Clinton, Obama, and the Triumph of Substance

[babylonsister]

http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/106964/clinton-obama-and-the-triumph-substance#


Clinton, Obama, and the Triumph of Substance

Jonathan Cohn
September 6, 2012 | 1:30 am



snip//


The speech was as substantively thick as any I’ve ever heard and reminded me of the State of the Union speeches Clinton would give during his presidency. Those speeches were famously interminable, chocked full of enough ideas to fill two presidencies, let alone one. The pundits would inevitably pan the speeches: He was boring, he didn’t have lofty themes. Then the polls would come in: The public loved it. And while I assume some people really were listening for the details, most just appreciated the effort. Substance was a proxy for empathy, seriousness, and honesty.

So it was tonight, although the circumstances were a little different. Clinton had to focus on the past as much as the present and future. He had to tell a story about what had happened to the country in the last four years, what Obama had done, and why that reaction had put the country on the right course even if so much work remained to be done.

Although the polls suggest many Americans are inclined to believe that story, because they like Obama and believe he has their best interests at heart, that’s not an easy story to tell. But Clinton did. He reminded the voters that the economy really was in free-fall when Obama took office—and that, instead of losing 800,000 jobs a month, today it is adding 100,000. It’s not enough, Clinton conceded, but it’s progress. In what may be the most important line of the entire night, Clinton tried to talk to frustrated voters like adults: “Listen to me, now,” Clinton said. “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.”

Clinton also offered a detailed defense of Obama’s accomplishments—the creation of a new student loan system, the rescue of the auto industry, and, yes, the enactment of health care reform. He reveled in minutiae, whether it was describing the schematics of the auto supply chain or boasting that Obama’s student loan reforms would allow students to repay loans at a “a clear, fixed, low percentage of their income for up to 20 years.” (How many politicians could deliver that line and get cheers for it?)

But Clinton was at his best attacking Romney and Ryan. He showed why Romney’s spending proposals would necessarily raise taxes on the middle class, devastate public programs for the middle class, and/or blow up the deficit. Clinton reminded voters that the welfare changes Romney and Ryan were attacking had been requested by Republican governors. He pointed out that Paul Ryan’s own budgets, both of them, included the same cuts to Medicare as Obama’s—and then he delivered the line that, I suspect, everybody will remember from this speech. “It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.” He even talked about Medicaid, the program that gets the least attention in the campaign even though the Romney proposals for it would cause the most damage. I’d quibble with some of Clinton’s suggestions, including one part of the Medicare discussion. (More on that soon.) But mostly his policy talk was spot-on accurate, not to mention impressively nuanced.

snip//

In the end, Clinton's job tonight was straightforward: All he had to was to tell a story about the last four years—a story based on reality and filled with facts. But straightforward is not simple. It takes talent to give that kind of talk in a way that average Americans will grasp and take seriously. It’s a talent that Clinton, almost uniquely among American politicians, has.

[FirstLight]

1. best review of the speech I have read yet

I LOVE that Bill can tell us the details in a way that sticks...and that his charisma tells the REST of the story in a way nobody else can. He knows what it is to be attacked by the RW conspirators...and Obama has had it x100, on top of horrific problems to overcome.

this fight is nowhere NEAR over though, I intend to find my volunteer niche this week...

[lillypaddle]

2. K&R

Love me some Bubba

[SunSeeker]

3. If we'd heard more talk like that in 2010 we wouldn't have lost the House.

I sure hope Dems have learned that proudly highlighting Dem accomplishments while calling out Repukes for their lies WORKS.

[Cha]

4. And, that's what I was looking for

right now. Something of substance on the Substance of Clinton's Speech last night!

Thanks babylonsistah!