Democrats Spar Over NAFTA In Ohio

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: CBS News

(AP) Former President Clinton, campaigning for his wife Monday in rural and southern Ohio continued hammering Hillary Rodham Clinton's themes of reclaiming the middle class, ensuring health care for Americans and bringing troops home from Iraq.

"You cannot expect us to grow more jobs in America if we keep subsidizing jobs overseas," he said during an evening rally at Lancaster High School, just hours after he had accused Hillary Clinton's Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama of misleading voters about her policy positions.

"A lot of the mailings sent out on her on NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and health care are pure garbage," Clinton had said during a rally at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, where hundreds of students lined up in 31-degree weather more than an hour ahead of the former president's visit.

Clinton campaign advisers said later in a teleconference with reporters that Obama is equating Hillary Clinton's record on NAFTA with that of her husband.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/26/politics/main3877111.shtml

[HereSince1628]

1. You are the surrogates you assign. The danger of claiming another's experience

as your own is that you get both the good and the bad.

Choosing only those things that work in the current election cycle looks a lot like cherry-picking history.

When confronted with labors concerns about NAFTA I well remember Bill dismissing them as he told Americans that the future was in an investor class. He turned his back on US Labor, she claims his experience as hers, and I have no reason to believe that she didn't collaborate in what turned out to be horrendous decisions for America.

For all his protestations, Bill doesn't have big enough shoulders to cover Hillary from the rain of shit that is falling on her because she chose to hook her chariot to his comet's tail. Shit showers and meteor showers both suck.

[Acadia Blue]

5. You are absolutely right.

[BearSquirrel2]

2. This is AWESOME !!!

I really want to see these two get into a match of one-upmanship on trade policy. Than we'll have something to hold they'll have to stick to their guns during the regular election and ultimately the White House.

I fear that the winner will get into a debate with McCain and sidestep the issue for fear of alienating corporate contributors. On this, O'Bama is the clear winner as he is following the Dean financing model soliciting almost a million smaller contributions rather than holding $2000 dinners and shmoozing with big dollar donors.

We need clear commitments from these two on how they will put their finger into the dyke and stop the job hemorraging. We need to hear them specifically talk about eliminating any and all subsidization for outsourcing. We need to hear about tariffs and different tax rates for companies based on the amount of domestic production vs. foreign production they have. We need to hear about a national defense initiative based on making sure our country is 100% able to produce materials and equipment in case of unease in the far east. We don't have to produce 100% of our goods here, but we should be producing a significant production line for EACH part needed for every car, every computer, every aircraft and certainly EVERY PIECE OF MILITARY HARDWARE that our society depends on.

Manufacturing made this country strong. The lack of manufacturing will make this country a slave to China!!!!

[nolabels]

7. The other dark side of exporting is making the US dependant on......

other countries to produce the essentials thus making us more dependent on things out of our country's control. The corporations would not be able to control and use the US as the enforcer of their policies without us being dependent on them. They are turning things fascist but in a underhanded way

[Acadia Blue]

3. Bill Clinton lobbied the dems for NAFTA and he damn well knew

what it was going to do to the middle class.
Not a single president, Dem or rePIG, has chosen to take measures to make these pigs stay here and they can do it through imposing tariffs on American comnpanies that go abroad or through taxation.
They are owned lock stock and barrell by the corporate pigs.

Stop feeding the pigs. Buy only what you must. I think the only thing that is going to bring the pigs down is a gut wrenching depression. When the investors who made fortunes out of having Americans laid off start to lose money, the attitude will change.

The whole globalization scheme was a way to avoid losing money if America goes down. We can be very poor but the factory in China is prospering. Got it? It was a well thought of plan by those in the know.

[AngryOldDem]

8. A depression will not affect the investor class.

There is no way in hell that they will allow that to happen. They will have long absconded with their profits while the rest of us starve.

We need a middle class to protect societal equilibrium. Without it, everything collapses on itself.

Bill's comments, by the way, are indefensible, and they most likely fell on very deaf ears anyway. Southern Ohio is solid GOP territory, even though parts of it are some of the poorest in the state. (Not that that is saying much anymore, when talking about Ohio.)

[martymar64]

12. But a revolution will affect the investor class

If the economy keeps going to hell, the "investor class" will have nowhere to hide when thousands of angry ARMED people start storming the country clubs and the gated communities.

[ReformedChris]

4. NAFTA is the biggest policy scab on Bill's Presidency..

And Obama will continue to pick at it for all its worth. I think Hillary has no choice but to attack the mailings, because Ohio has suffered greatly because of the agreement. She cannot afford to lose anymore ground.

[Acadia Blue]

6. If neither Dems nor RePIGs change the trade policy, then what?

[daleo]

9. Then a great silence descends

Until the next primary season.

[Winterblues]

10. That and Welfare reform

But no one is perfect. He did other things I really liked.

[natrat]

11. wow what an idiot