MANCHESTER — Unless voters suffer “mass amnesia,” former president Bill Clinton told whooping New Hampshire crowds Sunday, Democrat Barack Obama will be elected president Tuesday. But, Clinton argued, an Obama victory alone won’t send dysfunctional Republican philosophies to the trash heap — for that, he said, voters should send Democrats to Congress, too.
Clinton’s election-eve visit Sunday was his first since the January primaries, and his message — assuming a big win but asking for more — reflected the confidence of Democrats nationally. Elsewhere, Obama’s campaign has moved its red-state offensive into Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s home state of Arizona, and some Democrats are openly discussing the prospect of a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate.
Clinton told crowds that “if this were a normal time,” he wouldn’t still be in New Hampshire, stumping for Democratic Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen. Shaheen, a former three-term governor, is challenging first-term Republican Sen. John Sununu.
But, Clinton said, everyone knows these aren’t normal times. If Obama’s going to be able to reform health care or enact a new energy policy, he’ll need Shaheen’s help.
“If you’re going to vote for Barack Obama, you darn sure better vote for Jeanne Shaheen,” he told an overflow crowd at Manchester’s Central High School.
Clinton, who served as president from 1993 to 2001, shared nostalgia with the crowds. “Remember 1992?” went one of Shaheen’s biggest applause lines in Manchester.
Making the case for Obama, Clinton delved into some specifics, calling the Illinois senator “really smart,” and likening Obama’s mindset to his own wonkiness. He pointed to the Obama campaign’s harnessing of the Internet as evidence of his ability to run an innovative operation.
But fundamentally, Clinton argued that the election is about two economic philosophies, and he said Obama had the right one, believing that the nation must “grow the economy from the ground up, not the top down.”
Clinton largely ignored McCain, who was also in New Hampshire Sunday, though he did take on one of McCain’s campaign-trail refrains. McCain has taken to calling Obama a “redistributionist,” citing Obama’s pledge to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000.
“Don’t you forget this,” Clinton admonished the Manchester crowd. “This administration has presided over the largest redistribution of wealth upward since the 1920s, and we all know how the 1920s ended.”
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