Bill Clinton's most challenging campaign speech: Explaining why his wife should be President

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: On the Trail
Meet the Missus
By PATRICK HEALY
Published: September 3, 2007

PORTSMOUTH, N.H., Sept. 3 – Bill Clinton has delivered 30 years’ worth of campaign stump speeches as a political candidate, governor, and president. His latest effort is his shortest yet – about eight minutes – and perhaps his most challenging: Boiling down, in quick, warm, memorable language, why his wife should be in the White House....

***

... how does he introduce Hillary to audiences most succinctly and effectively – yet without being so effective that his remarks go over better than hers?...The speech (which advisers say he largely wrote himself) usually opens with a humorous anecdote, of 30 seconds or so, about the place he’s speaking and why it is important to the Clintons....His endorsement is both explicit and rhetorically dramatic. “I will be a voter 40 years next year – Oooo, I hate that,” he said in Portsmouth. In all that time, he continued, Mrs. Clinton was “the best prepared, most qualified” non-incumbent candidate for the presidency that he had ever had the chance to vote for....

The former president barely dwells on her years as first lady, when she was an appendage of his; instead he sizes her up on her own two feet, focusing on the Senate years and her intellect. He said in Iowa in July that she had “the best combination of mind and heart” he has ever seen; in New Hampshire on Sunday, he linked her abilities with her agenda, saying “she has the best plan to give us a clean green energy future to create jobs, not cost jobs.”

Mr. Clinton devotes a full minute, and sounds particularly emphatic, on the next bit – asserting that other nations and world leaders are pulling for Mrs. Clinton’s ascension in 2008....“You want to fix America’s position in the world overnight? Elect Hillary president,” he said here.

It is also Mr. Clinton’s job to try to knock down the doubts about Mrs. Clinton’s electability in a national race, should she be the Democratic nominee. Mr. Clinton usually tries to sound neutral, noting that in her Senate re-election race in 2006, Mrs. Clinton carried dozens of New York State counties that President Bush had won. Yet after delivering these statistics in Portsmouth, Mr. Clinton had a testier moment as well. “This electability thing is a canard, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans,” he told the crowd. “What you need to figure out is, who would be the best president.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/03/us/politics/04web-healy.html

[illinoisprogressive]

1. wonder how he feels about losing his touch with people? just the press gets all giggly

[jefferson_dem]

2. Hey, he was cool back "in the day..."

Nostalgia's kinda neat. However, now's the time to move forward for positive change...turn the page...

[journalist3072]

3. Since when has Bill Clinton lost his touch with people? He's still one of the biggest draws out

there. People still adore and want to hear from him.

[ElizabethDC]

5. He hasn't lost his touch. I saw him speak a few months ago. He was wonderful. n/t

[The River]

4. A Bit Bombastic eh?

“You want to fix America’s position in the world overnight? Elect Hillary president,” he said here.

Overnight?
What is she, FedEx?

[AlGore-08.com]

6. I'm sorry, there is no way Hillary Clinton is better prepared & more qualified than Gore was in 2000

It's especially ridiculous for Bill Clinton to say that since he asked Gore to be his running mate to balance the shortcomings in his own resume.

It's almost as absurd to say Hillary Clinton is better prepared & more qualified than Kerry was in 2004. Or Mondale in 1984. Hell, you can make a convincing argument that Dukakis was better prepared and qualified in 1988 - - at least he had been the chief executive of a state.

[jefferson_dem]

7. Some pretty shameful resume inflation courtesy of Bill...

He's hoping nobody notices.