273 lines
7.9 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
273 lines
7.9 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
news
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worldnews
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us-politics
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8081711
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-----
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# Bill Clinton urges Americans to control their anger as ugly campaign enters
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last leg
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## Bill Clinton has delivered a stark warning to Americans to control their
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anger as the ugliest election campaign in memory enters its final ten days.
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![Bill Clinton urges Americans to control anger][1]
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Bill Clinton has been hitting the campaign trail hard Photo: EPA
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By Alex Spillius in Washington 6:12PM BST 22 Oct 2010
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With voters set to deliver a resounding rejection of Barack Obama's
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presidency, the former president pleaded for patience and time for the ruling
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party to continue rebuilding the economy.
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"They're banking on you not thinking," the former president said of
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Republicans, who are poised to recapture the House of Representatives and
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perhaps the Senate in midterm polls on Nov 2. "They're banking on some people
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being so mad [angry] that facts don't matter," he said.
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The public's anger has demonstrated itself in numerous hot-tempered campaigns,
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many involving novice candidates from the insurgent Tea Party. The stinging
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rhetoric and personal insults of some races has reflected the increasingly
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bitter and rigid divide between Left and Right.
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"[America][2]ns are worked up and angry," said Matt Bennett, a vice-president
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of the Third Way think tank. "In addition to the economic pain there is a
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sense that we will not come out of this slump the same country we were before.
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There is a profound fear we have begun to see the end of American domination
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[of the world] and that is a profoundly scary proposition."
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In the most bitter high profile contest, Sharron Angle, the Tea Party-backed
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Senate candidate in Nevada, told her opponent Sen Harry Reid on live
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television to "man up" and face the country's realities.
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## Related Articles
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* [Obama brands Republicans as radicals][3]
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23 Oct 2010
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* [Obama appeals to female voters][4]
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22 Oct 2010
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* [Nancy Pelosi likened to Cruella de Vil in Republican attacks][5]
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19 Oct 2010
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* [Tea Party poised to storm Washington][6]
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21 Oct 2010
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It was one of several indecorous challenges to manhood that have brought
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dismay about declining standards of political discourse, Christine O'Donnell,
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a much derided Tea Party favourite who secured the Republican nomination to
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run for the Senate in Delaware, told her party rival Mike Castle: "This is not
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a bake-off, get your man-pants on."
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Negative advertising in the US is as old as politics itself, but even seasoned
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observers regard this year as sinking to new lows of crass abuse. Rand Paul, a
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Republican Senate candidate in Kentucky, has expressed his fury over an
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advertisement by his Democratic opponent that dredged up thinly sourced claims
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about elaborate pranks from his student days.
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Alan Grayson, a Democratic Florida congressman cast his foe as a religious
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extremist, "Taliban Dan". An advertisement for a challenger in West Virginia
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meanwhile stressed the sitting Congressman's Arab-American ancestry as shadowy
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and foreign.
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"Alexi Giannoulias, he'd make Tony Soprano proud," was the catch line of one
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ad run against the Illinois Democrat, whose family bank lent money to a
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mobster.
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According to Mr Bennett, who witnessed bitter partisanship taking hold in
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Washington as a White House official in the Clinton era, the nastiness
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reflects how political opinions have continued to harden over the past decade.
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"People are not in agreement about big things any more. A while ago, some
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Republicans would vote for Jimmy Carter and some Democrats for Ronald Reagan.
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That just doesn't happen now.
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"There are warring camps that people don't leave. Despite Obama's vision of
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unity, the red states are redder and the blue states are bluer," he said.
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Mr Clinton has become one of the Democrats' hardest campaigners but he has a
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tough job convincing the electorate that the country is on the right path
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after two years of the Obama presidency. Unemployment is stuck at nearly ten
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per cent, savings have yet to recover from the stock market's declines in late
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2008 and a crisis over housing foreclosures grinds on.
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The Republicans did most of the damage to the economy under George W Bush, Mr
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Clinton argued, but their "only hope" was that on election-day "tomorrow's
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America, the America that showed up in 2008, will stay home, and yesterday's
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America will show up".
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In various surveys, 60 per cent of voters have said that the country is on the
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wrong track and that the economy would get worse or stay the same within the
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next 12 months. Some 63 per cent of Americans have said they did not think
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they would be able to maintain their current standard of living, a statistic
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that underlines a profound lack of confidence about the country's future. As
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the commentator Fareed Zakaria wrote: "The can-do country is convinced that it
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can't."
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[X][7] Share & bookmark
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[What are these?][8]
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* Share: [Share][7] [ ][9] [ ][10]
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[Tweet][11]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/8081711/Bill-Clinton-
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urges-Americans-to-control-their-anger-as-ugly-campaign-enters-last-leg.html
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Telegraph
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## [US Politics][12]
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* ### [News »][13]
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* ### [World News »][14]
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* ### [North America »][15]
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* ### [USA »][2]
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In news
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[![Republican presidential race jump-starts into life][16] ][17]
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### [Presidential race begins in earnest][17]
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[![The Kennedy family in pictures. John, Robert, and Edward Kennedy brothers
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are pictured in
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Hyannisport, Massachusetts in this photograph taken in July 1960][18] ][19]
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### [The Kennedy family][19]
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[![Barack Obama announces US budget for 2012][20] ][21]
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### [Barack Obama: 2012 budget is a 'down payment'][21]
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[![][22] ][23]
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### [Palin tribute song is internet hit][23]
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[![Barack Obama's State of the Union speech][24] ][25]
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### [Obama's State of the Union address - highlights][25]
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[X][7] Share & bookmark
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Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
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Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
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[What are these?][8]
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Share:
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* [ ][7]
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* [ ][9]
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* [ ][10]
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* [Tweet][11]
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* Advertisement
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![][26]
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[![Follow The Telegraph on social media][27]][28]
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Advertisement
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[Follow The Telegraph on Social Media »][28]
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Like Telegraph.co.uk on Facebook
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[![Gil Scott-Heron][46]][45]
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Composer, musician, poet and author whose writing provided a vivid commentary
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