in free fall. It had just shrunk 9 full percent of GDP. We were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Are we doing better than that today? The answer is yes. I had the same thing happen in 1994 and early ‘95. We could see that the policies were working and that the economy was growing. But most people didn’t feel it yet. Thankfully, by 1996 the economy was roaring!”

The main speech of the convention, which will be delivered by Obama, is scheduled for Thursday evening. A difficult task awaits him a day after Clinton’s performance, as the bar has been set very high. Like Clinton, Obama is considered to be a brilliant speaker. However, his speeches always radiate with some note of elitism, which awakens many Americans’ distrust. Clinton, on the other hand, immediately seduces the audience with his slightly southern accent, playfulness and sense of humor. He possesses a remarkable gift of speaking about complex economic issues and dilemmas in simple and understandable language.

Clinton also commented on the debate that has been taking place as the result of Obama’s appearance in Virginia two weeks ago. At that time, the president said the following: “I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. (…)The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”

Since then, Obama has been attacked by the Republicans who claim the president allegedly does not respect private initiative. At their convention there were dozens of entrepreneurs, each of whom angrily insisted on the weight of their own role: “I’ve built it myself!” Clinton laughed at this propaganda mercilessly: “The Republican narrative is that all of us who amount to anything are completely self-made. One of our greatest Democratic Chairmen, Bob Strauss, used to say that every politician wants you to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself, but it ain’t so!”