Jittery Obama aides worried about what Bill Clinton will say during convention
speech
Washington, Aug.23 : Aides of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack
Obama appear to be wary about what former president Bill Clinton might say during his
speech at the party convention next week.
Clinton is yet to formerly endorse Obama as the party's choice for president, and the
latter's aides say that his reluctance to be shackled to a set text is giving the Obama
camp the jitters.
Allies of Clinton say that he wants to use the bulk of his speech in Denver next Wednesday
to attack the record of George W. Bush, accusing the current president of squandering the
economic gains of the Clinton years. Obama aides see this development as an indirect
yearning for a "Clinton restoration", rather than a boost for Obama.
A Democratic Party official said: "There's not much communication between the two. The
campaign wants to see the text but it's been slow in coming. They don't want headlines
about a Clinton snub to Obama."
In the words of one of his former aides, Clinton would like to "just go out and say
what's on his mind".
In the recent past, Clinton has made off the cuff interventions that suggested a
dismissal of Obama as a "fairytale". He also compared Obama to the twice-failed black
presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, and those words were widely interpreted as
racist.
Recently asked whether Obama was qualified to be president, Clinton responded: "You
could argue that nobody is qualified to be president."
--ANI
