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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ― Former President Bill Clinton rallied several thousand Minnesota Democrats on Thursday night to vote for Barack Obama and Al Franken, uncorking a blistering attack on Republican rule and saying Democrats will show they can do it better.

Clinton said voters over the last 40 years have turned to Democrats only during tough economic times. "We're in trouble again, let's go get the Democrats. That's how Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale got elected and that's how Bill Clinton and Al Gore got elected," Clinton said.

But, in a long, passionate speech marked by Clinton's penchant for brainy digressions and folksy humor, the former president said Obama has the chance to expand the Democratic coalition for decades to come thanks to voter disenchantment after the last eight years.

"Barack Obama can lead us in changing the way Americans think about America, the role of government and the way we work together," Clinton said. "We learned the other way is not worth a flip. We've got to work together."

Clinton also offered high praise for Franken, who he's known since the early 1990s, and in a way that indicated he's tuned in to Franken's tight race with incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

"I admire the way he has put up with the ridicule to which he has been subject, to the cheap shots to which he has been subject," Clinton said, an apparent reference to Republican criticism of some of the more outrageous jokes from Franken's previous career as a TV comedian and writer.

Clinton referred to Coleman, who was once a Democrat and chaired Clinton's re-election campaign in Minnesota in 1996, as "that good-looking guy that changed parties when Republicans were more popular."

Clinton cited Franken's race as one of several that, if Democrats are successful, could give the party the 60 votes it needs in the U.S. Senate in order to overcome Republican filibusters that could block major pieces of Obama's policy agenda.

For Franken, Clinton's two terms in the White House served as a handy shorthand for the direction he'd like to see the country take going forward. Franken talked about the time he's spent recently campaigning on college campuses, meeting students who were 10 years old when Clinton left office.

"They don't remember what it was like to have a president who knew how to run the economy," Franken said. "They don't remember what it was like to have a president who knew how to talk to our allies. They don't know what it was like to have a president who knew how to lead."

With a crowd of about 3,800 people in attendance, it was likely Minnesota's last large-scale rally of the election season. Neither presidential candidate is scheduled to appear in Minnesota again before Tuesday, although last-minute surprise appearances can't be totally ruled out.

The Democratic crowd brimmed with confidence, sparked by numerous polls in recent weeks that have shown Obama holding a sizable lead over Republican John McCain among Minnesota voters, and with Democrats poised to make gains in both the U.S. Senate and House.

"Unless a wheel runs off and people forget what this election is about, Barack Obama is going to be elected president next Tuesday," Clinton said.

Still, a succession of the state's Democratic leaders urged those in attendance to take nothing for granted. They urged hard work between now and Election Day to get out the vote.

"Barack Obama is going to be the next president of the United States," St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said. "But we've got to work to make it happen."

In response to Clinton's appearance, McCain's Minnesota campaign brought over Deb Bartosevich -- a Wisconsin woman who served as a national delegate for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Democratic primaries and is now supporting McCain.

"I think when I look at who has the resume and who is fit to be commander of our armed forces, I have to see who's fit to walk the walk," Bartosevich said. "I think you have to look at character, you look at judgment."

But most of the Clinton fans in the crowd seemed more than ready to come out for Obama. Maud Olsson, a retired nurse from Woodbury, said she was hoping for another Clinton presidency but has been inspired by Obama's effect on young people.

"I'm so excited to see that, because that's what the future is," Olsson said. "I love it."

 

 

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