The gubernatorial recall election in Wisconsin is now just four days away, and with most polls showing Gov. Scott Walker (R) with a slight edge, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) is looking for an 11th-hour boost. Former President Bill Clinton visited today in the hopes of giving him one.
The clip shows the entirety of Clinton's speech, but Greg Sargent transcribed arguably the most important portion of the remarks:
"If you believe in an economy of shared prosperity when times are good, and shared sacrifice when they're not, then you don't want to break the unions. You want them at the negotiating table. And you trust them to know that arithmetic rules. Show up for Tom Barrett on Tuesday! If you want Wisconsin once again to be seen by all of America as a place of diversity, of difference of opinion, of vigorous debate, where in the end people's objectives are to come to an agreement that will take us all forward together, you have to show up for Tom Barrett on Tuesday! ...
"I can just hear it now, on Wednesday. All those people that poured all this money into Wisconsin, if you don't show up and vote, will say, 'See, we got them now. We're finally going to break every union in America. We're gonna break every government in America. We're gonna stop worrying about the middle class. We don't give a riff whether poor people get to work their way into it. We got our way now. We got it all. Divide and conquer works.'
"You tell them no. You tell them, Wisconsin has never been about that, never will be about that -- by electing Tom Barrett governor!"
This isn't just another campaign pitch ahead of an election; it's about tying the Wisconsin race to a larger dynamic -- Walker isn't just a far-right ideologue; he's also at the center of a divisive experiment in which Republicans build up an enormous financial advantage and use it to rig democracy. Indeed, Clinton spent very little time talking about Walker, and spent the bulk of his time talking about what Walker and his agenda represent.
As E.J. Dionne Jr. explained yesterday, "Walker is being challenged not because he pursued conservative policies but because Wisconsin has become the most glaring example of a new and genuinely alarming approach to politics on the right. It seeks to use incumbency to alter the rules and tilt the legal and electoral playing field decisively toward the interests of those in power."
We'll have more on the Wisconsin race, and the evident effects of Walker's efforts, on tonight's show.
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"It seeks to use incumbency to alter the rules and tilt the legal and electoral playing field decisively toward the interests of those in power."
And in so doing will undo our democratic experiment, snatch away our liberties, and replace it with a theocratic fascism that will make those in the Middle East look pale in comparison to.
With their, er, Mitts, on the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. Armageddon, anyone?
Maybe. In The Authoritarians, Dr Robert Altemeyer describes several world simulation experiments he's run in his research on authoritarian personalities. In one, he selected as participants only people who were basically Dick Cheney/John Bolton types. Given a series of crises to overcome, the participants destroyed the world by nuclear war in under half an hour (if I recall correctly). It's not that the set out to do that, but they consistently chose the most aggressive response to every situation, and that ultimately led to the launch of nuclear missiles. Then the simulation was reset and they tried again. The second time the participants avoided nuclear war, but their penchant for responding with aggression to geo-political problems, and for ignoring humanitarian problems, meant that they finished the second simulation with just about as many fatalities (by non-nuclear causes) as in the first simulation.
E. J. Dionne is a wise thoughtful person.
I can't recommend his book "Our Divided Political Heart" highly enough!
Clinton has always been good at articulating the Democratic vision - inclusive and advancing together as opposed to Republican vision of exclusiveness and policies that work for just some.
Walker said it: "divide and conquer".
That video of Walker saying "divide and conquer" should be put on tv as often as possible. You would think, after awhile, the meaning of that would start to sink in to some.
The other thing that should be on TV all over Wisconsin is the fact that the billionaire lady with whom Walker was speaking--and who gave him $500K for this election--paid no income taxes last year. If that doesn't anger enough Wisconsinites to vote him out, nothing will.
you got that right mpguy, but not just in WI, it should be replayed nationally along with the investigation into his illegal shennanigans.
After seeing Clinton on CNN last night,I'm suprised he is'nt in Wisconsin to stump for Walker.
Suggesting that Mitt Romney was a good private equity venture capitalist business person who became wealthy and made money for his investors does not equate with supporting Walker.
Perhaps you could explain your logic?
I'll tell you my logic.Being a staunch democrat it pissed me off thats my logic.
That's not much in the way of logic. The facts are that he DID do a good job as a venture capitalist; the facts are also that a venture capitalist is not a good job to be good at, if you want experience helping a country thrive and the citizenry to have better lives. Call a spade a spade, that's honesty, but also point out all the drawbacks to the facts you're being honest about.
Exactly I don't have a clue why that's so hard for the GOP people to understand....now some of that is we love everything involving Mitt bobbley head collective......but even Republicans know this.
Mitt has never been in it for anyone but himself. Not a crime. Maybe immoral, perhaps. But not against the law at all. But also not experience in caring about the needs of others when you and your investors made a profit whether the companies survived and thrived or not. Certainly not a business about job creation as Romney has claimed. This is about the clearly false narrative Romney is working here.
Should no surprise since Mitt has been for and against all of but not limited to:abortion, gay marriage, ohio's senate bill 5, Reagan/Bush legacy, gun control, the individual mandate, saying SB1070 was a model for the nation....
joca41, you seem to need to learn, like I did a few years ago, that there is no morality in capitalism unless it is put there through laws made by our representatives. The 1st legal priority for any company that has shareholders is to make money. Doing social programs is all about promoting the corporate image. You see that in commercials every day.
This is something Diane Ravitch has been talking and writing about ever since Walker was elected. I'm excited that she will be on The Ed Show tonight. She wrote an excellent opinion piece at JS Online today. I will try to link it here, but I'm not sure it will post.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/for-the-sake-of-public-education-walker-has-to-go-hc5kisr-156296855.html
What a laugh...Bill Clinton just stuck it to Obama in Wisconsin when he said that Mitt Romney has a "sterling" business record and that coupled with being an ex-Governor are great credentials to be President. Couldn't get better than that. Guess Bill is getting even with Obama for calling him a racist during Hillary's campaign. Why isn't Obama supporting you guys in Wisconsin....he flew right over your state today and was in MN and ILL. How much closer could he have gotten. He is distancing himself from all of you...he didn't want you to do a recall in the first place. Retribution time!!
If he did you morons just would have whined about him being a communist by interfering in state politics. You know how FOS you people are, don't try and hide it.
Rufus, our president, whoever he or she may be, is not in a business to turn a profit. Have it your way and see how many more poor people there will be.
Pretty much to the GOP he'd be a stalinist if he did a marxist socialist if he didn't so.....
I take it "FOS" is short for full of.......mitt.....shall we say
But indeed the republicans will oppose Obama if he says the sky is blue and the tea partiers and birch society members will say the president is showing support for the crips street gang because they also wear blue and that he's showing support hitler or someone because hitler once wore a blue shirt....or some garbage......
Does Clinton have a pimple? At his age.
I know he's on this radical diet (I bought the book, very hard to keep up with, without a chef), but I think it makes his neck look frail.
I don't say this as a Clinton critic, but as someone who took his picture back in 1988, so I get a right to eyeball him in pictures!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisboese/3051410653/in/set-72157605198526053
nice photo!
He was so cute then, wasn't he? I still love the guy.
Thank you! Is weird to see how the old Tri-X and TMax films age or rather get outpaced by higher and higher digital resolution.
But I still miss the old days when I lived in the darkroom and steeped my body in toxic chemicals...
Gov. Clinton stole my boss from me back in those days, a guy I loved so much I worshipped him like a hero. Pissed me off. I had to go down to Little Rock to visit him, and he'd drag me in to meet the governor.
I'd roll my eyes and say, "Mike, I came to see you!" He was like, "Oh come on in and meet him. You never know who he'll be one day."
Years later, hanging out with Mike at the Department of Energy (one of his several political appointments), I asked Mike, "How did you know?" I probably asked him that many times, but that time sticks in my mind. He just shook his head and said, "I always just knew."
I lost Mike to cancer a few years ago. I still miss him terribly.
It won't be close. Walker by 6 points. And if the economy does not create at least 200000 jobs per month in the next three months, there goes Jimmy Carter, upps I am sorry Freudian slip, I meant Obama.
By the way, I love Bill Clinton, Devon Patrick, Cong Ford and Corey Booker. Bain Capital is sterling. Before I forget, Trump is a good friend of Bill and Hillary. They play golf all the time. Have a nice weekend Progressives.
It'll be close, mainly because of cheating by Walker and his puppet masters (such as "innocent bus tours"), but he's still going to lose. As for Obama's re-election... those chickens are still eggs, and all the important places are looking awfully blue.
Don't forget, grumpy, Republicans have to cheat because Democrats have all the money in the world and can conjure up zombie voters with a snap of their fingers. Jesus cries when Democrats win elections, didn't you know that?
Feh. It's the same old story. They're the real victims, so they have to game the system to restore "balance" (i.e., total and irresistible victory). We're at a point where they may be able to inflict some serious, long-term damage. Walker can win this, and he may, and we're all probably screwed if that happens. What's worse, if we experience a lasting Republican takeover, there will be plenty of idiots like our friend here who will be singing hosannas as the country is pulled down the crapper. Hell, he'll probably become a police informer to help the process along.
Brought to you by the losers ( Robert E Intriago ) who said mccain and palin will win lol
Ahhh Robert has no friends. Poor Robert. #sarcasm
Robert's loss is humanity's gain.
What's amazing is that public employee union members in Wisconsin are barely breaking in favor of Barrett. Any public employee who votes for Walker should immediately go to the top of the list of those whose jobs will be eliminated when public employment is reduced in that state.
Wisconsin public employees, what (if anything) are you thinking?
I totally agree with you mpguy. I see the same sentiment every day in my union workplace every day in PA. It is beyond my comprehension how these people can think their quality of life will improve if republicans get control of the states and federal government.
Sorry, Rachel, I needed to post this somewhere, and couldn’t wait…the mention of the upcoming election in Wisconsin, their efforts to kill the unions and Scott Walker prompted this thought:
How ironic and how scary…in a sense, the Government of Wisconsin has BECOME a union in and of itself!
I was glad to see Bill Clinton speaking on behalf of the interests of Wisconsin public employees and union rights. Still, Obama should be there. It's his job to lead, and he's failing to do that. Why? -Whose side is he on? If he doesn't come out for the workers in Wisconsin, the answer to that question will be crystal clear.
I was very disappointed to see only five minutes of the speech covered live on MSNBC today. How many speeches from Mitt and Santorum and Cain have I seen in their entirety here during all of those silly primaries?
Here's the full speech:
http://ed.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/01/12010807-countdown-to-recall-clinton-rallies-wisconsin-democrats
This recall has been nothing but a waste of time and money. Good luck Walker, you've got my vote on Tuesday.
You're no independent. A REAL independent would be asking whether a 25 to 1 ratio of campaign spending is financially ethical or politically moral. Coordinated voter-driven political action is NEVER a waste. The problem in America is we don't have enough of it. Fight voter apathy. Fight Republican efforts to disenfranchise citizens in the service of wealthy establishment interests.