NEW YORK: President Barack Obama enlisted Bill Clinton to campaign alongside him in New York tapping the popular ex-president’s star power to rake in cash for his re-election bid from Wall Street investors and show-business elite.
The two men on Monday teamed up for the first time since Clinton put Obama’s campaign on the defensive last week when he became the most prominent Democrat to disavow attacks on Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s record as a private equity executive.
But there was no sign of discord as Obama and Clinton put on a show of unity for a night of fundraising that included a reception with big-money donors, a gala at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, and a star-studded “Barack on Broadway” concert. The events raised more than 3.5 million dollar. Clinton told the first gathering hosted by billionaire hedge fund manager Marc Lasry that Obama must “win this election and win it unambiguously.”
“The alternative would be, in my opinion, calamitous for our country and the world,” Clinton said as he and Obama stood shoulder to shoulder in a living room of Lasry’s Upper East Side home where guests paid 40,000 dollar a head and sipped cocktails.
Moving to a packed Waldorf ballroom, rocker Jon Bon Jovi – a VIP guest on Air Force One from Washington – was the warm-up act for some 500 people who paid a minimum of 2,500 dollar to attend and who cheered the two Democratic heavyweights. With Clinton sitting to one side of the stage and occasionally stroking his chin, Obama said Romney’s “vision for moving America forward is, as Bill Clinton just said, the same agenda of the previous administration – except on steroids.”Obama and Clinton have not always been on the same page. Their relationship has been strained at times since the ex-Illinois senator beat the former president’s wife, Hillary Clinton, now secretary of state, in a bitter race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Clinton remains a figure admired by most Democrats, and Obama’s aides believe his support could be pivotal for pulling in campaign money and selling independent voters on the president’s economic plans.
Clinton oversaw one of the most prosperous economic periods in recent US history and was the last president to balance the federal budget, something Democrats are eager to remind Americans about before the Nov. 6 election. (Reuters)