As the campaigns argue over welfare reform, following Mitt Romney's ad this morning that states, "President Obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform," it's worth remembering what Barack Obama said about Bill Clinton's reforms before he was in the national spotlight.  

"I was not a huge supporter of the federal plan that was signed in 1996," Obama said at the Brookings Institution in 1998.

"You know, let me say one thing about this, because I’ve been very active in drafting the state of Illinois’ welfare proposal and thinking about how do you craft these coalitions," Obama says. "I was not a huge supporter of the federal plan that was signed in 1996. Having said that, I do think that there is a potential political opportunity that arose out of welfare reform and that is to desegregate the welfare population – meaning the undeserving poor, black folks in cities – from the working poor – deserving, white, rural, as well as suburban."