Bill Clinton urges Americans to stick with Obama at Democratic convention

Democrats turned on Wednesday to a hero of the past, Bill Clinton, to boost the shaky re-election prospects of Barack Obama, with the popular former president from the prosperous 1990s assuring worried Americans that he feels “with all my heart” that Obama is steering the country to an economic recovery.

Clinton’s rousing address to a television audience of millions was the highlight of the second day of the three-day Democratic National Convention, which formally launches Obama into what is expected to be a tight race against Republican Mitt Romney. Obama’s acceptance speech on Thursday night will mark the climax of the convention, though Democrats on Wednesday abandoned plans for Obama to deliver the address at a large football stadium, citing weather concerns.

[Full text of Bill Clinton's 2012 DNC speech]

Democrats have used their convention to push back against Republican claims at their gathering last week that Obama’s devotion to big-government solutions has stifled the US economy and swollen the national deficit. Democrats have countered that Romney would go back to the economic policies that led to a recession, helping the wealthy while harming the poor and middle class.

Clinton, who formally nominated Obama as the Democratic candidate, was following through on the theme.

“If you want a you’re-on-your-own, winner-take-all society, you should support the Republican ticket,” Clinton said. “If you want a country of shared prosperity and shared responsibility – a we’re-all-in-this-together society – you should vote for Barack Obama and [Vice-President] Joe Biden.”

Clinton said the Republican campaign argument is “pretty simple: ‘We left him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned it up yet, so fire him and put us back in’”. He said Obama has “laid the foundation for a more modern, more well-balanced economy”.