Empathy and economy, Clinton argues at auto racing museum

During a campaign stop at the NC Auto Racing Hall of Fame north of Charlotte today, Sen. Hillary Clinton accused her opponent in the Democratic presidential primary contest, Sen. Barack Obama, of not supporting two proposals to help Americans suffering from economic hardship: legislation that would stop home foreclosures and a federal gas tax holiday. She also charged that Obama's healthcare plan would not cover as many people as her own.


Clinton accuses Obama of blocking her initiatives from Jordan Green on Vimeo.

Clinton was joined by Gov. Mike Easley and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a US congresswoman from Houston, both of whom have been traveling across the state with her. Today, racing legend Junior Johnson, who has spent more time traveling with the candidate’s husband, President Clinton, was also present, along with First Lady Mary Easley and David Parker, a Statesville lawyer and a Democratic super-delegate, who said he has not made up his mind which candidate to support.

Speaking to a supportive and mostly white audience in Mooresville, a suburb where Lake Norman and the auto racing industry have served as a magnet for wealth, Clinton criticized her opponent more thoroughly than she did yesterday at Guilford College in Greensboro, a stronghold of Obama support. With Johnson at her side, she also established a powerful cultural connection with her audience, replicating the rapport with voters on which her husband successfully capitalized to win the White House after three terms as governor of Arkansas.

“You’ve got to really make up your mind who’s really on your side,” Hillary Clinton said, adding later: “The question is this: Who understands what you’re going through, and who will stand up for you?”

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign announced new two-minute television ad for North Carolina and Indiana media markets that the campaign calls its “closing arguments.”

Here’s a link to the North Carolina ad.

And here’s the script:

Voice-over: “North Carolina values. Hard work, community, keeping your word. There’s a candidate who shares those values, who thinks differently than those who’ve spent decades in Washington. Barack Obama.”

Obama: “Politics didn’t lead me to working people. Working people led me to politics.”

Voice-over: “After college, he began his career as a community organizer, helping neighborhoods devastated by steel plant closings.”

Obama: “I worked with churches to help those workers get back on their feet.”

Voice-over: “For two decades in public life, he’s stood up to powerful interests on behalf of people, taking tough stands, bringing parties together to get things done. It says something about the president he’d be.”

Obama: “It’s not enough just to change political parties in the White House, we’ve got to change how our politics works.”

Voice-over: “Now, he’s visiting cities and towns across North Carolina.”

Obama: “People are struggling. Jobs disappearing, nothing taking their place. Families facing foreclosure, the cost of everything from healthcare to groceries to gas at the pump going up and up and up.”

Voice-over: “And at each stop, he trusts us with the truth.”

Obama: “We could suspend the gas tax for six months. But that’s not gonna bring down gas prices long-term.

“That’s typical of how Washington works. Let’s find some short-term quick fix that we can say we did something even though we’re not really doing anything.

“We’ve got to go after the oil companies and look at their price-gouging. We’ve got to start using less oil, and that means raising fuel-efficiency standards on cars and developing alternative fuels.”

Voice-over:: “It’s a new kind of politics. With a plan to bring our troops home. Turn around this economy. Deliver real tax relief for the middle class. And bring back some hope at a time when it’s desperately needed.”

Obama: “That’s why May Sixth is so important. We’ve got a choice. We can go about doing the same old things with the same old folks in the same old ways and somehow hope we’re going to get a different result. Or we can go ahead and try something entirely different. You and I together, we’ll change this country and change the world.”