Scranton(Pennsylvania): Hillary and Bill Clinton launched a campaign blitz of the blue-collar heartland that will decide the White House race, beseeching their supporters to make Barack Obama president.
The couple, making their first double-barrelled campaign appearance for Obama yesterday, dominated Democratic politics for a generation, but now are supporting players, after reconciling Hillary Clinton's bitter nominating defeat.
"This election is too important to sit on the sidelines of history," said the former first lady, calling on her legions of working class and women voters to take up the banner of the man who beat her.
"It took a Democratic president to clean up after the last president Bush, it's going to take a Democratic president to clean up after this President Bush," Clinton said in a working-class corner of swing-state Pennsylvania.
"Make no mistake about it. We've done it before and we'll do it again. America will once again rise from the ashes of the Bushes."
The Clintons teamed up with Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, a native of Scranton and a man with working-class roots, just 23 days before the presidential election.
"Barack Obama and Joe Biden are for you and that's why I am for Barack Obama and Joe Biden," the former first lady said.
Bill Clinton, still popular with grass roots Democrats, said Biden and Obama were better prepared than Republican John McCain to pull America out of the financial crisis.
He called on his wife's supporters, in a state where she won a thumping 10 per cent victory over Obama in the primary season, to look into their hearts.
