From a New York Times article:

Wednes­day night is attack night. Eliz­a­beth War­ren, who is try­ing to unseat Sen­a­tor Scott P. Brown of Mass­a­chu­setts, will offer up her par­tic­u­lar brand of Democratic-​​base appeal, while for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton will play the part of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan, the Repub­li­can vice-​​presidential can­di­date who slammed Mr. Obama in Tampa, Fla., on Wednes­day night. Expect to hear a broad take­down of the Repub­li­can agenda.

Last week, we heard Repub­li­cans repeat­edly ask­ing the ques­tion Rea­gan posed in 1980: Are you bet­ter off today than you were four years ago? In prepa­ra­tion for tonight’s fes­tiv­i­ties, let’s take a look at where we were in Sep­tem­ber of 2008.

That was the month Pres­i­dent George W. Bush told us the econ­omy was about to col­lapse. Big banks went under, and sev­eral oth­ers were about to go. Bush wanted a tril­lion dol­lars to be given to his Trea­sury Sec­re­tary, with­out strings, to be handed out as he saw fit to avoid the crisis.

John McCain sus­pended his cam­paign to deal with the emer­gency. Barack Obama, prov­ing he could walk and chew gum, led the dis­cus­sions in Wash­ing­ton, and helped to struc­ture the Trou­bled Assets Relief Pro­gram (TARP) which brought Amer­ica back from the brink of col­lapse — with­out sus­pend­ing himself.

Amer­i­can jobs were being shed at half a mil­lion each months, the record being set in Jan­u­ary of 2009, in which nearly 800,000 jobs were lost in that month alone. In total, the Great Reces­sion lost us around eight mil­lion jobs.

The Dow Jones Indus­trial Aver­age was on its way down from over 14,000 to its floor, in March of 2009, of about 6,500. Gen­eral Motors and Chrysler were about to go bank­rupt. Lend­ing froze; banks sim­ply stopped mak­ing loans. Home val­ues began plummeting.

Amer­ica was still fight­ing two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Afghan war had gone on for nearly seven years. It could have ended much sooner, but Pres­i­dent Bush decided to invade Iraq, shift­ing resources away and allow­ing Osama bin Laden to escape. We should have had active troops in nei­ther war. Already, we’d wasted over a tril­lion dol­lars, and lost more Amer­i­can lives than had been killed in the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks seven years previously.

The Amer­i­can health care sys­tem was in sham­bles. Both major par­ties had put forth pro­pos­als for repair, and health care reform was a major issue in the gen­eral campaign.

Pres­i­dent Bush had turned the $300 bil­lion Clin­ton sur­pluses into $400 bil­lion deficits. In fis­cal 2009, which began in Octo­ber of 2008, and had been run­ning for over three months before Pres­i­dent Obama was sworn in, would see a Bush deficit of around $1.5 tril­lion (orig­i­nally esti­mated at $1.7 tril­lion, but reduced by Pres­i­dent Obama in its last few months to around $1.4 trillion).

Where are we today?

Of the eight mil­lion jobs lost in the Great Reces­sion, we’ve got­ten over four mil­lion back (com­pared to about one mil­lion jobs cre­ated dur­ing the entire eight years of the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion). We’ve had twenty-​​seven months of pri­vate sec­tor job growth. The econ­omy has grown every month for nearly three years. The Dow Jones Indus­trial Aver­age has dou­bled its value from its March, 2009, low…and is now around 13,000. We’re well on the way to com­ing back from the worst eco­nomic cri­sis in nearly eighty years.

Pres­i­dent Obama helped push through a major finan­cial reform bill, includ­ing the cre­ation of a finan­cial con­sumer pro­tec­tion agency. We now have a major health care reform bill, a goal for pres­i­dents back to Theodore Roo­sevelt. The Iraq War is done; there are no Amer­i­can com­bat troops in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan is wind­ing down. Osama bin Laden is dead, and Gen­eral Motors is alive.

More: Pell grants have been expanded, to allow more Amer­i­cans to go to col­lege. Impor­tant pro­tec­tions have been enacted for women and minori­ties. A major arms treaty with Rus­sia has been signed — and approved by the Sen­ate. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been repealed, and for the first time, gay and les­bian troops can serve in the Amer­i­can armed forces with­out fear of a court martial.

Banks are loan­ing again. The hous­ing mar­ket is rebound­ing. Home sales are up, prices are begin­ning to recover, and new home starts are ris­ing. More con­struc­tion jobs are being cre­ated than at any time since the 1990s.

America’s bor­ders are safer than they’ve ever been. More peo­ple who were in the coun­try ille­gally have been deported than under George Bush. But young adults who were brought to Amer­ica ille­gally as chil­dren, and who have been good neigh­bors while here, can pur­sue a col­lege degree and can work here with­out fear of deportation.

Crises in Egypt and Libya were handed deftly and with skill; in Libya, the Pres­i­dent forged an inter­na­tional con­sen­sus to see to the fall of Moam­mar Gad­hafi, whereas in Egypt, the Pres­i­dent helped to ensure that Hosni Mubarak was deposed by the Egypt­ian peo­ple them­selves, with­out out­side interference.

They Gulf oil spill was con­tained, and those respon­si­ble are being held to account, the cleanup pro­ceed­ing apace, and man­aged respon­si­bly. Con­trast this with the dis­as­ter and inept dis­re­gard of the Bush Administration’s han­dling of Hur­ri­cane Katrina.

And all this has been accom­plished despite unyield­ing and inflex­i­ble oppo­si­tion from the Repub­li­can Party. As only one exam­ple: the Amer­i­can Recov­ery and Rein­vest­ment Act of 2009 was passed with not a sin­gle Repub­li­can vote in the House, and only three in the Sen­ate — and this Act has been instru­men­tal in help­ing to cre­ate four mil­lion jobs and to bring Amer­ica back from an almost cer­tain sec­ond Great Depression.

The Pres­i­dent had a filibuster-​​proof sixty votes in the Sen­ate for just under six months (from July 7, when Sen­a­tor Al Franken was sworn in, to August 25, when Sen­a­tor Edward Kennedy died, and from Sep­tem­ber 25, when Sen­a­tor Paul Kirk was appointed to replace Kennedy, to Feb­ru­ary 4, when Sen­a­tor Scott Brown took office)…not that Sen­ate Democ­rats have always been coöper­a­tive either; the term “herd­ing cats” was undoubt­edly coined for these peo­ple. Out­side of that brief period, Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate have been able to block any leg­is­la­tion they wanted to, and they’ve made it plain they want to block everything.

The Pres­i­dent pre­vented a sec­ond com­plete fis­cal melt­down in the sum­mer of 2011, when Con­gres­sional Repub­li­cans threat­ened to allow Amer­ica to default on its fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ties for the first time in his­tory. Pres­i­dent Obama bro­kered a deal — by no means a per­fect one, but the only one that could be accepted by the oppo­si­tion party.

Are we bet­ter off than we were four years ago? There’s no ques­tion of that. Nor is there any ques­tion of a rather impres­sive record behind this Pres­i­dent. One can assume Repub­li­cans don’t approve of these achieve­ments. But no one can pre­tend that the achieve­ments are either mea­ger or minor.

I expect these achieve­ments to be high­lighted tonight and tomor­row night, along with the con­trast between the direc­tion they rep­re­sent and the direc­tion Mitt Rom­ney would take us.

As Michael noted yes­ter­day, Democ­rats have been slow to pub­lish the sched­ules of the Convention’s three nights. One thing we do know is that The Big Dog, for­mer pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton, will speak tonight, and will nom­i­nate Pres­i­dent Obama’s for reëlec­tion. We will strive to update this arti­cle with the sched­ule as it becomes available.

We encour­age you to join in tonight’s discussion.

(Added: Below are some high­lights of tonight’s sched­ule. It’s a crowded field.)

5:00 PM EDT

  • Rep. Luis V. Gutier­rez of Illinois
  • Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado
  • John A. Pérez, speaker of the Cal­i­for­nia State Assembly
  • Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino
  • Rep. Judy Chu of California
  • Steve Westly, for­mer state con­troller and CFO of California
  • An Econ­omy Built to Last video: Small Business
  • Rep. John Lar­son of Connecticut
  • Deputy Sher­iff Ken Myers, Car­roll County, Iowa

6:00 PM EDT

  • Richard Trumka, pres­i­dent, Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Labor and Con­gress of Indus­trial Organizations
  • Rep. Steve Israel of New York
  • Sen. Patty Mur­ray of Washington
  • Pedro R. Pier­luisi, non-​​voting mem­ber of U.S. House, res­i­dent com­mis­sioner of Puerto Rico
  • An Econ­omy Build to Last video: Energy
  • Tom Steyer, co-​​founder of Advanced Energy Economy
  • Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York
  • Rep. Karen Bass of California
  • Rep. Al Green of Texas
  • Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri
  • Con­necti­cut Gov. Dan­nel Malloy

7:00 PM EDT

  • Denise Juneau, super­in­ten­dent of the Mon­tana Office of Pub­lic Instruction
  • House Demo­c­ra­tic leader Nancy Pelosi of California
  • Agri­cul­ture Sec­re­tary Tom Vilsack
  • Sen. Bar­bara Mikul­ski of Maryland
  • Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Arne Duncan
  • Progress for Peo­ple video: Education
  • Amer­i­can Voices: Johanny Adames
  • For­mer North Car­olina Gov. Jim Hunt
  • Video: in memoriam
  • Har­vey B. Gantt, for­mer mayor of Char­lotte, N.C.

8:00 PM EDT

  • Stronger Together video: Women’s Health
  • Cecile Richards, pres­i­dent, Planned Par­ent­hood Fed­er­a­tion of America
  • Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland
  • Rep. Bar­ney Frank of Massachusetts
  • Amer­i­can Heroes video: Veterans
  • Gen. Eric Shinseki
  • Philadel­phia Mayor Michael Nutter
  • Col­orado Gov. John Hickenlooper
  • Sis­ter Simone Camp­bell, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Roman Catholic Social Jus­tice Orga­ni­za­tion, NETWORK
  • Delaware Gov. Jack Markell

9:00 PM EDT

  • Karen Mills
  • Amer­i­can Voices: Bill Butcher
  • Cal­i­for­nia Attor­ney Gen­eral Kamala D. Harris
  • Benita Veliz, DREAM Act activist
  • Cristina Sar­alegui, jour­nal­ist, actress and talk show host
  • San­dra Fluke, attor­ney and women’s rights activist
  • Austin Ligon, co-​​founder and for­mer CEO of Car­Max Inc.
  • Amer­i­can Voices: Karen Eusanio
  • UAW Pres­i­dent Bob King
  • Randy John­son, Cindy Hewitt and David Fos­ter: for­mer employ­ees at com­pa­nies con­trolled by Romney’s Bain Capital
  • Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland

10:00 PM EDT

  • Jim Sine­gal, co-​​founder and for­mer CEO of Costco
  • Eliz­a­beth War­ren, can­di­date for Sen­ate in Massachusetts
  • Los Ange­les Mayor Anto­nio R. Vil­laraigosa, chair of the 2012 Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion Committee
  • For­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clinton

 

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