Bill Clinton in Madison -- Details from the Speech

It's a strange world where Schaff and Blanchard give the in-depth Obama coverage and the Madville Times gives the Clintons big press.

Neener-neener to the whiners in Florida and Michigan: President Bill Clinton followed his wife to Madison, South Dakota, yesterday evening to stump for Hillary's bid to take the family back to the White House. Only the second President to ever visit Madison (Nixon was the first, in 1969, to dedicate the Karl E. Mundt Library), President Clinton made his pitch to about 700 listeners in Library Park on why they should vote for Hillary Clinton in the South Dakota primary on Tuesday.

Making his fifth stop of the day, the former President showed no signs of wearing down. (His eyes look tough, but they always have, and so do nearly every politician's.) For under an hour, he hammered away with policy details of what the Clinton Administration 2.0 would do. He used the phrase "For example" just slightly more than the phrase "people like you in places like this."

The policy issues (with a few Obama notes thrown in for good measure):

Inequality of Wealth: Time to Go to War?

President Clinton noted that under his administration, America added 22.7 million jobs (and when he came into office, Clinton had promised 8 million). Under Bush, we've seen less than half that amount of job growth. President Clinton asserted that 90% of the economic gains of the past decade have gone to the top 10% of Americans, and that 43% of the economic gains have gone to the top 1%. "The U.S. used to attack dictators for that kind of inequality," said Clinton.

(Obama sounds a similar note in Aberdeen, and has all along.)

Rural America Needs Energy Independence (and Less Gambling!)

Clinton said he has driven through more of South Dakota than he has flown over, and as he looks at our landscape, he thinks, "Not enough windmills." Wind power, said Clinton, means more jobs for everyone in South Dakota, especially on the reservations. In an interesting connection, Clinton portrayed wind power as a way for the Indians to stop relying on gambling for income. Clinton said the Indians shouldn't have to resort to gambling to pay the bills and went so far as to argue South Dakota's reservations don't have the population density necessary to make gambling really profitable.

Clinton said his wife's plan will promote wind power by giving federal funds for building transmission lines (Bill, read the blog!). He also advocated green building practices for all public buildings (ah! Bill is reading the blog!). Do that, said Clinton, and your town, school district, county, etc. get lower utility bills forever. Plus, start building every school, courthouse, and library by green principles, and you eliminate the need for any new power plants for 40 years.

On oil, Clinton offered his wife's three-point plan:

1. Investigate speculation among energy traders and price gouging among the oil companies.
2. Cut gas prices by 40 cents for six months by (a) stopping the flow of oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (it's 97% full, says Clinton, and 90% full is plenty) and (b) cutting the federal gas tax and taking it out of the hide of Big Oil.
3. Get more high-mileage cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, and semis (!) on the road by (a) giving a $10,000 tax credit for the purchase of plug-in hybrids and (b) pumping money in to research and development of battery technology and recycling.
   

(Not a word about needing more pipelines or oil refineries.)

(Obama in Aberdeen: close tax breaks for Big Oil, give middle-class $1,000 tax credit to put money in our pockets to cover gas prices, invest in alternative energy, increase fuel efficiency standards.)

Health Coverage: Talking Like Kucinich, Making Policy Like Romney

Clinton asked for a show of hands of people who know someone who doesn't have health coverage. Lots of hands went up. He said that only in America can you ask that question and get any response. Other countries don't let their people go without health coverage. Said Clinton, you can't control cost without covering everybody. The private insurance companies spend $50 billion each year figuring out ways not to cover us. With hundreds of companies and thousands of policies, we also burn up 30 cents of every health care dollar on paperwork. Meanwhile, Medicare (a.k.a. government-run health care) spends 3 cents per dollar on paperwork.

Nice to see the Clinton campaign has finally picked up on what Dennis Kucinich has been telling us since his 2004 campaign. Too bad the Clinton-Romney health care plan won't give us real universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health coverage. Instead, it leaves those hundreds of companies and thousands of complicated, bureaucracy-laden policies intact.

(Obama at least has the good sense not to mandate that we buy coverage from the private insurers who are profiting from sickness and driving the American health care system into the ground.)

Education: Bag No Child Left Behind

President Clinton gets the same good crowd response his wife does when he calls for ending No Child Left Behind. It doesn't work, the President said. It causes cuts in history, economics, arts, and other important curriculum and discourages hard courses and tests. Instead of focusing on a few standardized tests, Clinton said we need to follow the lead of other countries and keep kids in school longer, start the hard classes sooner, and pay teachers more.

(O.K., on NCLB, Clinton beats Obama, who still maintains that the broken law can be reformed. But no worries -- VP Richardson will straighten him out.)

Research: We Like Elite Experts After All

President Clinton noted that agriculture is built on research. We need to get back to funding research, said Clinton. We need research on manufactured materials to produce lighter vehicles for energy efficiency. We need research on energy. We especially need research on health care to address the diseases of old age (we're going to live to be a hundred, but what good is that if we have Alzheimer's or Parkinson's for those last 30 years?) and young age (Hillary is on the Senate autism caucus -- who knew there was an autism caucus?).

(And if you think that pesky intellectual elitist Obama won't meet or beat any Clinton proposal for increasing R&D funding, well, you haven't been paying attention.)

Don't Slap the Banker -- Balance the Budget!

President Clinton said free, fair trade is great, but it will only work if we balance the budget. Remember the poison dog food and toys from China? How'd that happen? Don't we have trade regulations to stop such crimes? Sure we do, said President Clinton, but we can't enforce them against China, Japan, Korea, or the big oil powers when we fund our deficit with big loans from China, Japan, Korea, and the big oil powers. As Clinton said, you won't go downtown and slap the banker (even though you might want to) and then expect him to give you a loan. Deficit spending puts our health and security at risk; we need to balance the budget.

(Note: Obama in Aberdeen advocates his pay-as-you-go approach to government.)

There's the policy breakdown -- photos and more commentary to come!