Clinton draws spotlight at Sestak campaign rally
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SCRANTON, Pa. -- By name, there was a Joe Sestak rally in a high school gymnasium here on Tuesday, but it was unquestionably Bill Clinton's show.
Mr. Sestak, in fact, didn't even attend, as a hastily scheduled vote crucial to Pennsylvania's budget kept him in Washington, and he provided only a brief video message.
That kept the focus squarely on the nation's 42nd president, who delivered a few fond endorsements of his former national security staffer but primarily a defense of the Democratic economic agenda -- and a recitation of his own greatest hits of the '90s.
Mr. Clinton, in a half-hour address that was more policy brief than campaign stump, called Republicans "the shovel brigade" because they want to keep digging the economic hole left by the George W. Bush administration.
"They have the same ideas, and they've now tried it twice," Mr. Clinton said. "They tried it for the 12 years before I became president. They tried it for the eight years after, and it doesn't work as well as investing in the future."
Acknowledging he was "preaching to the converted," Mr. Clinton implored several hundred attendees to engage their friends still reeling from job losses and fearful of high deficits. Tell them, he said, that President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress need more than two years to right the ship.
"We don't blame them for being mad," Mr. Clinton said. "And if we don't produce in four years, they can kick us all out. But don't throw us out while we're putting this country on the path to a better tomorrow -- don't do that."
Mr. Sestak, a former three-star admiral in the Navy, served as director of defense policy under Mr. Clinton during his first term -- and was a valuable asset to a former governor without a lot of foreign policy experience.
"Thanks to Joe Sestak, I learned a lot in a short time, and we did a pretty good job of protecting America," Mr. Clinton said.
Their association has its controversial side as well.
Mr. Clinton also was the central figure in the botched White House "job offer" controversy during Mr. Sestak's primary campaign against Sen. Arlen Specter.
According to the White House and Mr. Sestak, presidential chief of staff Rahm Emanuel had asked Mr. Clinton to approach Mr. Sestak about an unpaid White House advisory position on national security issues to get him out of the primary race. But Mr. Sestak shut Mr. Clinton down before the conversations got very far. Congressional Republicans have demanded further investigation, claiming the incident could constitute an illegal bribe.
First Published August 11, 2010 12:00 am
