NAFTA

It was probably not a speech Barack Obama would have given during the primary.

His address at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan today, entitled "Renewing American Competitiveness," is, on one level, another version of the core message of his campaign: that a vote for him is one for the future while a vote for John McCain is one for the past and George Bush's third term. But the speech was perhaps most notable for its defense of globalization in an old-line bastion of American manufacturing. The points in the speech in which Obama discusses the need to re-tool in order to cope with an internationalized economy seem to be aimed more at unions, and perhaps at the Rust Belt Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton in the primary, than McCain and the Bush administration.

From the prepared version: "So there is a clear choice in this election. Instead of reaching for new horizons, George Bush has put us in a hole, and John McCain’s policies will keep us there. I want to take us in a new and better direction. I reject the belief that we should either shrink from the challenge of globalization, or fall back on the same tired and failed approaches of the last eight years. It’s time for new policies that create the jobs and opportunities of the future– a competitiveness agenda built upon education and energy, innovation and infrastructure, fair trade and reform."  read more »

In a speech to union members in Philadelphia today, Hillary Clinton said that she would create three million jobs over the next decade as part of her plan to rebuild much of the country’s eroded infrastructure.

“We're trying to run today’s economy on yesterday’s infrastructure – and we’re jeopardizing tomorrow’s prosperity,” said Clinton. “So I will rebuild America – by rebuilding, repairing and modernizing our infrastructure.”

The key here is that Clinton is continuing to attach specific numbers to her broad economic proposals (five percent to ten percent of income to insurance premiums, $100 billion in tax cuts to the middle class) to make starker the contrast she says exists between her and Barack Obama, who she accuses of being vague and all talk.  read more »

The Obama campaign is seizing on the evidence in the Clinton White House schedules that show she attended at least one meeting about Nafta.

“This is one of the most critical issues facing Americans workers,” said Roger Tauss, international vice president of the Transportation Workers Union, in a conference call just now. “Nothing played a bigger role in this than Nafta.”

He went on, “Senator Clinton likes to say on the campaign trail that she has always been a critic of Nafta. “Her White House schedules … show she played a major role in this bill.”  read more »

I just spoke very briefly to Austan Goolsbee, the Obama campaign economic advisor who CTV has identified as the aide who purportedly suggested to the Canadian government officials that Obama’s harsh rhetoric against NAFTA was less than heartfelt. I asked Goolsbee if any such meeting or call had taken place.  read more »