书城励志克林顿演说:繁荣时代中的温和(汉英对照)
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第26章 信任与支持(1)

第一节 背景介绍

2012年9月5日晚,美国前总统比尔·克林顿出席美国民主党全国代表大会,并在大会上发表了一篇演讲。克林顿主政时美国经济繁荣,留下了良好的口碑。他试图把******获第二届任期与他自己的八年任期“挂钩”,希望******成为第二个克林顿,而不是竞选连任失败的卡特。

克林顿反驳共和党对手的批评,并正式提名******为民主党总统候选人,声称支持******竞选连任。克林顿说,他希望******是美国下一任总统,他对提名******感到自豪。******随后也突然现身会场,与克林顿同台而站,两人亲切拥抱。

在这次演讲中,克林顿力挺曾经很看不上的******。他觉得******虽然外表冷酷,不过内心还是为美国燃烧的。这次演讲使克林顿成为了******最有价值的竞选武器,因为克林顿比******竞选团队成员的口才要好上很多,并且底气十足,视野更加宽阔,同时可以说服更多的中间选民认可民主党和******的主张。

演讲当天在收视“黄金时段”,时年66岁的克林顿,在全场1.5万名民主党各州代表和支持者期待已久的欢呼声中走上了讲台。克林顿发表了将近50分钟的演讲,再次展现了他的演讲才能,成为当天会议的“压轴”人物。

“我们来这里提名一位总统,而我心中已有人选,”克林顿对着镜头露出标志性的微笑,“我希望贝拉克·******是美国下一届总统,我自豪地以民主党代表身份提名他。”台下观众回应:“再来四年!”

克林顿在举了******在首届任内的政绩,如推出经济刺激计划,发展可再生能源,保护妇女权利,增加就业岗位,改革医疗保险体系。

“现在,请听我说。没有哪位总统,无论是我还是我的任何一位前任,可以只用四年时间(一届总统任期),全面修缮他所认定的损伤。”

共和党总统候选人米特·罗姆尼借用共和党籍前总统罗纳德·里根竞选时攻击时任民主党籍总统吉米·卡特的话说道:“美国的选民不觉得现在比四年前好。”

克林顿随即予以回击:“奥马巴上任时美国经济整体呈现自由落体式的下滑,国内生产总值缩水9%,平均每个月减少75万个工作岗位,和那时相比我们实现自己的目标了吗?没有。总统觉得满意吗?不满意。我们比他上任时好吗?答案是肯定的。”

台下爆发出雷鸣般的掌声和欢呼声。

“只是太多的人还没有感受到。”克林顿说,”如果美国人再次与总统(******)约定,经济会变得更好,大家会感受到的。”

他说:“共和党反对总统连任的理由实际非常简单:我们(共和党人)留给他(******)一个烂摊子,但他动作不够快,没有清理干净,所以请大家炒了他,换我们重新上台。”

最终代表民主党的贝拉克·******在总统选举中得到过半数选举人票,以332票对206票击败共和党的米特·罗姆尼,成功连任美国总统继续执政。

第二节 克林顿2012年提名******演讲

September 5, 2012

We’re here to nominate a President, and I’ve got one in mind.

I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. A man who ran for President to change the course of an already weak economy and then just six weeks before the election, saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the Great Depression. A man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs were created and saved, there were still millions more waiting, trying to feed their children and keep their hopes alive.

I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside. A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama.

I want Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States and I proudly nominate him as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party.

In Tampa, we heard a lot of talk about how the President and the Democrats don’t believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everyone to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy.

The Republican narrative is that all of us who amount to anything are completely self-made. One of our greatest Democratic Chairmen, Bob Strauss, used to say that every politician wants you to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself, but it ain't so.

We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think “we’re all in this together” is a better philosophy than “you’re on your own.”

Who’s right? Well since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What’s the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 million!

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats. After all, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to my home state to integrate Little Rock Central High and built the interstate highway system. And as governor, I worked with President Reagan on welfare reform and with President George H.W. Bush on national education goals. I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we’ve done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.

Through my foundation, in America and around the world, I work with Democrats, Republicans and Independents who are focused on solving problems and seizing opportunities, not fighting each other.

When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. After all, nobody’s right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day. All of us are destined to live our lives between those two extremes. Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn’t see it that way. They think government is the enemy, and compromise is weakness.

One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation. He appointed Republican Secretaries of Defense, the Army and Transportation. He appointed a Vice President who ran against him in 2008, and trusted him to oversee the successful end of the war in Iraq and the implementation of the recovery act. And Joe Biden did a great job with both. He appointed Cabinet members who supported Hillary in the primaries. Heck, he even appointed Hillary! I’m so proud of her and grateful to our entire national security team for all they’ve done to make us safer and stronger and to build a world with more partners and fewer enemies. I’m also grateful to the young men and women who serve our country in the military and to Michelle Obama and Jill Biden for supporting military families when their loved ones are overseas and for helping our veterans, when they come home bearing the wounds of war, or needing help with education, housing, and jobs.

President Obama’s record on national security is a tribute to his strength, and judgment, and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship. He also tried to work with Congressional Republicans on Health Care, debt reduction, and jobs, but that didn’t work out so well. Probably because, as the Senate Republican leader, in a remarkable moment of candor, said two years before the election, their number one priority was not to put America back to work, but to put President Obama out of work.

Senator, I hate to break it to you, but we’re going to keep President Obama on the job!

In Tampa, the Republican argument against the President’s re-election was pretty ******: we left him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.

In order to look like an acceptable alternative to President Obama, they couldn’t say much about the ideas they have offered over the last two years. You see they want to go back to the same old policies that got us into trouble in the first place: to cut taxes for high income Americans even more than President Bush did; to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts; to increase defense spending two trillion dollars more than the Pentagon has requested without saying what they’ll spend the money on; to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, especially programs that help the middle class and poor kids. As another President once said – there they go again.

I like the argument for President Obama’s re-election a lot better. He inherited a deeply damaged economy, put a floor under the crash, began the long hard road to recovery, and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses, and lots of new wealth for the innovators.

Are we where we want to be? No. Is the President satisfied? No. Are we better off than we were when he took office, with an economy in free fall, losing 750,000 jobs a month? The answer is YES.

I understand the challenge we face. I know many Americans are still angry and frustrated with the economy. Though employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend and even housing prices are picking up a bit, too many people don’t feel it.

I experienced the same thing in 1994 and early 1995. Our policies were working and the economy was growing but most people didn’t feel it yet. By 1996, the economy was roaring, halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in American history.

President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. No President-not me or any of my predecessors could have repaired all the damage in just four years. But conditions are improving and if you’ll renew the President’s contract you will feel it.

I believe that with all my heart. President Obama’s approach embodies the values, the ideas, and the direction America must take to build a 21st century version of the American Dream in a nation of shared opportunities, shared prosperity and shared responsibilities.

2012年9月5日

我们在这里提名总统候选人,我心里已经有一个人选了。