Scott Walker just posted his closing argument for Donald Trump on Twitter: If you like the past eight years, vote for Hillary Clinton, who he suggests with this image will be a president much like Barack Obama:
A Republican just accidentally made Hillary Clinton’s best closing argument
Libby Nelson was Vox’s editorial director, politics and policy, leading coverage of how government action and inaction shape American life. Libby has more than a decade of policy journalism experience, including at Inside Higher Ed and Politico. She joined Vox in 2014.
Walker’s tweet is predictably coming in for mockery from liberals who liked the past eight years just fine. The bigger irony, though, is that this is also Clinton’s argument for her own candidacy — as her deputy national press secretary Jesse Ferguson quickly pointed out:
More specifically, Obama has a 52 percent approval rating on average, while just 43 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Clinton — so you can see why Clinton wants to be associated with him.
Since Obama took office, the unemployment rate has dropped from 8.3 percent in February 2009 (and a peak of 10 percent in October 2009) to 5 percent, and the percentage of Americans without health insurance has dropped from 16 percent in 2009 to 9 percent in 2015.
There are plenty of Americans who have felt left behind by the economic recovery; until 2015, the median household income for families hadn’t increased since 2007. And for Republicans who dislike the president and his policies, those statistics are unable to sway them.
However, Obama’s popularity has increased steadily over the course of this year — but Republicans don’t seem to have noticed. So when Walker is accusing Clinton of running for Obama’s third term, Clinton actually hopes voters view things the same way.
