Bill Clinton to Montco voters: The future looks like a community college

While Hillary Clinton made a play for voters in Arizona and Texas Tuesday, her surrogates were swarming the Philadelphia suburbs, seen as a crucial, vote-rich area. 

Former President Bill Clinton spoke to voters at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell about his wife’s campaign.

For about 30 minutes, he beat the drum for a hopeful future driven by young people to a crowd gathered in the Parkhouse Hall atrium.

“Youth and diversity matter in a global economy,” said Clinton, saying that the students in the room reflected the country’s diverse and egalitarian future, before touting his wife’s plan for affordable higher education.

“We just need to adopt the plan Hillary worked out with Bernie Sanders,” he said, which includes free community college for all and free four-year college for families with incomes below $125,000 a year by 2021.

Clinton also touted his record of supporting small businesses during his presidency and promised Hillary Clinton would be tough on corporations and tax the rich.  He then bemoaned “activist shareholders, who used to be called corporate raiders … who want their money in a year and a day.”

He also promised a second Clinton presidency would end gridlock in Washington. As president, Hillary Clinton would face an uphill battle to attain that goal, considering on Monday, Sen. John McCain said Republicans would block anyone Hillary Clinton nominates to the Supreme Court.

Clinton said the presidential election boils down to a choice between “anger and answers.”

“If you do not want someone to drive a truck off a cliff, do not give them the keys,” he said. “Give Hillary the keys.”

Outside, a dozen protesters with signs reading “We, the people can stop her” and “Liar Hillary cough up the truth” waved at cars turning into the campus.

Clinton did not address recent allegations of possible quid pro quo treatment tied to a new release of documents by the FBI, showing exchanges between that agency and the State Department that appear to negotiate the level of classification for certain emails on Secretary Clinton’s private server in exchange for posting more agents abroad.

Nor did he respond to a recent eruption of scrutiny from Donald Trump’s campaign regarding the former president’s alleged sexual advances and assaults.

Trump’s campaign has taken to attacking his opponent via her husband’s transgressions, following the release of a 2005 Access Hollywood video by the Washington Post in which Trump said of women he’s attracted to, “I just start kissing them … when you’re a star, they let you do it … Grab ’em by the [genitals].”

“His visit is … a good reminder for Pennsylvania voters of the widespread corruption and pay-to-play scandals at the State Department during Hillary Clinton’s tenure … and their bullying the victims of his sexual predatory behavior in the workplace, including an intern half his age in the Oval Office as president,” said Trump spokesman Greg Manz in an emailed statement.

Trump and Clinton will face off in the final presidential debate Wednesday night in Las Vegas.