Plouffe: Dems on ‘right path’ after ‘assault’ by GOP on middle class

Presidential adviser David Plouffe on Sunday cast the November elections as a choice between “the right path” for the country’s fiscal health, or an “assault” on middle-class families under Republican rule.

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Plouffe, who managed President Obama’s successful 2008 campaign, said Republicans created the current economic recession and don’t deserve the chance to control policy again.

“Their policies contributed to the worst economic crisis this country has seen since the Great Depression,” Plouffe told host David Gregory. “If they had their way, we might have headed into a depression — opposing the Recovery Act. No one’s satisfied with where we are. The question is, ‘Are we making progress?’ We had 22 straight months in this country of private-sector job loss. We’ve had eight straight months of private-sector job gains. Not as high as anyone would like, but we’re on the right path here.”

Pressed by Gregory about polls that show many Americans don’t believe the economy is recovering, Plouffe said voters are understandably frustrated.

“They’re right to be frustrated,” he said. “But the question we have to put in front of people in these next two months is that this is a choice, and Republican ideas were soundly rejected at the ballot box for the past two years. They’re offering nothing new — the same old policies that… drove this country into the ditch. And if we give the keys back to the people who did this, it would be like giving Herbert Hoover the keys in the mid-1930s.”