Month: September 2012

Klein: No Politician Talks as Good as Bill Clinton

Buck Banks

I can’t think of any politician who talks as good as Bill Clinton. Certainly, no politician has ever been able to unpack and explain dry, complicated policy nuances in as juicy and entertaining a manner. The folks at Fox were speculating that the speech was overly wonky and maybe a lot of people got bored and turned off their televisions. Wishful thinking, no doubt. That’s what they always said about his epic State of the Union filibusters — and they were always wrong. People like listening to this guy. He’s informal, and informative, in a way that Obama, sadly, has never been able to be-otherwise the folks would have known all that good stuff about the health care plan, and the stimulus plan. But then, Obama’s in good company: as I said, Clinton’s the most compelling policy wonk I’ve ever heard. And there is no second place.

— Joe Klein, writing in TIME magazine.

Clinton Beats Mitt in Tweets Per Minute but Not Michelle O

Trish

22,087

Highest spike in Tweets per minute during Pres. Bill Clinton’s address to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Sept. 5. The peak came at the end of the speech, indicating that audiences can focus for 49 minutes if the material is good. Clinton’s Twitter peak far outdistanced Mitt Romney’s (14,289) but did not surpass First Lady Michelle Obama’s the night before (28,003).

Clinton Saved the Democratic Party — Again

Buck Banks

I would recommend to my friend Paul [Begala] here, tonight when everybody leaves, lock the doors. You don’t have to come back tomorrow. This convention is done. This will be the moment that probably re-elected Barack Obama. Bill Clinton saved the Democratic Party once, it was going too far left, he came in, the New Democrats took it to the center. He did it again tonight.

— GOP strategist Alex Castellanos, quoted by the Huffington Post.

Bill Clinton’s Top 10 Best Ad Libs From His D.N.C. Speech

Buck Banks

Courtesy of Vanity Fair:

Those of you familiar with social media might have heard tell that former president Bill Clinton’s 48-minute-long speech was about fifteen percent ad lib. For media members with copies of the prepared remarks, the address was something epic fight between the former president and the TelePrompTer, which, per design, stop rolling text whenever Clinton went off script. The machine simply refused to cede any ground to Clinton. Would it skip over paragraphs? Would it replace all his text with a frowning emoticon? The suspense was exhilarating! Below are man’s top ten triumphs over machine: Clinton’s most daring ad libs—phrases he inserted completely out of the blue.

10. “Are you listening Ohio and Michigan?”
9. “This Republican narrative, this alternate universe. . .”
8. “It passes the arithmetic test and more important, it passes the values test.”
7. “We gotta deal with this before it deals with us.”
6. “Democracy does not have to be a blood sport.”
5. “The old economy is not coming back.”
4. “Now you’re having a good time but this is getting serious and I want you to listen.”
3. “This is personal to me.”
2. George Washington was accused of being a “surveyor with a bad set of wooden false teeth.”
1. “You got to admit, it takes some brass to attack a guy for what you did.”