Mitch Perry
About to hit 70 next month, Bill Clinton has certainly lost a bit off his oratorical fastball in recent years. But on big occasions, such as the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, nobody made a greater case to advocate for another four years for Barack Obama than did the 42nd President of the United States.
Could he do it again in 2016 for his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton? Not really, but he certainly made a bold attempt to tell about parts of her life the public wasn’t aware of.
Much of the first part of Clinton’s 43-minute address was about how Bill met Hillary back in the early 1970s, when both were students at Yale University. Some might say it was more about Clinton’s infatuation with this new woman, but hey, it’s his life. Perhaps that’s why some wisecrackers on Twitter suggested it sounded like a bloated wedding toast.
One of the biggest arguments against a Clinton presidency is that the country wants change, and the Clintons are a dated brand. The former president attempted to address that by saying, “Some people say, ‘Well, we need to change. She has been around a long time.’ She sure has. And she has sure been worth every single year she has put into making people’s lives better.”
Bill Clinton’s goal was certainly to humanize his wife, who has been demonized for decades by Republicans.
“She is insatiably curious. She’s a natural leader. She’s a good organizer, and the best darn change-maker I have ever met in my entire life,” Clinton said, as the audience cheered loudly.
“So look, this is a really important point for you to take out of this convention,” he continued, “If you believe in making change from the bottom-up, if you believe the measure of change is making people’s lives better, you know it is hard and some people think it is boring. Speeches like this are fun. Actually doing the work is hard.”
Bill Clinton also argued Republicans had tried to turn his wife into a “cartoon” during last week’s RNC in Cleveland.
“What’s the difference in what I told you and what they said?” he asked. “One is real and the other is made up. . . . You just have to decide which is which, my fellow Americans.”
