Clinton: Dems Must Fight for Votes
img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-18350" title="bill-clinton" src="/files/wxrimport/2010-09/bill-clinton.jpg" alt="" width="205" height="105" /><Talking Points Memo reports:
In an interview with PBS's Judy Woodruff airing today, former President Bill Clinton urged his fellow Democrats to effectively communicate what's at stake in the election this year, to avoid having voter anger steamroll them at the ballot box.
"I would advise [Obama] and all the Democrats to talk about what we are going to do now and ask them who is more likely to do it," Clinton told Woodruff, according to the transcript made available by PBS. "If this is a referendum on people's anger and apathy -- so our side stays home and their side's inside -- we don't do well."
Clinton said that without effective messaging on the issues -- including health care, financial reform, student loans, Social Security and Medicare -- Democrats will lose the election to apathy. And though he said Obama and Congress "have done better than the American people think" governing, on the political front he said: "I don't think we're putting up a good fight yet." Democrats have yet to come up with an "effective defense" against Republican attacks, attacks which "angry" and "frustrated" American voters are "buying." Clinton volunteered a line of argument for his party:
"You gave them eight years to dig this hole just give us two more years, give us four years to dig out of it," Clinton suggested Dems should argue. "Just half what you gave them and if it's not better you can throw us all out in two years."
Click here to read more.