At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Bill Clinton (former president belonging to the same party) delivered a speech widely regarded as boosting the momentum of incumbent president Barack Obama in his ultimately-successful campaign for re-election in the 2012 United States presidential election.
The speech was delivered as a nominating address, formally placing Obama's name into consideration as part of the procedural vote to re-nominate him for a second term. Many analysts observed that Clinton's speech provided a cogent case for Obama's re-election that the campaign had, until then, struggled to articulate. The speech earned Clinton the nickname of Obama's "secretary of explaining stuff" in political media coverage, after Obama quipped that he should appoint Clinton to such a (nonexistent) office.
Background In the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama (the incumbent) was seeking re-election as president alongside his vice president, Joe Biden. As the Democratic ticket, they faced a strong challenge from Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his vice presidential running mate, Paul Ryan.
At the time of the convention, the Obama-Biden ticket's prospects of victory were seen as both uncertain and challenging. The close of the presidential election was only two months after the convention, leaving the Obama-Biden campaign with a relatively short runway to land its pitch to voters. The economy was still struggling in its recovery after the Great Recession, posing a significant challenge to Obama's re-election prospects.
Bill Clinton (the most recent former president of the Democratic Party) spoke on the second evening of 2012 Democratic National Convention, held in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Democratic convention was held the week following the 2012 Republican National Convention.
During Obama's first term, he and Clinton held a relationship with each other that was characterized by multiple news outlets to be respectful, but not warm. Clinton's wife, Hillary was a member of Obama's cabinet as the secretary of state.
Clinton and Obama's earlier personal history had seen them at odds when Obama had run against Clinton's wife, Hillary, in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries. However, after Obama prevailed at securing the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential nomination, Clinton had delivered a speech 2008 Democratic National Convention in support of Obama's election. Clinton's 2008 convention speech was widely hailed by analysts as having been a skillful and persuasive sales pitch for Obama's ultimately-successful campaign for the presidency. He was deemed to have performed well as Obama's so-called "booster-in-chief" at the 2008 convention, a role he was invited to reprise at the 2012 convention. Clinton's selection for the 2012 convention's nominating speech was, in part, seen as a sign that the two men had put past odds behind them.
Clinton's popularity, at the time of the 2012 convention, far eclipsed Obama's popularity. At the time, Clinton was receiving his highest personal approval ratings among Americans. A June Gallup Poll placed his approval at 66%, the highest it had yet been in his post-presidency and tying his all-time high favorability rating he enjoyed at the time of his first inauguration in January 1993. Clinton's approval rating was strong among independents and had even grown to 44% among Republicans, making him a strong possible surrogate to court swing-voters on Obama's behalf. In 2012, his wife, Hillary (then-secretary of state), was also enjoying similarly high approval. A second Gallup poll conducted closer in advance to the convention saw Clinton's approval rise to a new all-time high of 69%. In 2012, many voters fondly associated Clinton with the strong performance of the American economy during his presidency. Bill Clinton, up to this point in his post-presidency, was regarded as having remained "the Democratic Party's most effective economic messenger". Not only did the strength of the economy during his presidency lend him credibility, but Clinton was also regarded to have a strong ability to break-down complicated subjects into simple-to-understand framings. His speaking style was regarded to be far more plainspoken than Obama's, with Obama's rhetorical style being characterized as loftier than Clinton's. Clinton had been a speaker at Democratic National Conventions for decades with all of his speeches receiving great praise, with the exception of his nominating speech for Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic National Convention (which was lambasted for excessive length).
Further, Clinton was regarded to be a strongly-positioned to vouch as a surrogate on Obama's behalf to white working class voters, a Democratic which Obama's campaign needed to mitigate his losses with. Clinton had relatively strong favorably among working class white men, a demographic Obama was polling especially poorly with.
Clinton's speech was delivered on the second evening of the convention. Earlier that evening, Elizabeth Warren (U.S. Senate nominee in Massachusetts) had delivered the other of the night's headlining speeches. Due to Clinton's recognized strength as a persuasive surrogate for the campaign, it was opted to afford his speech greater prominence in the convention program by shifting vice presidential nominee Joe Biden's convention speech from taking place as a standalone acceptance speech the same evening as Clinton's speech to instead being placed as an introduction before Obama's speech on the closing night; and the nominating roll call vote was pushed back until after prime time (following Clinton's speech).
Summary of speech
The speech argued a case for Obama's re-election, and retorted the case made against Obama by speakers at the 2012 Republican National Convention. The speech centered primarily on policy concerns, rather than emotional appeals. In offering a defense of Obama's performance as president, highlighted decisions made by Obama as president, and outlined positive outcomes he attributed to them. Clinton's delivery often took an argumentative tone to counter Republican criticisms, as he cited facts, figures, and provided historic context; all in a manner that presented a flattering portrait of Obama's performance as president.
Clinton acknowledged that the economic recovery from the Great Recession was still in progress, remarking, "I know we're still coming back." He acknowledged that many were still struggling and were dissatisfied with the pace of the recovery, but promised that the recovery was indeed underway, "if you'll renew the president’s contract you will feel it." Clinton leaned on the economic credibility many voters afforded him by virtue of a well-remembered period of economic prosperity during his own presidency. Noting that, "President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did," Clinton defended Obama's handling of the economy he inherited from George W. Bush, arguing, "no president—no president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years." He further argued to voters that the economy was indeed recovering under Obama's leadership, and that a fuller effect of the recovery efforts would be felt in a second Obama term. Clinton promised voters of the recovery, "if you'll renew the president's contract you will feel it".
Clinton argued that Republicans were asking for their party to be returned to the White House on the premise that Obama had not been fast enough to repair the crises inherited from his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush. Clinton asserted that Republicans should be faulted for creating those crises, more than Obama should be faulted for the pace of recovery from them. Clinton remarked, "[At the Republican convention] in Tampa, the Republican argument against the president's re-election was pretty simple: We left him a total mess, he hasn't cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in." Clinton mentioned George W. Bush at three instances in his speech. Contrarily, at the Republican convention, neither Romney, Ryan, nor Chris Christie (the Republican keynote speaker) mentioned Bush at any point in their convention speeches.
Clinton further alleged that the Republican Party was still pushing for "the same old policies that got us into trouble in the first place," arguing that the Republican platform featured many of the same policies that deserved blame for causing the Great Recession. Clinton elaborated that such policies included, "tax cuts for higher-income Americans, more money for defense than the Pentagon [even] wants and...deep cuts on programs that help the middle class and poor children." Invoking a catchphrase of past Republican president Ronald Reagan, Clinton quipped, "As another president once said, 'There they go again'".
Clinton argued that the economic record of recent decades demonstrated that Democrats, not Republicans, were party of economic prosperity for Americans. As part of this, Clinton cited job creation numbers (which were affirmed as accurate by fact checkers),
Clinton called back to this when criticizing Romney's opposition to the Obama administration's response to the domestic automotive industry crisis, remarking,
Clinton also argued that the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") was already benefiting Americans. He negatively contrasted Paul Ryan's own budget proposals for including significant cuts to Medicare.
Clinton retorted Republicans' assertions that Obama opposed free markets, by arguing that Obama and Democrats do support free markets, but that they also, "believe 'we’re all in this together' is a far better philosophy than 'you’re all on your own'". Warning against Romney's prospective economic leadership if elected president, Clinton argued, "We simply cannot afford to turn the reins of government over to someone who will double down on trickle-down." Clinton also remarked,
Clinton argued that the positions supported by the current Republican Party were not palatable to most Americans, and that the Republican convention had sanitized its image by failing to highlight leading policy ideas among its party rank. He jested that the Republican convention,
While the speech was a partisan defense of the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, Clinton managed to lightened the sense of partisanship by offering positive mention of past Republican presidents Reagan, George W. Bush, and George H. W. Bush; including mentioning his own experiences working in collaboration with each. Clinton argued a belief in bipartisan collaboration and claimed that his gripes were not with Republicans as a whole, but rather with a "far right" faction of the Republican Party which was vehemently opposed to bipartisan collaboration. Clinton also appealed to sentiments about fostering a kinder political culture , remarking, "democracy … does not have to be a blood sport; it can be an honorable enterprise that advances the human interest."
Calling for the renomination of Obama, the formal purpose of Clinton's speech, Clinton declared, "I want to nominate a man who is cool on the outside but who burns for America on the inside." At the end of the speech, Obama joined Clinton on stage and the two men embraced as delegates cheered. Soon over, the roll call to renominate Obama was held. The roll call itself concluded after midnight (local time).
Length The speech was delivered at 48 minutes in length. The prepared written version of the speech was 3,279 words in length. However, when delivered, the speech featured an additional 2,619 words. The additional length was due to a significant amount of additional improvisations that Clinton added onto his prepared speech. Several of the more memorable lines from the speech, including "it takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did", were among the improvised additions.