“I don’t care whether you are a Republican or Democrat or an independent, why would you do that?”
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“Their basic message is anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-trade and, let’s face it, anti-change”, he said, nearly issuing a warning to republican voters.
How – in fact, we have the nominee for – the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party saying, Donald Trump, saying America is a Third World nation. Clinton has proposed steps that build directly on Obama’s actions while Bernie Sanders has praised his accomplishments.
In a trip to Elkhart, Indiana on Wednesday, President Obama took a victory lap for the country’s economic turnaround during his two terms as president.
Obama’s remarks in Elkhart, Indiana, foreshadowed the arguments he is likely to make on the campaign trail this fall against the likely Republican presidential nominee.
“No, don’t boo him; we’re voting”, Obama said.
Aides said the president, who is expected to ultimately endorse Hillary Clinton, is eager to jump into the carnival-like political debate between Trump and the Democratic nominee.
Decisions such as helping the auto industry to restructure, helping families refinance their homes and investing in clean energy and infrastructure helped put Americans and local residents back to work, Obama said. “From the failed stimulus package to cap-and-trade to Obamacare, Baron Hill helped ram the Obama agenda through Congress while lobbyist John Gregg called Obamacare a ‘game changer, ‘ with no regard towards the impact their liberal policies had on Hoosiers and small business owners”. At an appearance today, Obama is set to tout the success his administration has had at reviving the economy in Elkhart, with the kind of rousing speech which has become Obama’s trademark.
“If we get cynical and just vote our fears, or don’t vote at all, we won’t build on the progress we’ve started”, Obama planned to say. He thinks Obama may have helped some, but thinks most of the credit goes to the community working together. Sleeves rolled up and his finger wagging, the president asked the supportive crowd, “Have we really forgotten what just happened eight years ago?”
The first time Obama visited Elkhart was three weeks into his presidency when the unemployment rate in the in city stood at a staggering 19.6 percent.
It’s crucial to the Democratic presidential nominee that voters buy Obama’s message in states like OH, which the president won by just two percentage points four years ago, and Pennsylvania, where he prevailed by five percentage points. “I didn’t make it an issue”, Obama said in an interview with PBS’s Gwen Ifil Wednesday.
Elkhart has seen its unemployment rate drop from 18.9 percent in 2009, Obama’s first year in office, to just 4.1 percent in April.
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Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Pence, said Wednesday that Elkhart had rebounded “in spite of Obama’s policies” and that those policies inflicted onerous federal burdens on Indiana.
