Charlotte: Ted Strickland unleashed

TED STRICKLAND, the former Democratic governor of Ohio takes the stage at the Time Warner Cable Arena and, even though he’s a relative unknown in the national political scene, he clearly relishes the attack dog role. In a brief but fiery speech, Strickland proves he can throw red meat to the true believers with the best of them.

In his speech, Strickland thoroughly dismantles claims by former Fox News talking head John Kasich, the sitting governor, that Republican initiatives are responsible for the Buckeye State’s economic rebound. The credit, Strickland says, goes to the recovery of the auto industry led by President Obama.

“All over America, all over Ohio, men and women are going back to work with the ride of building something stamped ‘MADE, IN, AMERICA!”

“That’s what happens when you have a president who stands up for average working people. President Barack Obama stood up for us, and now by God we will stand up for him!”

Strickland was similarly ready to rip the bark off Team Romney. “Now, Mitt Romney, he lives by a different code. To him, American workers are just numbers on a spreadsheet,” he says. “If Mitt was Santa Claus, he’d fire the reindeer and outsource the elves!”

“Mitt Romney has so little economic patriotism that even his money needs a passport,” he says. “It summers on the beaches of the Cayman Islands and winters on the slopes of the Swiss Alps … My friends, any man who aspires to be our president should keep both his treasure and his heart in the United States of America. And it’s well past time for Mitt Romney to come clean with the American people.”

Chris Christie, you met your match.

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