Former Arkansas Governor and United States President Bill Clinton returned to Jonesboro yesterday, as he headlined the Arkansas First tour. Speaking at Arkansas State University, Clinton spoke about why it is important for young people to vote in this election.
“In non-presidential years, college students and other young people normally don’t vote as much,” said Clinton. “Single parents struggling to raise their kids and having to drop them off at daycare and up to their ears in debts and bills have other things to think about. They normally don’t vote as often as they do when there is a presidential election. All of the polls that show that we are not doing that well in races are counting you out because they don’t think you will vote. I am telling you that you need to show up. There are huge differences in this Senate race, in the Governor’s race and in this Congressional race.”
Clinton urged voters to not use the mid-term election as a protest vote against the Obama administration and Democrats. He urged people not to listen to ads that are being funded by what he called “out of state interest groups” that are trying to influence the election.
“All of these ads that are filling the airwaves that are paid for by all of these out-of-staters, as soon as the election is over those ads will vanish. Those people will go back to wherever they came from. Those people don’t give a rip about you. You will have to live with the consequences of the people you choose to make these decisions. We are all in this together and we had better starting acting like we are. You don’t have the luxury of staying home on Election Day.”
He says some people have been very discouraged about the state of the economy in America. According to Clinton, America is coming back.
“For the last 150 years, every time there has been a financial collapse it takes about 10 years to get those jobs back. It happened here a couple of months ago, four years earlier than projected. We have 10 million new jobs, 700,00 manufacturing jobs, an 8 year high on automobile production, and we are coming back! People don’t feel it yet because those incomes have not been affected by it. We need to raise the minimum wage, we need to pass the equal pay law, we need to give more people good education and training, and if they go they should stay and not drop out because of the cost. That is what we need to do and why it is important for you to vote.”
Current Governor Mike Beebe also spoke yesterday. He spoke about how important NE Arkansas is in this year’s election.
“The conventional wisdom right now is that there are areas of the state these people are going to lose and win. There are demographics that would suggest that, regardless of what happens, majority Republican areas and majority Democratic areas will turn up their votes accordingly. That conventional wisdom suggests that the Governor’s race and the United States Senate race will be won or lost in northeast Arkansas.”
Beebe has made it publicly known that he is not running for anything else when his term ends. He says he is enjoyed being Governor for the past 8 years.
“For 8 years, I have been Governor of this state and it has been a labor of love for me and I hope we have left this place better than where we found it,” said Beebe. He also touted programs that he says are leading the nation. “We have led the United States in the reduction of the number of people without health insurance. We are not number 1 in the nation in something very good. After all of those years at the bottom of the barrel in the rankings with our sister states in public education, we are now 5th in America in K-12 public education. In the midst of the worst recession in my lifetime, we were one of four states that didn’t run a deficit and have a problem with our budget.”
He says people should vote with the future of Arkansas on their minds.
“Our eyes ought to be on the future. No matter what we have done, we can do better. No matter how many accomplishments we have had, we can have more. No matter how many obstacles we have to overcome, there are still more obstacles to overcome in the future. We can do it together, just as we have over the last 8 years. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, an Independent or whatever it is, you should be more concerned about what Arkansas is going to look like tomorrow. You should be worried about Arkansans instead of some political ideology that might get you all messed up.”
Clinton and Beebe appeared with gubernatorial candidate Mike Ross, Senator Mark Pryor, Congressional Candidate Jackie McPherson, and other candidates at yesterday’s rally. Today’s rallies are taking place in Fayetteville and Rogers.
