Clinton: Romney would be ‘calamitous’ for US

In this 2010 file photo, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, accom­pa­nied by for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton in the brief­ing room of the White House in Wash­ing­ton. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama is get­ting a lit­tle help from for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton at a trio of cam­paign fundrais­ers in New York. The pres­i­den­tial duo will speak at a high-dollar fundraiser at a pri­vate home, then head­line a gala at the Wal­dorf Asto­ria hotel. Obama and Clin­ton will end the night at an event dubbed “Barack on Broad­way” at the New Ams­ter­dam The­atre. (AP Photo/J. Scott Apple­white, File)

ANNE GEARAN

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK — For­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton warned Mon­day that a Mitt Rom­ney pres­i­dency would be “calami­tous” for the nation and the world, going fur­ther than even Pres­i­dent Barack Obama in depict­ing the con­se­quences of a return to Repub­li­can rule of the White House.

With Obama stand­ing thought­fully to one side, Clin­ton slammed Rom­ney by name, an appar­ent rebut­tal to his own com­ments last week that were widely seen as flat­ter­ing to Romney’s back­ground in business.

Clin­ton said Obama had earned a sec­ond term because of his steer­ing of the econ­omy through a “mis­er­able sit­u­a­tion” and “the alter­na­tive would be, in my opin­ion, calami­tous for our coun­try and the world.”

Clinton’s take came as he helped raise at least $3.6 mil­lion for Obama at three New York fundrais­ers. The two have patched over a per­sonal rift from the 2008 cam­paign when Obama defeated Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton in a bit­ter Demo­c­ra­tic pri­mary. But Clin­ton caused some heart­burn in Obama’s cam­paign last week by remark­ing that Rom­ney had a “ster­ling” busi­ness record — an asser­tion that under­cut Democ­rats’ crit­i­cism of Romney’s deci­sions at the pri­vate equity firm Bain Capital.

Clin­ton also said at the fundraiser that Repub­li­cans and Rom­ney have adopted Europe’s eco­nomic poli­cies. “Who would have ever thought that the Repub­li­cans who made a liv­ing for decades derid­ing Old Europe would embrace their eco­nomic poli­cies,” he said.

For his part, Obama said the econ­omy had been dif­fi­cult for so many vot­ers that some could reach the point that “you’re will­ing to try just about any­thing, even if you’ve seen it before.”

Obama told donors that he was seek­ing re-election against a dif­fer­ent Repub­li­can Party. “They have run from a pref­er­ence for market-based solu­tions to an abso­lutism when it comes to the mar­ket­place, a belief that all reg­u­la­tions are bad, that gov­ern­ment has no role to play,” he said.

Clinton’s larger point in the inter­view last week was that Obama is the bet­ter choice to steer the econ­omy, and the White House denied that Clin­ton “made news.” Still, the tele­vised remark gave Repub­li­cans cam­paign gold just as the gov­ern­ment released a dis­ap­point­ing report say­ing the United States cre­ated far fewer new jobs in May than expected — a big polit­i­cal blow for Obama.

Obama and Clin­ton also are on oppo­site sides of a close Demo­c­ra­tic con­gres­sional pri­mary con­test in New Jer­sey. Clin­ton also cam­paigned last week for Wis­con­sin Demo­c­ra­tic guber­na­to­r­ial can­di­date Tom Bar­rett. Bar­rett faces Repub­li­can Gov. Scott Walker in a spe­cial recall elec­tion con­test on Tues­day but has seen lit­tle back­ing from the Demo­c­ra­tic Party or Obama.

Still, Clinton’s abil­ity to deliver cam­paign dol­lars and his record as a sound cam­paign strate­gist make him an asset to the Obama cam­paign that appar­ently out­weighs any drawbacks.

Obama cam­paign bundler and bil­lion­aire investor Marc Lasry held an exclu­sive recep­tion Mon­day night, fol­lowed by a gala at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. The evening was to con­clude with an event dubbed “Barack on Broad­way” at the New Ams­ter­dam The­atre. Obama will return to Man­hat­tan next week for a fundraiser at the home of “Sex and the City” actress Sarah Jes­sica Parker.

Clin­ton and Obama were focus­ing their mes­sage Mon­day on eco­nomic oppor­tu­nity. Polls show that eco­nomic trends are likely to deter­mine the elec­tion, a devel­op­ment that could help Rom­ney if the econ­omy sags sig­nif­i­cantly. Obama and Rom­ney were tied at 46 per­cent in Gallup polling last week of national elec­tion preferences.

Obama’s cam­paign released a video of cam­paign man­ager Jim Messina urg­ing sup­port­ers to “stay focused, work hard and ignore the ups and downs.” The cam­paign included a map list­ing eight unde­cided states: Col­orado, Iowa, Wis­con­sin, Ohio, Vir­ginia, North Car­olina, New Hamp­shire and Florida.

Clin­ton recently pre­dicted for CNN an Obama vic­tory in Novem­ber by 5 or 6 per­cent­age points, with the econ­omy the deter­min­ing fac­tor. The inter­view also revis­ited the two men’s dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­i­za­tions of Romney’s record run­ning Bain Cap­i­tal, and the role of super-rich pri­vate investors. Clin­ton said such firms can do “good work” and should not be demo­nized across the board. He also said Rom­ney had had a good busi­ness career.

“The real issue ought to be, what has Gov. Rom­ney advo­cated in the cam­paign that he will do as pres­i­dent? What has Pres­i­dent Obama done and what does he pro­pose to do? How do these things stack up against each other?” Clin­ton said. “That’s the most rel­e­vant thing.”

Romney’s cam­paign sought to exploit the dif­fer­ences, cir­cu­lat­ing Clinton’s com­ments from a Decem­ber 2007 inter­view on PBS in which he sug­gested that elect­ing Obama would carry some risks. “When is the last time we elected a pres­i­dent based on one year of ser­vice in the Sen­ate before he started run­ning?” Clin­ton said.

Lasry, head of the hedge fund Avenue Cap­i­tal, told CNBC last week that pri­vate cap­i­tal invest­ment as prac­ticed by Bain Cap­i­tal can do worth­while things. He shrugged off as “pol­i­tics” Obama’s recent ref­er­ences to invest­ment choices he claims have rav­aged jobs for the sake of investors’ profits.

About 50 peo­ple attended the $40,000-per-ticket recep­tion at Lasry’s home. Tick­ets to a 500-person gala at the Waldorf-Astoria began at $2,500. Those who con­tribute $35,800 or raise $100,000 get access to a smaller recep­tion with Obama.

The con­cert at the New Ams­ter­dam The­ater was expected to draw 1,700 peo­ple. Tick­ets for that event started at $250, the Obama cam­paign said.

Three win­ners of an online ticket con­test were attend­ing both the gala and con­cert and were expected to meet Obama and Clinton.

While Obama was in New York, Rom­ney was on the West Coast to attend fundrais­ers in Port­land, Ore., and Seattle.

Mon­day night was not the first joint fundrais­ing appear­ance by Obama and Clin­ton. The two appeared together and addressed sup­port­ers in late April at the Vir­ginia home of Clin­ton adviser Terry McAuliffe.

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