Democratic Convention: Bill Clinton to Barack Obama’s Rescue

For two weeks, former President Bill Clinton has appeared in publicity campaigns airing in numerous key states, repeating a very simple message: While the economic situation in the United States is still precarious, it is thanks to the Republicans who “got us into trouble in the first place,” while Barack Obama “is more likely to return us to full employment.” Clinton is likely to expand on these themes Sept. 5, during a very anticipated speech at the Democratic convention.

Still popular and definitively associated with the last great period of economic growth in the country, Clinton will put all his effort into supporting Obama, a man with whom he has had a tense relationship.

In 2008, after the intense presidential primaries and the defeat of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, he had almost unwillingly made a declaration of support for Obama in Denver. This time, the president is putting trust in his Democratic predecessor to officially put forward his name for the party nomination, an eminently strategic job that shows how much Obama’s campaign is counting on the magic of Bill Clinton.

Inversely, it is also how much the ex-president is ready to rally for the re-election of his successor. “This speech is very important to him,” Terry McAuliffe, ex-advisor to Clinton, told the Washington Post. “He has taken the burden and put it on his shoulders.”

The Popularity of “Mister Bill”

The Democratic strategists hope that Bill Clinton’s presence has some tangible effect on the swing voters that the president has trouble attracting: men, white blue-collar workers and seniors, three socio-professional categories where “Mister Bill” is still very popular. Throughout the electorate, he elicits 66 percent favorable opinions, according to a Gallup poll dating from the end of July, far above Obama’s 41 percent.

With his speech, which, according to his team, he has personally been writing for several months, he will try to reassure the centrists and sway some of the independent voters, without whom a victory in the United States is almost impossible. With several key states, Barack Obama has been tied with or even surpassed by Mitt Romney in the last few weeks, such as Florida (48 percent for Romney – 47 percent for Obama), North Carolina (47 percent for Obama – 45 percent for Romney) Iowa (54 percent for Obama – 47 percent for Romney) or Missouri (52 percent for Obama- 42 percent for Romney), according to recent polls. Bill Clinton will contribute to reversing this dynamic.

With a strong economic track record during his presidency, Bill Clinton will present himself as an adviser to Obama, who is considered less able to handle the country’s economic problems than his Republican rival, according to opinion surveys. Tuesday night, Bill Clinton gave an outline of his speech at a dinner organized in his honor by the Arkansas delegation. He particularly attacked the Republicans on the state of the country’s debt, which has passed $16 billion this week.

“We put them [Republicans] back in – or the Supreme Court did – and they got rid of pay as you go, they [passed] the tax cuts and spent lots of money,” he recalled, highlighting that after eight years in the White House, they had left an exasperating budget. “So his contribution to that big ol’ debt clock that you saw is the $800 billion stimulus. All those other trillions and trillions of dollars? He had nothing to do with that.”