Bill Clinton returns only weeks after heart surgery to stand by John Kerry on the campaign trail.
Monday 25 October 2004
With the drama of an injured player coming off the bench in the final moments of a game, former US president Bill Clinton has re-entered the election campaign just seven weeks after quadruple heart bypass surgery.
With nine days until an election that is too close to call, the former president is headed for two of the biggest battlegrounds, Pennsylvania and Florida. He is scheduled to speak at a rally with Senator John Kerry in Philadelphia today Melbourne time and at another in Miami.
"Senator Kerry asked me to do it, and I want to do it," Mr Clinton said in a TV interview, "because it's close and because I think it's important and because the differences between the two candidates and the courses they'll pursue in the next four years are so profound".
In the interview on America's ABC television network on Sunday, Mr Clinton played down concerns about his recovery. Asked if he was taking a risk by campaigning, he replied: "No I don't think so."
Senator Kerry's aides said they were taking it one day at a time, to see how Mr Clinton held up. It was not clear how robust a performance he would be able to deliver, or whether he could engage in the gladhanding for which he is famous. "How much of a travel schedule he can have is not clear at this point," Democrats spokesman Mike McCurry said. AdvertisementAdvertisement
Mr Clinton's immediate task in Philadelphia is to light a fire under black voters, but his broader goal is to remind all voters that the economic prosperity of the 1990s, with its 23 million new jobs and $US5.6 trillion ($A7.5 trillion) budget surplus, occurred under his Democratic administration.
Friends said that Mr Clinton, 58, was recovering well from his operation but that the convalescence was gradual and was going more slowly than he had expected. He takes walks around his home in Chappaqua, has had visitors and speaks regularly by phone with Senator Kerry.
One friend said that Mr Clinton had lost a considerable amount of weight. "He can tire easily," another said, noting that this was normal after such a major operation.
Democrats say he'll energise the tightly contested race for the White House and hailed their former leader's return to the campaign. But White House communications director Dan Bartlett dismissed Mr Clinton's potential effect on the campaign.
"The fact that John Kerry's going to have to roll him off the surgery table and on to the campaign trail demonstrates a revealing aspect, that he's underperforming in key parts of his own constituency," Mr Bartlett said.
By Katharine Seelye
The Age
