Flashback 1992: "Everything that should be down is up"

YouTube ^ | 1992 | Al Gore

[OrangeHoof]

This is a somewhat famous campaign speech from Al Gore in 1992 that seems more relevant today than it was in 1992.

He starts out telling his supporters to imagine how they'd feel if they woke up on a cold November morning, opened up their newspapers and read "Four More Years" (of George H.W. Bush). Then he goes into his riff which I am trying to transcribe here:

Unemployment around the country has gone up.
The number of jobs has gone down.
The trade deficit has gone up.
Personal income has gone down.
The budget deficit has gone up.
The supereconomist (sic) has gone down.
Poverty has gone up.
The number of jobs has gone down.
Gas prices have gone up.
Jobs down.
Fear up.
Hope down.
Everything that ought to be down is up.
Everything that should be up is down.
They've got it upside down and we're going to turn it right-side up.

[OrangeHoof]

I would dearly love to see Paul Ryan give pretty much the same speech either during the convention or on the campaign trail and watch the media scream bloody murder over it.

I'd particularly love it if the media complained that it was plagiarism because, even if that were true, the message is still TRUE. In fact more true 20 years later than it was then.

Plus, it begs the question. WHAT was so terrible about our economy in 1992?

At it's worst, the unemployment rate in 1992 was 7.8%. By October, it was 7.3%.

Regular unleaded gasoline prices in October 1992 was $1.10/gallon.

The average rate of GDP growth in 1992 was 3%.

The inflation rate in 1992 was 3%.

The 12-month price change in median single home prices rose 2% in 1992.

Gore had to do a lot of spinning back in 1992 to sell us on "the worst economy in the past 50 years". Ryan doesn't need to sell us at all on the worst economy in the past 80 years. All he has to do is recite the numbers.

So, if any of you have access to Romney's or Ryan's speechwriters, please forward this to them. It would be such a home run and it would pose the question so clearly "why would you want four more years of this?" that even some Obama voters wouldn't fail to get the point.

[Ravi]

Yes. Yes. Yes. I always remebered that speech and thought it would be great to use with today’s economy.

[OrangeHoof]

Turning the Democrats’ words against them is twisting the knife. It will also open the eyes to the youth vote that the talking points Democrats used in 1992 are worth echoing again 20 years later.

[Incorrigible]

Bump

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

It’s an excellent approach, echoing their own words back at them. But better, IMHO, is to hammer home the impact of Fannie/Freddie, and “affordable” housing. The Democrats worked for decades to inflate the housing bubble - then Chuck Schummer deliberately pricked the bubble during the 2008 campaign season to guarantee a Democrat victory.

That, plus the raiding of Medicare built into ObamaCare, the enormous deficits built into ObamaCare (ten years’ taxes needed for the first six years of benefits), and the tax and regulatory cliff we’ll be going over if we don’t reverse course immediately.

[RinaseaofDs]

It can’t be Ryan giving this speech, but it needs to be somebody at the convention, and it needs to be televised on the big 4.

By their own standards of what is success, there is no way this group deserves another four years.

[OrangeHoof]

I think it absolutely ought to be Ryan to plant the media seed.

1. Ryan gives an almost identical speech to the one Gore made.
2. Somebody plants to the knee-jerk media (Politico would be my preference) that Ryan (gasp) stole that speech from Al Gore.
3. The media gets all lathered about how Ryan plagiarized Gore.
4. The GOP comes out and defends Ryan by asking "what in the speech is untrue?"

Ryan can state all the same facts differently but the media won't report it because they know it makes Obama look bad but if you make them think there's a Republican SCANDAL here, they'll go off like Chicken Little.

That's when the GOP comes back with "1992 vs 2012" - who's economy was really bad? Then that leads to the question. If 1992's economy was bad enough to replace Bush, why is 2012's worse economy not reason enough to replace Obama?

And, if the media takes the bait, the GOP can also ask why Biden can get away with plagiarizing a speech if Ryan cannot?

This works but first you have to put blood in the water for the media to chase and you do that by making them think there's a Republican scandal here when it is actually a point-by-point refutation of Obama and the Democrats.

[OrangeHoof]

I think it absolutely ought to be Ryan to plant the media seed.

1. Ryan gives an almost identical speech to the one Gore made.
2. Somebody plants to the knee-jerk media (Politico would be my preference) that Ryan (gasp) stole that speech from Al Gore.
3. The media gets all lathered about how Ryan plagiarized Gore.
4. The GOP comes out and defends Ryan by asking "what in the speech is untrue?"

Ryan can state all the same facts differently but the media won't report it because they know it makes Obama look bad but if you make them think there's a Republican SCANDAL here, they'll go off like Chicken Little.

That's when the GOP comes back with "1992 vs 2012" - who's economy was really bad? Then that leads to the question. If 1992's economy was bad enough to replace Bush, why is 2012's worse economy not reason enough to replace Obama?

And, if the media takes the bait, the GOP can also ask why Biden can get away with plagiarizing a speech if Ryan cannot?

This works but first you have to put blood in the water for the media to chase and you do that by making them think there's a Republican scandal here when it is actually a point-by-point refutation of Obama and the Democrats.