Published: May 12, 2008 11:49 pm            

A busy day

Clinton draws large crowd at FSU

FAIRMONT — Sen. Hillary Clinton sent yet another signal Monday night that she intends to cross the finish line in the Democratic Party’s 50-state primary marathon.

Although it was the last stop on a busy day of campaigning that started in Clear Fork and Logan in the southern coalfields, Clinton gave a 40-minute stump speech on the campus of Fairmont State University.

The headliner at Gov. Joe Manchin’s traditional election eve Democratic rally, she had a crowd of about 2,500 at the Feaster Center gymnasium listening closely to her economic plans.

She avoided any jabs at Sen. Barack Obama, who pollsters predict she will drub by 30 points or more in today’s

primary. The final Democratic primary is on June 3 in Puerto Rico.

The crowd cheered every time Clinton delivered one of her now-recognizable one-liners and, for the first half of her remarks, most remained standing.

“If you’re wealthy or well-connected, you’ve had a good president for the last seven years,” she said, adding she intends to “rebuild a strong middle class” for the majority of Americans.

During her husband’s two terms in office in the 1990s, more families saw their incomes go up than ever before, “and we ended that period with a balanced budget and a surplus.”

As for critics, she said, “What didn’t they like? The peace or the prosperity?”

Many families have seen their income drop by a $1,000 in the last seven years, she said.

President Bush has led the country into a war without a means to pay for it and given the rich tax cuts, again without ways to pay for them, she said.

“We’re borrowing money from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis,” she said.

When she said she intends to keep fighting for a summer-time suspension of the federal gasoline tax “and have the oil companies pay the gas tax this summer from their record profits, ” they stood up again to cheer and applaud.

Her long-term plan calls for a federal probe of oil traders for what she says is a $20 to $50 unjustifiable premium on $126-a-barrel of oil.

She also wants to release oil from the nation’s Strategic Oil Reserve to help bring prices down. The U.S. should also take oil producers to the World Trade Organization, she said.

“We have got to make it clear we are going to stand up to them.”

She cited Gov. Manchin’s line that West Virginians “drive to survive” because the state’s rural nature requires long commutes to distant job sites.

Although critics have said suspending the federal gasoline tax will only save the average family $70 over the summer, “that’s something for a lot of people who are trying to make ends meet.”

She talked to three home-health nurses Monday morning in Logan who told her the high price of gasoline is keeping them from getting to all of their patients.

Her clean coal program calls for establishing 10 major research and demonstration projects across the nation to test ways to burn different types of coal and capture carbon dioxide emissions.

If the wealthy were taxed only at the rates they were in her husband’s administration, that would yield about $55 billion annually, she said.

She is proposing that those rates be imposed on those making more than $250,000 a year. The revenue will help pay for her universal — and affordable — health-care plan, she said.

With her “Build America Bonds,” people could invest in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and in creating more good-paying jobs, she said.

Her plan for bringing the troops home from Iraq will bring them home with honor, and it will start within the first 60 days of her administration, she pledged.

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.

        

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