Associated Press PhotoFormer Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signs autographs after he formally announced that he would join the race for president with a speech at Miami Dade College on Monday.Let the campaign season begin.
It's official now: Hillary Clinton and Jeb "Jeb!" Bush are in, and both were looking for votes with their announcement speeches in recent days.
On Saturday, Clinton drew a crowd of about 5,500 vocal flag-wavers on Roosevelt Island in New York as she painted a pointed portrait of ridiculous Republican economic policies and offered her own populist promise to close the income gap between the rich and poor and build a new and more inclusive economy.
She poked at the Republican candidates - all of them: "There may be some new voices in the Republican presidential choir, but they all are singing the same old song: a song called 'Yesterday'. They trip over themselves promising lower taxes for the wealthy and fewer rules for the biggest corporations. Ask any of them about climate change - one of the defining threats of our time - and they say 'I'm not a scientist. Well, why don't they start listening to those who are?"
She received large shouts of approval from her audience when she noted that the GOP candidates "want to take away health insurance to more 16 million people without any credible alternative" and when she said the GOP runners "shame and blame women rather than respect our right to make our own reproductive health decisions."
There was more applause and flag-waving when she said the Republican candidates "want to put immigrants who work hard and pay taxes at risk of deportation" and that they "turn their back on gay people who love each other. Fundamentally, they reject what it takes to build an inclusive economy. It takes an inclusive society. What I once called 'a village' that has a place for everyone."
And on Monday, Bush gave his first official 'I'm running' speech in Miami. "Everyone has the right to rise," he said of Americans who are tired of watching the middle class fall behind.
He poked fun, too: "The party now in the White House is planning a no-suspense primary, for a no-change election. To hold onto power. To slog on with the same agenda under another name: That's our opponents' call to action this time around. That's all they've got left."
The Miami crowd loved it, and he poured it on: "They have offered a progressive agenda that includes everything but progress. They are responsible for the slowest economic recovery ever, the biggest debt increases ever, a massive tax increase on the middle class, the relentless buildup of the regulatory state, and the swift, mindless draw-down of a military that was generations in the making. The presidency should not be passed on from one liberal to the next."
But after the name calling what did they stand for?
On the economy
' Clinton: "You see top 25 hedge fund managers making more than all of America's kindergarten teachers combined, often paying a lower tax rate. America can't succeed unless you succeed. I will rewrite the tax code so it rewards hard work and investments here at home, not quick trades or stashing profits overseas. I will give new incentives to companies that give their employees a fair share of the profits their hard work earns. And we will make America the clean energy superpower of the 21st century. All of this will create jobs and new businesses."
' Bush: "We will make opportunity common again, get events in the world moving our way again. We will take Washington - the static capital of this dynamic country - out of the business of causing problems. We will get back on the side of free enterprise and free people. So many challenges could be overcome if we just get this economy growing at full strength. There is not a reason in the world why we cannot grow at a rate of four percent a year. And that will be my goal ."
On America's future success
' Clinton: "Success shouldn't be measured by how much the wealthiest Americans have, but by how many children climb out of poverty, how many start-ups and small businesses open and thrive, how many young people go to college without drowning in debt, how many people find a good job, how many families get ahead and stay ahead. And all of these things are family issues," just as equal wages, a higher minimum wage, expanding childcare, encouraging marriage rates, stopping the unequal rates of incarceration, helping curb addictions and encouraging mental health assistance are all family issues.
' Bush: "What the IRS, EPA, and entire bureaucracy have done with overregulation, we can undo by acts of Congress and order of the president. Federal regulation has gone far past the consent of the governed. When a school is just another dead end, every parent should have the right to send their child to a better school - public, private or charter. Every school should have high standards, and the federal government should have nothing to do with setting them. Nationwide, if I am president, we will take the power of choice away from the unions and bureaucrats and give it back to parents."
On foreign policy
' Clinton: "As your president, I'll do whatever it takes to keep Americans safe. I've stood up to adversaries like Putin and reinforced allies like Israel. I was in the Situation Room on the day we got bin Laden. But, I know - I know we have to be smart as well as strong."
' Bush: "The Obama-Clinton-Kerry team is leaving a legacy of crises uncontained, violence unopposed, enemies unnamed, friends undefended, and alliances unraveling. This supposedly risk-averse administration is also running us straight in the direction of the greatest risk of all - military inferiority. I will rebuild vital relationships" and the military.
No wonder Jeb needed an exclamation point at the end of his name - a name that came on the campaign stage without "Bush." No matter how many ways he tries to throw away the pains of America's last decade, they all began with another Bush.
It will be a long 2016 campaign season. Support Hillary Clinton.