Other than thinking he was in Pennsylvania, Bill Clinton was, as usual, electric during his speech at Owens Community College yesterday. Make no mistake: the former president is Barack Obama's most important ally in the fight for re-election. Clinton's political judgment, knowledge and record are hard to argue with, making the value of his endorsement incalculable in terms of turning the undecided blue. Just look at his eight years in office. He started with a deficit, finished with a surplus and kept America out of pointless wars with unclear motives and no exit strategy — not to mention he is a rockstar of foreign diplomacy. Even some Republicans wish the man was still sitting in the Oval Office. It's hard to find people who don't like the guy. These days no one cares if he "inhaled" when he was younger or fooled around with an intern. He brought prosperity to the country — and he's certainly not the first politician — or president, for that matter — to do either of those things. But hey, apparently some people want to live in a world where its considered moral to make it harder for young women to obtain contraceptives, but it's immoral to take a hit off a joint in your twenties.
So, here we are, five days before the election and Clinton is talking about the similarities between himself and the President, strengthening the middle class and the path forward, all while never missing an opportunity to take a snarky jab at Romney's lack of transparency. Here are some quotes from his stop in Toledo.
On energy
"Germany got 300,000 jobs out of the tentative providing of solar and wind [powered energy]. On a sunny spring day this year, they generated so much power , it was the equivalent of 20 nuclear plants. They have less than 1/4 of our population, they are less than 1/4 our size and the sun shines, on average, as much as it does in London. By contrast, America top 5 percent in the world on what we can generate from solar and wind. So, what did Barack Obama do? He said, 'Well, we need to private money invested into this. We don't need need incentives that big, but we need some. The prices were cut by 70 percent in the last few years and 25,000 people in Ohio alone have jobs [because of it]."
"What's happened is that 10 percent of the coal-powered plants produced 30 percent of the green-house gas emissions from coal and produced less than 10 percent of the power we get from coal and then were replaced, not by solar or wind, but by natural gas and our green-house gas emissions dropped by 9 percent and we have record employment from natural gas around the country, including Ohio."
On Mitt
"The truest thing the Romney campaign ever said was that they had no intention of having their campaign dictated by fact-checkers."
"What's their latest scam that you've probably seen? They say [Jeep is] moving jobs to China. When Karl Rove is spending all that secret money of his, that's the kind of stuff they think they can sell you."
On the auto bailout
"When GM and chrysler got that help, all the Japanese and German carmakers in America supported it. Why did they do that? Because they knew if GM went down, the auto parts suppliers would go down, and their manufacturing operations in america were toast."
"Mr Romney comes to Ohio again and again and ties himself up — tried to say 'well, I don't know, blah blah' — HE WAS AGAINST IT! You wouldn't have those 250,000 new jobs. Now that's just a fact."
On President Obama
"Who's got a plan to reduce the debt? Barack Obama. Who's got the best plan for us to go forward together and keep building a more perfect union? Barack Obama!"
