Bill Clinton: Romney "thinks we're dumb"

Bill Clinton: Romney "thinks we're dumb"
Bill Clinton AP Photo/Tony Dejak
[link to www.cbsnews.com] Opening for iconic rock singer Bruce Springsteen at an Obama campaign rally in Parma, Ohio, former President Bill Clinton today railed against Mitt Romney, charging that the GOP candidate "thinks we're dumb."

"We keep saying, 'Show us your budget, where are your numbers?'" Mr. Clinton told the crowd at the get-out-the-vote rally. "This guy ran Bain Capital and is a business guy and he's hiding his budget? That ought to tell you something."

The former president, who this year has served as one of President Obama's most effective spokesmen, blasted Romney for his evasiveness on other issues, such as whether he would have signed into the law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

"He can't even say whether he would sign a law already on the books," Mr. Clinton said. "He wants to convince the moderate voters he's a new man without explicitly disavowing a single solitary commitment he made when he said he was a severe conservative.'"

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By contrast, the former president continued, "You will never have to play hide and seek with the president's budget. You don't have to play hide and seek with the president's tax returns."

Mr. Clinton also turned his fire on congressional Republicans, charging "they worked so hard to keep the unemployment rate above 8 percent. They were crushed when it dropped down to 7.8."

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Bill Clinton: Romney "thinks we're dumb"

He acknowledged that the 0.2 percent drop in unemployment "doesn't sound like much," but said it amounts to "the biggest one year drop in unemployment in 17 years."

"I don't want you to go tell any undecided voter we think it's hunky dory -- we don't," he said of the economy, adding that it's been a "long, slow climb" to recovery. "But we at least are climbing, we're not trying to drive us back in the other direction."

Mr. Obama, he continued, knows the economy is "not fixed. The question is, which path will fix it?"

Mr. Clinton touted the president's efforts to save the auto industry, noting that one in eight jobs in Ohio is tied to the sector. He also hailed Mr. Obama for making Medicare "stronger, not weaker" and for instituting student loan reforms.

Mr. Clinton criticized the budget GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan put forward in the House for its cuts to Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health insurance for low-income and disabled people.

"I'm sick and tired of poor people not being able to work their way into the middle class," he said. "Most poor people are already working, they just not making anything."

[link to www.cbsnews.com]

Last Edited by Phennommennonn on 10/18/2012 05:27 PM