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    En hjelpende hånd fra Bill

    Onsdag kveld snakket tidligere president Bill Clinton i nesten femti minutter i beste sendetid om hvorfor Barack Obama fortjener fire nye år. Clinton var i storform, og her leser du noen reaksjoner.

    httpv://youtu.be/i5knEXDsrL4

    Fleetwood Macs «Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow» var Bill Clintons kjenningsmelodi i 1992 valgkampen, og tjue år senere ble låta spilt både før og etter den tidligere presidentens tale.

    Låttittelen passer godt med Obamas 2012 motto («Forward»), men Clinton snakket mer om årene som har gått, enn om de kommende årene. Scenen er dermed satt for president Obamas tale torsdag kveld.

    «Mine damer og herrer, vi er samlet her for å nominere en president!» begynte Clinton. Førti-ni minutter senere avsluttet han med følgende linje: «Du må stemme på, og du må velge president Barack Obama!» Obama endret deretter scenen og ga Clinton en klem.

    I mellomtiden argumenterte Bill Clinton overbevisende på Obamas vegne, og ga en hjelpende hånd til sin kones motstander fra 2008. Den Obama-godkjente talen var på 3136 ord, mens Clintons leverte en tale på 5895 ord.

    Clinton bukker i det Obama entrer scenen etter Clintons tale onsdag kveld. Foto: Jared Soares for PBS NewsHour.

    Nedenfor har jeg samlet noen reaksjoner:

    POLITICOs John F. Harris og Jonathan Martin:

    «In 48 minutes, the 42nd president had stated the case for the 44th president’s reelection in language that was crisper and more compelling than the case Obama so far has made for himself.»

    «Clinton … avoided … Oprah-style mood music in favor a more potent skill — his ability to convey the concrete human dimensions of public policy.»

    «The old view on the Obama political team, stretching back to 2008 and the early days of the administration, was that Clinton stood for the politics of artifice and fancy footwork — an approach that yielded only ‘small-ball’ results. Obama, they believed, stood for big things The new view on the Obama team, shared by many Democrats, is that Clinton knows a thing or two about blending argument, language, and performance to achieve the biggest thing for any first-term president, which is becoming a second-term president.»

    Newsweek/Daily Beasts Andrew Sullivan:

    «I never liked Clinton but it is now pure churlishness to cavil at his remarkable skills. He is able to reach middle class voters with clear argument, grasp of detail and narration of history that very few others can. If Obama has said that his main failing in this campaign is that he hasn’t told the story of the past few years well enough, then it is surely fitting that it was the husband of his former rival and former president Bill Clinton who finally told that story.»

    Washington Posts konservative kommentator Charles Krauthammer:

    «I think there is a value in the hall and among the believers that this was an important event. It’s the laying on of hands of the grand old man. Clinton is to Democrats what Reagan, after his presidency, was to Republicans. You know? An icon, and I think there is a kind of symbolism in Clinton saying, in particular because he was centrist, Obama is not, he’s okay, support him, etc. But, I don’t think it has any resonance beyond the hall. And that is why I think it was a missed opportunity. It could have been a tight speech. It could have been an Obama oriented speech.»

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    Are Tågvold Flaten
    Are Tågvold Flaten
    Statsviter og redaktør av AmerikanskPolitikk.no. Programleder av podkastene "Valgkampsirkuset" og "Amerikansk politikk". Forfatter av "Sirkuset - Clinton, Trump og tidenes valgkamp".

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