http://www.youtube.com/v/GXhrWuc9XRc
by Jim Tankersley
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has a new television ad up in Iowa and New Hapshire, which combines a familiar theme – that the “Bush economy” hurts the middle class – with some throwback language.
In the ad, the New York senator calls the economy under President Bush a “trapdoor”: “Too many families are one pink slip, one missed mortgage payment one medical diagnosis away from falling through and losing everything,” she says.
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Many a Democratic candidate has accused Bush of failing the middle class over the last few years – some in fairly similar language to Clinton’s in the ad. Consider, for example, this quote from Clinton rival John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina:
”For too many families, it takes every dime they make just to pay their bills, and if something goes wrong — a child gets sick, if somebody gets laid off, if they have financial problems — they go right off a cliff. And people say this is the best economy in our lifetime? We can do better than this, and we will.”
That line, in several variations, was an Edwards campaign staple.
In 2004.
Update, 4:40 p.m.: Republicans offer this response to the Clinton ad (and we’re pretty sure we remember them similarly dismissing Edwards in 2004):
“Hillary Clinton’s ill-conceived economic plans would devastate middle class America by placing the burden of massive government growth on the backs of working families,” said Danny Diaz, a Republican National Committee spokesman. “Middle class families already fell through the Clinton trap door when her husband Bill raised their taxes and I doubt they will fall for the same trick twice.”