Consider the words ofPresident Harry S. Truman, spoken exactly 60 years prior to the last Obama/Romney debate (October 22, 1952)
" I have been going around the country telling the people the facts and the truth about what is at stake in this election ... pointing out the real and the essential differences between the two parties. The Democratic Party has a heart for the plain everyday people of the country ... The Republican Party, on the other hand, is the servant of the big banks, big industry, the real estate lobby, the oil lobby, and the rest of that crew. With them profits come first ahead of the people.
And you know the reason you have to be so careful in this election, they have the oil lobby and the real estate lobby and the China lobby ... the only man in Washington ... who is the people's lobbyist is the President of the United States. So you will have to be mighty careful who you put in there.
These special interests ... they are fighting still, and they will go back on all the progress we have made if you are foolish enough to give them a chance. That is not what they are telling you now during this campaign, but it is the way they have been voting in the Congress.
Of course, there is a whole generation of young people now who do not remember much about what happened to this country the last time the Republicans ran the national government... Now, any time I mention the great depression,the Republicans yell that we are just running against Herbert Hoover ... And for another thing, the Republican record in Congress during all the years since Hoover's time, shows they haven't learned a thing, and probably will act as they did before, and just like he did, if they got in again. They are the people who vote against social security, they vote against—housing ... they vote against minimum wages.
You know, you ought to read the fine print in the Congressional Record and find out how these birds behave when they think you don't know what they are doing, and then you will know what to do. The Republicans never have looked after the interests of the common people—and they never will, no matter what their five-star candidate may tell you at election time
It isn't necessary to "pour it on." All that is necessary for me to do is to tell you the truth and get you to think a little bit. Signs like that young man is wearing "Give 'em hell, Harry"—I don't have to give 'em hell, it's a lot worse for me to tell the truthon 'em, because they can't stand the truth.