Text 23817, 92 rader
Skriven 2006-10-13 19:29:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Clinton
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This is funny......

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/oct/12/101210281.h
tml


October 12, 2006 

Clinton says right wing has hurt U.S., predicts win by Democrats 
By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The nation has been "jammed into an ideological corner" 
by conservative Republicans and is primed for a power shift in the 
November elections, former President Bill Clinton said Thursday. 

"This is an election unlike any other I have ever participated in," 
Clinton told Democratic supporters at a fundraiser in Las Vegas. "For 
six years this country has been totally dominated - not by the 
Republican Party, this is not fair to the Republican Party - by a narrow 
sliver of the Republican Party, its more right-wing and its most 
ideological element." 

"When the chips are down, this country has been jammed to the right, 
jammed into an ideological corner, alienated from its allies, and we're 
in a lot of trouble," he said. 

Clinton addressed a group of about 50 top-level donors to the Jack 
Carter for Senate campaign. Carter, the son of former President Jimmy 
Carter, is running to unseat Republican Sen. John Ensign. 

Clinton also attended a fundraiser for Democratic congressional 
candidates Jill Derby and Tessa Hafen at which the minimum contribution 
was $3,000. 

He appeared onstage with Hafen, Derby, Carter and Rep. Shelley Berkley, 
D-Nev., but did not take questions from the media or comment on recent 
criticism of his administration's policy on nuclear nonproliferation in 
North Korea. 

The former president largely stuck to politics. 

"The Democratic Party has become the liberal and conservative party in 
America. If you want to be fiscally conservative, you've got to be for 
us. If you want to conserve natural resources, you've got to be for us," 
he said. "If you want a change of course in Iraq ... you've got to be 
for us." 

Clinton also attacked Republican tax cuts, describing a repeal of the 
estate tax as the GOP's top legislative priority. 

"They may think I should be able to give Chelsea every nickel, but I 
don't," Clinton said. 

Tucker Bounds, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, returned 
the criticism. 

"It's going to take more than a Bill Clinton stopover to change the 
minds of the majority of Nevadans," he said. 

"Republicans have solid candidates on the ballot that are going to keep 
taxes low and continue to fight terrorism," Bounds said. He said the 
party had not fallen out of step with voters. 

"Keeping taxes low and the economy healthy is not a fringe belief. It is 
a popular belief in Nevada and a popular belief in most every other 
state." 

Clinton did not mention Rep. Jon Porter, Hafen's opponent, or Nevada 
Secretary of State Dean Heller, Derby's opponent, by name. He dismissed 
Ensign as "a sort of a likable fellow" with "good relations with most of 
the powers-that-be here in the state," perhaps a reference to Ensign's 
working relationship with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. 

Clinton, who recently made fundraising stops for Democrats in Minnesota 
and New Jersey, also said he was embarrassed by the recent immigration 
debate. 

He noted that Mexico had become one of the U.S.'s top 10 creditors. 

"These people are our bankers," Clinton said. "Doesn't it embarrass you 
that these poor people are trying to sneak over the Rio Grande River to 
find a living in this country and we want to stop that? But we're only 
too happy to turn around and say, 'Don't spend your own money on those 
poor illegal immigrants to give them an education and get a job in 
Mexico. Loan it to us.'"


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