In a Democratic National Convention address that combined withering attacks on Republicans with a full-throated endorsement of President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton delivered a point-by-point repudiation of the GOP case for defeating Obama and said the nation was better off now than when Obama was elected.
Clinton acknowledged that many people were still feeling the pain of a grindingly slow economic recovery, but said things were turning around.
“If you will renew the president’s contract, you will feel it,” Clinton promised. He also flayed the Republican’s attempts to use the economic downturn as a reason to throw Obama out, laying blame for the crash on the GOP.
Clinton summed up their case this way: “We left him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough so fire him, put us back in.”
The campaign of GOP nominee Mitt Romney shot back, slamming Obama for looking to Clinton to validate his candidacy.
“Americans deserve a president willing to run on his own accomplishments, and not the record of a predecessor,” spokeswoman Amanda Hennenberg said.
In her own speech, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, a star among the Democratic base for her work on consumer protection, also nodded toward the troubled economic times.
“People feel like the system is rigged against them,” Warren said. “And here’s the painful part: They’re right.” But Warren said Obama’s approach was better than Romney’s.
“President Obama believes in a level playing field,” she said.
