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Bill Clinton backs his wife in GOP-leaning Ohio county
By Marc Kovac
DELAWARE, OHIO
Former President Bill Clinton said the election between his wife, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and her opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump, comes down to keys.
Quoting a one-liner Friday offered by a friend, Clinton asked an audience in central Ohio, “If you don’t want somebody to drive the truck off the cliff, do not give them the keys.”
He added, “I want you to give Hillary the keys.”
It was the latest salvo in a battle between Hillary Clinton and Trump, with both candidates and their surrogates making stops around the state, hoping to sway early and Election Day voters.
Clinton spoke to about 500 people gathered in a building at the Delaware County Fairgrounds. The county, one of the fastest-growing in the state, typically leans Republican.
There was one brief bit of drama – as has happened at other events, a man was removed by security after shouting, “Bill Clinton is a rapist,” shortly after the former president began talking. Audience members booed the outburst while Clinton urged attendees to clap.
Seth Unger, a spokesman for the Trump campaign in Ohio, slammed the former president before his visit.
“The Clintons are masters at the politics of personal destruction, and over the next 24 days will continue their 24-year scorched-earth quest to control the highest office in the land,” he said in a released statement. “Mr. Trump is the only one who can stop the Clintons from appointing radicals to the Supreme Court, costing Ohio jobs by recklessly opening borders and trade, and further cementing in the failed legacy of Barack Obama.”
But former Ohio Gov. Dick Celeste, who spoke before Clinton in Delaware, said it’s Trump who is unfit for the White House.
“[Hillary Clinton] has devoted herself to serving others,” Celeste said. “And she’s running against a man who has devoted himself to one person and one person only – that is himself.”
Clinton mostly talked policy during his central Ohio stop, covering environmental, economic and other proposals his wife has brought forth as part of her campaign.
The list included higher-education policies of free community college tuition, free four-year college tuition for families earning less than $125,000 annually, and provisions to ensure students can earn degrees without being saddled with heavy debt, he said.
For those struggling with current college loans, Clinton said his wife would push to enable holders to refinance to lower interest rates or better terms.
“There is something wrong with a country that’s supposed to be in the future business when kids starting out in life have more than twice the interest rate on their debt” than others have on their home mortgages, he said.