Clinton: -"we need a president who wants to understand."

http://www.centredaily.com/news/politics/story/932235.html

Clinton: Hire a decider
Former president stumps for Obama at Rec Hall rally
By Mike Joseph- mjoseph@centredaily.com
UNIVERSITY PARK — Former President Bill Clinton, in his fourth visit to Penn State in 12 years, campaigned for Barack Obama on Wednesday, saying "we need a president who wants to understand."

CDT/Nabil K. Mark

Former President Bill Clinton speaks at Rec Hall on the Penn State campus October 29, 2008. CDT/Nabil K. Mark

“How much have we suffered from people who did not want to understand?” he said.

Clinton delivered a 22-minute speech Wednesday afternoon before about 1,500 people — mostly Penn State students — in Rec Hall, where Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin held a rally the night before that drew about 7,000.

The former president’s campaign appearance lacked the pom-poms, thunder sticks, live country music performance and high-inflection applause lines that punctuated the Palin rally.

But he laid out a reasoned argument for Americans, after their long job interviews with the candidates, to hire a “decider in chief” who will grow the economy from the bottom up, not from the top down, and who will bring U.S. troops home from Iraq and rebuild the military.

Without mentioning either Sen. John McCain, of Arizona, or Alaska Gov. Palin, Clinton said Obama’s choice of Sen. Joe Biden, of Delaware, as his running mate now looks especially wise.



Obama will be kept in the White House for two years fixing the economy “to get this country out of the ditch,” Clinton said. But Biden — chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — will be available “to go around the world” to help repair relations with other countries.

Clinton got the crowd to help him through an explanation of the three tests of an effective decider in chief — someone who has the right philosophy, the right policies and the ability to make the right decisions and execute them.

“Once you do it, the answer screams out at you,” Clinton said, and then paused.

“Obama!” someone screamed from across Rec Hall.

“You got it,” Clinton replied. When the financial crisis unfolded, Clinton said, both Obama and McCain did the right thing, and the unpopular thing, by supporting the $700 billion rescue package.

But he said Obama first discussed the matter with his own economic advisers, then with Clinton’s former economic advisers, and then with Clinton himself.

Clinton said the difference in understanding emerged in the last two presidential debates.

“Who had a better grasp of what had to be done?” Clinton asked.

“Obama!” the crowd roared back.

“We need a president who wants to understand and who can understand,” Clinton said.

In early remarks, Clinton referred to the 5th Congressional District race between Democrat Mark McCracken, of Clearfield County, and Republican Glenn Thompson, of Centre County.

He said no one gave Mc- Cracken a chance when the race began, but “now he’s even in the polls.”

State College Mayor Bill Welch, in a brief talk before Clinton’s arrival, welcomed the crowd to “Politics 101,” said the day’s topic is Tuesday’s general election and added that the “guest lecturer is the ultimate lecturer.”

“Your vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday will help bring about the dramatic change we need,” Welch said. “We must not be complacent.”

Clinton, after he spoke, worked a barrier line to shake hands with a crowd of students on the Rec Hall floor. One of them, political science major Jennifer Frechie, came away from the experience nearly in a state of transport.

She bounded away from the line, held one hand with the other and said: “I touched Bill Clinton.”

Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910.