Published: October 14, 2008 08:19 am            

Hillary Clinton: Democratic mantra is 'jobs, baby, jobs’

HORSHAM, Pa. — The fragility of the U.S. economy just eight years after her husband left the nation in sound fiscal shape is heartbreaking, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.

Clinton, stumping for a second straight day in Pennsylvania for former Democratic rival Barack Obama, said President Bush’s policies do not help average households.

“The middle class is invisible to this president,” Clinton told about 400 people at a Jewish community center in northeast Philadelphia. “He doesn’t see how hard it is to make ends meet.”

Clinton also played upon the chant heard at many Republican rallies — “drill, baby, drill” — saying Democrats have a better answer: “jobs, baby, jobs.”

The New York senator is lending her popularity in places like northeast Philadelphia and the city’s suburbs to try to help Obama beat Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain in this key battleground state. Clinton did well in both areas in beating the Illinois senator by 10 percentage points in Pennsylvania’s primary six months ago.

“I thought she was a great candidate, but Barack Obama won and I’m behind him 100 percent,” said Dennis Cowley, 57, of Southampton, who wore his pipe fitters union T-shirt to Clinton’s rally at a historic farm in Horsham. Union friends are slowly throwing their weight to Obama, especially with Clinton on board, he said.

“It was slow in the beginning, but I think the union votes are coming around,” Cowley said.

Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, campaigned with Obama running mate Joe Biden on Sunday in Scranton, another area where Clinton did well in the primary. Clinton spoke Monday of how her grandfather went to work at a lace factory in Scranton at age 11, worked for more than half a century and sent three children to college.

She detects that Americans no longer share his sense of optimism about the future, but she hopes that pessimism ends with the Bush presidency.

Her husband’s administration produced a balanced budget and a surplus, she said. “Now, eight short years later, we’ve had to add a digit to the debt clock,” she said, referring to the digital sign in New York City that tracks the national debt.

Clinton appeared relaxed and upbeat as she revisited towns where she only recently toiled for votes for herself. She shared the stage with several Democratic officials who had supported her in the primary — Gov. Ed Rendell, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz.

Clinton plans to stump for Obama in Ohio and other battleground states in the campaign’s final weeks, she said.

“It’s not going to be easy (for) the next president,” she said. “The problems are complex and times are tough. ... This is a sink-or-swim moment.”

        

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