Democrats still waiting for a Clinton to heartily endorse Barack Obama for president got all they craved Wednesday night when former President Clinton placed the family mantle squarely on Obama’s shoulders.
“Everything I learned in my eight years as president — and in the work I’ve done since, in America and across the globe — has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job,” said Bill Clinton, who also tickled the Democratic National Convention crowd with quick, lighthearted jabs at GOP policies.
Democrats on the floor delighted in welcoming a former president who is a partisan hero for being the only Democrat to be re-elected to the White House since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Clinton strove mightily to look stern at the lectern when the cheering crowd wouldn’t let him open his mouth.
“Y’all sit down!” he admonished. “We gotta get on with the show here.” After another minute of cheering, he admitted, “I love this, . . . but we have important work to do tonight.”
In a pointed reference to a recent interview where he declined the chance to say that Obama was prepared for the presidency, Clinton used the national forum to amend his answer.
“Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world,” Clinton said. “Ready to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States.”
Clinton, 62, served up equal endorsements of Obama’s personal and professional qualifications.
“He has a remarkable ability to inspire people, to raise our hopes and rally us to high purpose,” Clinton said. “His policies on the economy, taxes, health care and energy are far superior to the Republican alternatives, . . . and in his first presidential decision, the selection of a running mate, he hit it out of the park,” Clinton added, to great cheer. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Obama’s vice presidential pick, spoke later in the evening.
Clinton was younger than the “inexperienced” Obama when first elected president. He tweaked the Republicans’ — and his own family’s — arguments about Obama’s inexperience with a review of his own first victory. “We prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be the commander-in-chief. Sound familiar?” he asked the raucous crowd, waving newly issued American flags.
“It didn’t work in 1992 because we were on the right side of history. And it won’t work in 2008 because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.”
Republicans disputed that contention.
“It is indicative of the concern among Democratic voters about Barack Obama’s inexperience that after three full days of the Democratic National Convention, President Clinton was finally forced to testify that Sen. Obama is ready to be president, despite his previous arguments to the contrary,” said John McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.
Clinton also advanced the growing attacks on McCain’s record and links to President Bush. He cited a litany of Republican economic failures, from fewer new jobs to lower incomes and higher poverty rates. After honoring McCain’s service to the country, Clinton said “he still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years.”
“They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more,” Clinton said. “Let’s send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks. In this case, the third time is not the charm.”
For all the delight in Clinton’s warm embrace of the Obama campaign, the crowd’s biggest response came after one of the most elegant lines of the night, when Clinton captured Democratic frustration over the Iraq invasion. “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power,” Clinton said, followed by a huge roar from the convention.
