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Matthews puts tougher spin on Clinton's Obama advice

Let me finish tonight with what President Clinton started with this morning. Actually let me be tougher than him.

Let me finish tonight with what President Clinton started with this morning. Actually let me be tougher than him. Let me put it on the line, straight from the shoulder. First of all, get on the same page as the voter.That was the big chunk of advice President Clinton gave his Democratic successor today, start feeling some that pain the people are feeling. Voters are getting killed out there. People who've worked for decades have been laid off.Clinton used to say he was looking out for people who "work hard and play by the rules." Well, millions of those people Clinton talked about are out of work - and not because of any fault of their own. Obama's got to tell those people who worked hard and played by the rules and were pushed out of a job - (a) it's not your fault, it's the economy, damn it. And I'm doing everything I can - in fact taking a lot of hell for doing it - to try to fix it. I'm trying big things and they're controversial, but I'm doing what every smart economist tells us is the smart thing to do. You can agree with what I'm trying, the President should say, or not, but the point is, I feel what you're feeling and I hate it. If you see me smiling that's because it's "my" job to keep this country's morale up. You know that and I know that. I can't be walking around with a frown on my face. But, let me tell you, that doesn't stop me from feeling furious at the way this economy was allowed to get out of hand.Second, and this is important, President Clinton said Obama should say it's a tough economic world out there. There's huge unemployment, not just here but, and this is Clinton's third bit of advice for Obama to say, "I know America has done it before, beaten out the other countries of the world before, and we're going to do it again this time."His fourth counsel is to go on the attack and hit the opposition. I don't know about you but this is the bulls eye. Does anyone believe that a political party in Congress that has done nothing the last two years but obstruct and undermine and hide on the sidelines deserves a big, fat vote of confidence - a three cheers for doing really nothing when it could have done something constructive - like find a more bipartisan way to create jobs, deal with health care costs, fixed Wall Street.Yeah, that's the fat part of the target that Obama and the Democrats need to start hitting from now until election day.

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