Please Stow Your 1990s Baggage Underneath the Seat in Front of You
Maybe, finally, possibly, Barack Obama is making those distinctions between himself and Hillary Clinton. Last night at a Cedar Rapids town hall, Obama offered examples of their differences on foreign and domestic issues, criticized HRC's efforts to reform health care and raised the specter of the old Clinton dramas.
"I believe I can bring this country together in a way that Sen. Clinton cannot do," he said, reports NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann. "And the reason I believe that is because I don't carry the baggage of the 1990s. I'm not interested in fighting the fights of the past."
The Illinois senator chided Clinton for her vote on the Kyl-Lieberman resolution and her alleged unwillingness to engage in diplomacy with world leaders. He was particularly harsh in his rhetoric against her failed health care overhaul during the 1990s.
"When I hear her say it was a lonely fight, I have to disagree. Eighty percent of the American people wanted universal health care at that time. It wasn't that lonely," Obama said, greeted with applause from over 700 attendees at the Cedar Rapids community college where he spoke. "The reason that it became lonely was that she made a decision to close the door and to work just with her people."
Obama needs to give up hitting HRC over the Kyl-Lieberman vote, especially when he didn't return to town to vote for it himself. Obama (along with everyone else in the Senate) was informed the night before about the upcoming vote. Since he was in New Hampshire, he could have returned to DC with no problem on short notice.
But then he's been missing a lot of votes lately....
And yes, Obama, it was a lonely fight for universal health care when the Congress was controlled by Republicans.