Bill
Clinton takes center stage at the Democratic National Convention on
Wednesday as President Barack Obama's nomination is placed before a
party hoping that the last president to preside over sustained growth
can help propel him to re-election in a sputtering economy.
With thunderstorms on the
horizon, Obama scrapped plans to deliver his Thursday night acceptance
speech outdoors, before a throng of 74,000 at the Bank of America
stadium. Instead, he'll accept the nomination indoors at the Time Warner
Cable Arena, which accommodates far fewer people.
Convention CEO Steve Kerrigan
said Thursday's session was moved "to ensure the safety and security of
our delegates and convention guests." GOP spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski
cast it as Democrats downgrading the event "due to lack of enthusiasm."
Clinton's speech will be a high
point in a checkered relationship between two men who sparred, sometimes
sharply, in the 2008 primaries, when the ex-president was supporting
wife Hillary's campaign for the nomination. She'll be worlds away this
time - in distance and substance. Obama's secretary of state, midway
through an 11-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region, should be in East
Timor by the time her husband speaks.
Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayor
who served under both Bill Clinton and Obama, made the rounds of morning
talk shows Wednesday to trace a connection between the two presidents,
speaking of "similar values, similar policies and similar objectives."
Clinton "can do nothing but
help" Obama, Emanuel said, rejecting any notion that Clinton's ability
to get things done and work with Republicans would somehow diminish
perceptions of Obama.
But former Republican New
Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, writing in the New Hampshire Union Leader,
said Clinton's speech "will serve to remind the world of a time when the
leadership of the Democratic Party took fiscal responsibility
seriously. It might even induce nostalgia for the days of balanced
budgets and bipartisan accomplishments such as welfare reform."
If Day 2 of the Democrats'
convention was all about grabbing some of Clinton's luster, opening day
was designed to portray Obama as someone who understands the problems of
ordinary people.
Michelle Obama played those
cards with force in a speech declaring that after four years as
president, her husband is still the man who drove a rust-bucket on early
dates, rescued a coffee table from the trash and knows the struggles of
everyday Americans because he lived them in full.
"I have seen firsthand that
being president doesn't change who you are. No, it reveals who you are,"
the first lady said to lusty cheers Tuesday night in a deeply personal,
yet unmistakably political testimonial.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had no public schedule during the Democrats' convention.
But running mate Paul Ryan kept
up his running criticism of the Democrats, saying the convention's first
day was "what you expect when you have a president who cannot run on
his record."
"What you did not hear is that people are better off than they were four years ago," he said on Fox News.
The GOP released a new Web video
showcasing the story of a man who lost his job and got back on his feet
through the welfare-to-work requirements enacted under Clinton.
Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus said Obama was gutting the work
requirements, "holding back the prosperity of so many who are scraping
to get by."
Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett,
making the case for Obama's economic policies in an appearance on MSNBC,
said the president has a strong argument to make that people are doing
better, but she acknowledged that "Americans are sitting around the
breakfast table trying to figure out to make ends meet, so we have work
to do."
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley,
chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, spoke at a breakfast
with Iowa delegates on Wednesday and urged party activists to get fully
behind Obama in the next two months.
"Last night when you looked
around that convention floor, you saw America. You saw the diversity of
our country which is our greatest strength. You saw the hope of our
country which is our greatest promise. We have 60 days to turn to our
neighbors, to find common ground, to appeal to their good intentions and
to create a country of more by re-electing Barack Obama president of
the United States."
Mrs. Obama didn't mention Romney
in her remarks. But there was no mistaking the contrast she was drawing
when she laid out certain values, "that how hard you work matters more
than how much you make, that helping others means more than just getting
ahead yourself."
Polling gives Obama a consistent
advantage over Romney as the more empathetic and in-touch leader. But
the sputtering economy is the topmost voter concern and Obama's highest
mountain to climb after more than 42 months of unemployment surpassing 8
percent, the longest such stretch since the end of World War II. No
president since the Great Depression has been re-elected with
joblessness so high.
Recalling life before
Washington, Mrs. Obama spoke of the "guy who'd picked me up for our
dates in a car that was so rusted out, I could actually see the pavement
going by through a hole in the passenger-side door." She described a
marriage of kindred spirits, both from humble roots, and said the
president's work on health care, college loans and more all come from
that experience. "These issues aren't political" for him, she said.
"They're personal."
"Barack knows what it means when
a family struggles," she said. "He knows what it means to want
something more for your kids and grandkids."
The first lady took the stage as
the most popular figure in this year's presidential campaign. Michelle
Obama earns higher favorability ratings than her husband, Romney, his
wife, Ann, or either candidate for the vice presidency, according to the
latest Associated Press-GfK poll. And views of Mrs. Obama tilt
favorably among independents and women, two focal points in her
husband's campaign for re-election.
___
Woodward reported from
Washington. Associated Press writers Jennifer Agiesta and Jack Gillum in
Washington, Matthew Daly in Norfolk, Va., Steve Peoples in Ohio, Kasie
Hunt in Vermont, Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and Ken Thomas,
Matt Michaels and Jim Kuhnhenn in Charlotte contributed.
Copyright
2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Former president Bill Clinton
