Aug 27, 2008 10:00 am US/Eastern
Bill Clinton To Give Obama Forceful Backing
DENVER (AP) ―
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Bill Clinton, Barack Obama
Daniel Berehulak and Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Former President Clinton, setting aside his own criticism and ambivalence, planned a full-throated endorsement Wednesday of Barack Obama as a leader ready to confront any challenge.
Clinton was trying to roll back a line of attack made by him and his wife in their primary battle, and now by John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. McCain unloaded a new TV ad that contended Obama is "dangerously unprepared" for the White House.
Another McCain ad appropriated one of Hillary Rodham Clinton's own attack spots on Obama, one that showed sleeping children and a 3 a.m. phone call into the White House portending a crisis. It suggests Obama doesn't have the experience to rise to it.
But Clinton aides said that in his prime-time speech the former president would argue forcefully that Obama is prepared for the domestic, foreign and national security challenges that will arise in the coming years.
The wide-ranging, roughly eight-minute speech also focused on Democrats' policy achievements, including Clinton's own.
And it emphasized the need to elect a Democrat to the White House "to restore America's standing to what it was eight years ago," said an aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to pre-empt the president's speech.
Clinton's challenge was all the taller because he himself had questioned Obama's credentials.
During the primary race, the former president tried to raise doubts about whether the first-term Illinois senator had the experience to lead the country. He said Obama's opposition to the Iraq war was a "fairy tale."
Since Obama clinched the nomination in June, Clinton has seemed less than passionate about an Obama presidency, giving only lukewarm endorsements.
The Clinton aide said it was unthinkable that the 42nd president would give anything less than his unqualified backing Wednesday.
The ex-president has experience at the task of endorsing, passing the torch and then getting out of the way.
At the 2000 Democratic convention, Clinton boasted of his achievements and asked voters to help elect his understudy Al Gore as his successor. He ignited a frenzied celebration.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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