Clinton forcefully endorses Obama

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-28 10:08

DENVER - Former President Clinton has pledged to cheering Democratic National Convention delegates to strongly support Barack Obama's campaign for the White House.

Former US President Bill Clinton acknowledges the audience as he arrives onstage at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, August 27, 2008. Democrats nominated Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) on Wednesday as their presidential candidate in a historic first for a black American, sending him into battle against Republican John McCain. [Agencies]

Clinton told the convention Wednesday night that Obama "has a remarkable ability to inspire people." The former president's speech had been eagerly awaited by Democrats in view of his own past criticism of Obama and his ambivalence about the Illinois senator.

Clinton said that Obama had "hit one out of the ballpark" when he chose Sen. Joseph Biden to run with him.

He noted that Hillary Rodham Clinton had told the convention Tuesday that she would do everything possible to get Obama elected. Then, Clinton said: "That makes two of us."

Clinton was trying to roll back a line of attack made by him and his wife in their primary battle, and taken up 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."

Last fall, he dismissed Obama as totally unqualified.

"I mean, when is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running?" Clinton said on "The Charlie Rose Show. "In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentator and let them run."

Last winter, Clinton said that after "all the mean things" the Obama campaign had said about him, "I should be the last person to defend him. (But) if he wins this nomination, I'm going to do what I can to help him win."

Yet 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.

Clinton was departing Denver on Thursday morning, hours before Obama gives his acceptance speech.

Aides said this was standard practice for Clinton, and not a snub. Clinton did likewise at the 2000 and 2004 conventions.