Once again, pulling out the Bush card:
NEWARK, N.J. – President Obama spent Sunday trying to convince New Jersey voters that a vote for Jon Corzine, their less-than-popular Democratic governor, was a vote for him. An afternoon event at the Prudential Center in downtown Newark drew over 10,000 mostly black voters, who took up chants of “Yes We Can!” and booed mentions of former president George W. Bush as if they were back on the 2008 campaign trail.
So now is Corzine running against Bush in ’09, as Obama ran against Bush in ’08?
an energetic DJ spun hip-hop hits and Michael Jackson classics. “If you miss Michael Jackson, make some noise!” he cried, and was met with a deafening roar eclipsed only when the president took the stage.
Corzine’s campaign hopes the lingering image of the governor standing beside Obama will bring out voters who were not enthused by his first term in office. The disparity in the two politicians’ popularity among New Jersey Democrats was easy to see when attendees let out enthralled screams whenever the president was mentioned, but had to be repeatedly prodded to wave their signs for Corzine. They kept close watch on the arena’s exits, hoping for an early glimpse of Obama. Some narrated the proceedings to friends and relatives on their cell phones, but none in my hearing mentioned Corzine even once.
Sounds like those 10,000 voters came out to see their messianic rock star celebrity.
The speakers, who included several New Jersey representatives and Newark mayor Cory Booker, stuck to a carefully scripted message, one by one characterizing Corzine as the proprietor of Obama’s vision and painting his opponent, Republican Chris Christie, as a representative of the Bush years.
That’s the winning ticket! Corzine=Obama. Christie=Bush.
Obama seemed to feel that he was among friends, and joined in the sharply partisan tone of the rally. Both Corzine and Weinberg had blamed the economic crisis on the “trickle-down economics” of the Bush years, and Obama picked up where they left off. He implied that Corzine’s unpopularity stemmed from the difficult choices he has had to make in dealing with the “worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.”
“That didn’t start on Jon Corzine’s watch, and it didn’t start on my watch,” the president said. “I’m not interested in relitigating the past.
Hope you didn’t just snarf up coffee all over your computer monitor and keyboard….
We’re willing to clean up after somebody else’s mess. But if I’m holding the mop, if Jon Corzine is holding the mop, the least the other guy can do is not tell us we’re holding the mop wrong, not mopping fast enough, or say we’re using a socialist mop.”
Oh, it’s not the way you’re handling the mop that’s the biggest problem I’m having: It’s you turning up the faucet; then lying about you working so hard at cleaning up “the other guy’s mess”.
You want to mop up? Turn off the run-away spending faucet, first, Mr. Janitor-in-Chief!
U.S. President Barack Obama hugs New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine during a campaign rally at Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, New Jersey, November 1, 2009. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES POLITICS)
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.