dnc on wednesday to give the nomination speech for the president. and on thursday, president obama will officially accept the nomination at the dnc along with joe biden for vice president. i'm randi kaye and thank you so much for watching today. continue to conversation with me on twitter. "state of the union" with candy crowley starts right now. the candidate of hope and change returns as president after four years of rough and tumble. i'm candy crowley on the floor of the democratic convention in of the democratic convention in charlotte. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com today, pushing back against the republican national convention. >> if you didn't dvr it, let me recap it for you. everything is bad. it is obama's fault. and governor romney is the only one who knows the secret to creating jobs and growing the economy. >> the president's case for four

more years and joining me is martin o'malley and bev per due and antonio villaraigosa. and also, we will be joined by eric fehrnstrom and also the other star of the republican national convention, ann romney. and we will be joined by "washington post" chief political writer dan balz and jessica yellin, cnn chief white house correspondent. all on this edition of "state of the union." the president is running for reelection on difficult terrain. no president has won re-election in in economic climate. no president has retaken the presidency after over 8% unemployment, and chairman ben bernanke warns that the economy

is far from satisfactory and the stagnation of the market is of grave concern. and the president's job approval rating has hovered around 50%, and the enthusiasm from democrats is down from four years ago. join ming me are north carolina governor bev per due and mayor of los angeles antonio villaraigosa and also chair of the democratic governors association martin o'malley. what you hope people will take away from the convention? >> you want to crystallize the choices that the american people have in this election, a choice that invests in the economy from the middle-out, that continues to builds on some of the progress. we have created 4.5 million jobs in the last four years. 29 consecutive months of growth in our economy, and we want to

continue that, and we also want to compare and contrast with the failed bush policies that romney/ryan would like to promote going into the future. >> all of that in mind, i want to show our viewers the latest cnn/orc poll, and this is about enthusiasm. are you extremely or very enthusiastic about voting in november was the question, and what we see is that since 2008, republican enthusiasm is way up, and democratic enthusiasm is down almost ten points, and why is that governor o'malley? >> well, you have yet to see the greatcandy, coming up. >> you are predicting a ten-point bounce? >> well, i predict when it comes to decision time, nobody is satisfied with where the economy is today, but who has the best policies to moves it forward? what you will see in charlotte is the clear articulation that

we measure the strength of the nation by a strong and growing middle-class. we are the party for medicare and social security and they are the choices that would lead to insecurity for seniors and their policy is i don't care, get a voucher. figure it out. this is the contrast, we are about jobs and opportunity, and they are about bigger tax breaks about billionaires. >> governor per dudue this is th sell here in this state where we are seeing dead even polls. unemployment rate in north carolina higher than national average and folks are hurting here in terms of a lot of other thin things, so we know that the democrats and the president has been pushing the kind of progress that both the mayor and governor o'malley talked about, but it is a hard sell here. how does he do that to folks who are still hurting as much as folks in north carolina are? >> well, let me be direct. i understand that people are struggling all over north carolina and all over america, but we all want everybody to get

a job, candy. the real north carolina, we are one of eight states in america with a aaa bond rating and all three of the rating houses think we are golden this terms of the investment and pension system is fully funded. as governor i have created thousands of jobs and investment because of the president and the administration has made here around infrastructure and higher education and the capacity for us to retrain the people. >> and it is still not enough in terms of this enthusiasm gap. there is clearly, this is not 2000 and this is not the 2008 election -- >> no shg, of course not. >> and i want to ask you in particular and then you can all chime in. this is about latino enthusiasm and the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, and are you extremely or very enthusiastic about voting, and now about 62% of latino voters say, yeah, i'm enthusiastic and it was 80% in 2008. so, clearly, this is a problem, because you have to get latino

voters out to vote. >> those same polls are saying about 65% of latinos are voting for president obama. >> sure. but if there has to be enough of them to vote. >> well, that is what the campaign is about and what this convention is going to be about. this is a working convention, and in denver, we recruited 25,000 volunteers, and we have 65,000 people coming to the football stadium on thursday. we are going to ask every one of them, can you knock on the doors and call voters? we have the most comprehensive ground effort in ever, either party, in history, and we are going to be focusing on the latino vote. we will be focusing on the 12 or 13 state where the election is in swing opportunity. >> and one of the states is north carolina, candy. we have registered more than 125,000 voters. we are on all of the college campus communities and engaged in not just getting the latino folk folks out to vote, but anybody the state.

>> would you agree that the registration is different than getting them out to vote, and from there you need the enthusiasm? i want to move you to another demographic that was very important in 2008, and i want to play for you something that vice presidential candidate paul ryan said at their convention. >> college graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading obama posters and wondering, when they can move out and get going with life. >> now, let me add to that some figure s about the young voter preferences matching up 2008 and 2012. the exit polls in 2008, president obama, 66% of young people and right now 60%, and 10 points younger, and is paul ryan on to something. >> well, i don't believe that he -- well, what he should be on to is that in order to make the country stronger, we need more kids to go to college and not fewer kids, and paul ryan's budget would actually cut the

pel grants and cut the very things that allow america's middle-class families to send their kids to college. candy, what you will see in the summer and all of the polling is all of us expressing our discontent with the way things are, but the question is -- >> and what about the president, and doesn't the president have responsible for the way things are? >> yes. we all have responsibibility fo the way things are, but do we want the go back to the failed policies that led to the bush job losses, and the bush deficit or the bush recession, or do we want the dig deep as our parents and grandparents did and invest in education and innovation and rebuilding america so that we can create a stronger and growing middle class. facts are facts. it is undeniable that unemployment is lower than it was and home foreclosures are lower than -- >> is it effective that when the president got the stimulus plan through and when we were told, look, this is what the economy

needs and go ahead, mr. mayor, because is it as low as you thought it would be honestly? h. >> we have a plan for a year now, and the president has put a proposal to create 1.5 million jobs to keep teachers and firefighters and police officers on the streets and in our classrooms, and the republicans have refused to pass that legislation. the fact is that senator mcconnell said that his number one job was to make sure that the president didn't get re-elected, and they have tried to do everything they can to stop us from working together in a bipartisan basis, and they have put the party before the country -- >> and is that going to change? >> well, it will change as they lose the demographic across the board and when they lose this election, they will understand that the party of no has to be a party of yes and a party that works on a bipartisan basis to put america forward. >> that is where the folks are, and folks are tired of the rabid division of democrats and republicans and folks want

people to come together to solve the problems and the challenges of america. >> why are are the polls split if the economy has improved as much as the president has talked about and the numbers show, and not where you wanted, but it is better, and if all of these things are true, why has this race stayed the way it has been? >> and it will stay this way probably until the final decision window. none of us should be satisfied with the place where things are, but the fact of the matter is that we are moving forward and 29 months in a row of private sector job growth and the biggest expansion since the 1980s and it is not the time to wave pompoms, but dig deeper and move forward and not go back to disastrous problems that landed us in this way. >> and so it is a stick with me? >> it is to go forward. >> and stick with me and to go forward however you want to put it. >> and it is going forwards or backwards. >> and can you blame republicans for a 17% jobless rate among

kids 18 to 24? >> well, candy, yes, we can. because more jobs were created in the private sector last year alone than in all eight years of george w. bush. look, we did not get into, and we did not get into the economic problems we did in because president obama was in office for two months. i mean, the ground was laid by the bad poll is is of george w. bush. and that came at the expense of the growing middle class and giving huge tax breaks to the billionaires. >> so to the question i asked you before, is the economy where you thought it would be when we had stimulus plan and in the summer of recovery, and right now where you thought it would be honestly? >> i am not surprised that this is a longer bit of work than many of us would have hoped. it is not where any of us would have hoped that we would want it to be. we need to give credit to the republicans in congress to defeat every jobs bill and slow down the economy and frankly,

i'm a little bit surprised at just how successful many republican governors were at cutting the the public sector so that the teacher and the police and firefighter jobs would be a drag on the otherwise consistent private sector growth. >> at the end of the day, things don't get better unless you continue to invest in the workforce and no republican has talked about education and the investment in the future workforce and that is critical for us. >> and let me ask you a couple of local, if you will, questions, an first to you, mr. mayor. we have seen in california some real problems with the pension, sort of the overhead of the state government. you have got these pensions that have been promised and often are higher than people get in the private sector, and the governor has tryied to move and he has made some progress, but not enough to make a difference in current pension plans, and doesn't this set up naturally a conflict between democratic lawmakers and one of the fiercest supporters, unions?

>> well, first of all, i have been very clear. we have gotten our employees, current employees to go from 6% to 11% and saving billions of dollars over the next 30 years in the contribution to the pension plan. i have actually proposed now that for new employees that we tie it to 67 instead of 55 -- >> for future? >> yes. but for the current employees i went farther than governor christie who went from 12% to 7%, so we went from 6% to 11%, and we have to be willing to be a party to go to make tough decisions and fiscally prudent decisions to protect the income and security of retirement in the future by making it more sustainable. >> governor o'malley, i have to ask you the last question to you, because of the editorial in the washington post saying that maryland will show up with half a billion of surplus, right after you all said that, listen,

we have to have an increase in taxes for the upper echelon of $150,000 folks. you instituted that and made it retroactive and now turns out you have a surplus. time to give the money back? >> we are one of eight states like north carolina who has a aaa bond rating because we have the tough decisions. >> you had before you raised taxes. >> well sh, only one of eight w has been able to defend it through the economic downturn and the state has percentage of income, we have the third lowest state tax burden of any of the 50 states. yo look, you get what you pay for and we did not build as the number one state of schools, by giving a tax break to billionaires, and as long as i am governor, that is what we will continue to do. >> thank you aulg for joining me. have a great convention.

>> thank you. >> thank you. and up next, what is the answer to governor romney's question? >> if you felt that excitement when you voted for barack obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he is president obama? >> that with robert gibbs, the senior adviser to president obama's re-election campaign. i'm one of six children that my mother raised by herself, and so college was a dream when i was a kid. i didn't know how i was gonna to do it, but i knew i was gonna get that opportunity one day, and that's what happened with university of phoenix.

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joining me is obama campaign senior adviser robert gibbs. robert, i know you are in washington and we will see you down here shortly no doubt. i want to start out with the republican convention and kind of a theme that ran throughout it. part of it was marco rubio who of course nominated mitt romney who said that this is not about a bad person, but he is a bad president. here is what the nominee and the number two had to say. >> the president hasn't disappointed you, because he wanted ed to. the president has disappointed you because he took office without the qualifications and the task essential at hand, he has almost no experience in business and jobs are about

government. obama care explains why a presidency that began with such anticipation now comes to such a disappointing close. so, robert, i'm wondering wa you think about the what seems to be a whole kind of new approach by the republicans, sort of toward the swing voterers saying, i know you had a lot of hope here, but it did not pan out and it is okay to be disappointed in him, and there is a disappointmentt more than the beating the president over the head. what do you make of that? h. >> well, look, i don't think that there is voter disappointment, and the voters understand that we have been through a traumatic economic experience in the country, unlike anything that we have ever seen. and voters understand it took us years and years of tremendously bad decisions by running up huge debts, and providing huge tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires that didn't create jobs, and they understand it is going to take a while to get out

of that mess. essentially, that is what the choice is and what the choice that you will see presented in charlotte. in tampa, we saw nothing but insults and old slogans and tired old ideas. in charlotte, the president is going to focus on a plan to provide the middle-class in this country, necessary and needed security by investing in researchf and innovation, and strengthening the middle-class, and -- >> robert -- >> and i think that a pathway to moving us forward. >> if voters understand the magnitude of what the president faced when he first got into office, and if they understand the figures that i think that we heard from the two governors and the mayor here, why is this race so close? clearly, there's something wrong, because it is not only that the numbers in the horse race are close, but it is that the enthusiasm among latinos and the enthusiasm of some people is in some cases double-digits down from four years ago. >> well, candy, nobody is sitting up here saying this is 2008. what has happened since the

election in 2008 and right now, again, is this huge economic calamity caused by a series of bad decisions that were made before the president ever got there. look, this election was always going to be close, because we live in a closely divided country. i remind people all of the time that just four years ago everyone was talking about the president's landslide, and he got 53% of the vote. so, let's understand that we live in a very closely divided electorate, and we have for quite some time and this election was quite frankly always going to be close, but it is an important fundamental choice about where we go from here. >> i want to play for you a little bit of an ad that is up on the air from senator jon tester, who is a freshman senator running for a second term. take a listen. >> i took on the obama administration to put montana back in charge of economy and i

open posed the wall street bailouts and got rid of the economic regulations. look across my state, i do what is best for montana always. >> that is an ad from a democratic and what does that tell you about the a, the strength of the president's coattails and how some democrats are viewing the president? >> the same that scott brown's ads in massachusetts says when he quickly distances himself from mitt romney, and everybody makes their own decisions, and what they think is best for certain constituencies in their own state. we are not a monolithic party and we have different ideas of what should be done specifically, specifically, but i will say this, there is a fundamental choice. and democrats a whole believe this and republicans as a whole believe this. do we move this country forward and rebuild this economy for the middle-class by doing it by investing in families or do it by investing in millionaires and

billionaires and that is the central and fundamental question. and can dirks here di, here is my question to the republicans, why on earth do we believe that the answer to the policy, more tax cuts for million nars and billionaires is going to work out differently this time than it was eight years ago when we saw a period of oamazingly weak economic growth? h. >> robert, let me just, because we have so little time left, quickly, can you give me a prespr preview of the president's speech? will he acknowledge the high unemployment rate and new details about the president's plans? >> the president will acknowledge that we live in incredibly tough economic times and he is going to do, again, do as i have done present a choice abo ability how to move the country forward. the mitt romney speech was about two people, mitt romney and barack obama, and president obama's speech will be about 3 million people who live in america.

it is going to be moving to country forward and strengthening the middle class and investing in research and innovation and paying down the debt responsibly and honoring those who serve overseas. >> robert gibbs, senior adviser to the re-elect campaign. see you down here. >> okay. and my conversation next up with mitt romney's secret weapon. >> i knew that her job was much more important than mine. and as america saw tuesday night, ann would have succeeded at anything she wanted to do. so now i can be in the scene. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day.

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in general, much of the post speech analysis that mitt romney capped off the kconvention witha solid speech that likely did his candidacy some good. friday, i spoke with his wife, ann romney, who said after it was over they did not rate the speech itself, but instead focused on the love and support of family and friends. >> i knew he had done a great job. and mitt was kcon i the dent tht he felt very good about the speech, and very excited to deliver it. so it was very reflective last

night, because, you know, a lot of people came into our lives through testimonials and different things that stood up and told a different side of mitt than we have been hearing about from the attacks coming our way, and for me, i think that was, the feeling that we had is just this gratitude that we had for the life that we have lived and for the lives of people that we have touched that stood up and said, you know, this is going to make us mad hearing about the attacks on this guy, and we know who he is. >> both ann and mitt romney and a good part of the convention spent a great deal of time reaching out to women voters. polls show that the republican nominee trails among women voters by double-digits, and i asked her about the so-called gender gap. >> i don't look at it as a problem will, but an opportunity, and that is because why i was grateful for the ability to let people see mitt in a different light and to see how he has lived his life, to see the stories about his mother, and about the feelings

she would have had last night seeing all of these elected women and the chance that we had from other women to stand up and say, you know, i have worked with this guy. >> the gap between women and men in the republican party has existed for nearly three decades, but ann romney told me that she senses progress. >> i'm hearing from so many women who may not have considered voting for a republican before that said it is time for the grown-up to come, the man who is going to have, and take this very seriously and take the future of our children very, very seriously. and i very much believe, candy, it is going to be an economic election and many women may be voting in this cycle around in a different way than they usually are. >> and the gender gap is not to close in a single cycle, but a

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joining me is romney campaign senior adviser eric fehrnstrom, and thank you for joining us. i want to pick up on what democrats have taken out after in terms of the republican convention, and in specific your candidate's speech. here is what the president had to say. >> governor romney had nothing to say about afghanistan last week. let alone offer a plan for the 33,000 troops who will have come home from the war by the end of this month. >> why didn't the president mention anything about there are troops as you know of seas still

fighting in afghanistan, but there was no mention of that in the speech. was it deliberate or oversight or what was that decision about? >> well, the day before the convention speech, candy, governor romney traveled to indianapolis on wednesday and he gave a speech before the american legion and that was an invitation that president obama declined. governor romney thought it was a privilege to be speaking to people who had served so nobody bli and in that speech, he talked about afghanistan, and he also talked about the $1 trillion in defense cuts taking place under this president which his own defense secretary has said will be devastating to the national defense. >> point taken and i didn't mean the president, but the governor, because he is your presidential nominee at this point, but it is not just the president and the democrats, but this is something that bill crystal, from the "weekly standard" a conservative had to say, what about the

proppr propriety of a presidential nominee fail iing to even menti in his acceptance speech, the war and the warriors? i doubt it. it has been since 1952, i read, where a republican did not mention troops serving overseas. do you think it was an oversight, in hindsight, should he have said something? >> well, again, he spoke to afghanistan in a big speech before the american legion the night before the convention speech, which was an invitation -- >> yes, sure, but this is a big huge audience. >> governor romney's speech was an opportunity for him to introduce himself to millions of voters who were sieeing him for the first time and in that speech he accomplished what he meant to do which is to talk about his better vision for america with more jobs and increasing wages, and he talked about the failures of the obama

presidency over the last four years and talked a little bit about the personal side and what motivates him. we thought that speech was a home run. >> eric, given that speech and given where you focus on which is the economy and even after that speech, we still don't know where the nominee would make cuts in the budget. we don't know how he would deal with the tax loopholes and which tax loopholes he would close and which tax provisions he would keep and how he would reform health care and we don't know his version of medicare reform, but we obviously know the vice presidential nominee's, and so do you expect this fall to roll out plans in that kind of detail or do you think that the american people in your opinion have enough information about mitt romney and what he would specifically do about things to cast their vote? >> well, we will put out a lot of policy over the last 18 months. i do think that the critical issue facing american voters is the economiment i think that

next week in charlotte, the president needs to explain why he didn't do what he said he was going to do. when he took office shortly after his inauguration, he said in an interview that if he didn't have this economy turned around in three years his presidency would be a one-term proposition, and the economy maz not tu -- has not turned around and the next three nights of the democratic convention will not be the news, but friday when we hear about the monthly jobs report for the month of august. and we are all hoping for good news, but the odds are high that unemployment rate will remain above 8% where it has been almost for the entire span of the obama presidency. >> eric, unfortunately i have to end it there, and i hope you will come back. i appreciate it and get some rest, because it is a heavy duty fall. thank you. >> thank you. anticipation is building for when president obama takes center stage. i believe that we have a

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as it was in tampa, the highlight of the charlotte convention is the thursday speech by the nominee, but with the democrats there are no prespeech jitters about this candidate's ability to wind up the crowd. >> there is not a liberal america and a conservative america. there is the united states of america. there is not a black america and a white america and latino america and an asian america,

but there is the united states of america. >> from the first time he took to the kconvention speech as th keynoter in 2004, there has been no doubt that barack obama can step into the spotlight and dazzle. four years later in denver, the optics match the excitement for the presidential campaign with greek columns surrounding him in front of a crowd of more than 75,000, and the democratic nominee delivered an electric speech. >> out of work, tough luck, you are on your own. no health care? the market will fix it. you're on your own. born into poverty? pull yourself up by your own boot straps, because even if you don't have boot, you are on your own. well, it is time for them to own

their failure. it is time for us to change america, and that's why i'm running for president of the united states. >> this week in tampa, the republicans argue that barack obama is a great talker who doesn't deliver. it frames a dilemma for the third speech at a democratic national convention and living up to the past rhetorical performances without ignoring the rele ality of a struggling economy. up next, chief cnn correspondent jessica yellin and chief political writer of the "washington post" dan balz.

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try capzasin-hp. it penetrates deep to block pain signals for hours of relief. capzasin-hp. take the pain out of arthritis. joining me is dan balz, chief correspondent for "the washington post" and chief white house correspondent jessica yellin. we would like to go through step by step what happened and jessica has, and i have not seen it, but a great documentary sort of tracking president obama's story and one of the things that -- i don't know what the question was, but it went to the exact same thing like how is it going to be any different in a second term than a first term if the mix is still the same, and here is what the president said.

>> my hope is that getting past this election, people will have an opportunity to maybe step back and say, you know what, the differences that divide us are not as important as the common bonds that we have as americans, and some of that i'm sure will require additional effort on my part, and hopefully we will see more effort on the other side as well. >> but isn't that really the question. we have both candidates running around saying, here is my budget and here is my plan and yet they have a whole other branch to work with, and it has not worked out that well this time around, and we are looking at an election that might make the senate even close ethan r than now? >> right. one is, is there a mandate for whoever wins and how do they interpret that mandate. if the republicans lose, president obama will have another opportunity to essentially hit the re-set

button and essentially start over. a lot of people who know him best think he will try the do something in a more cooperative way and he has not gotten it done in the first term, in part because of the way that the republicans opposed him and does he have a better plan for the second term to try to make that happen. >> what i asked, also, was about why he didn't do more outreach at the very beginning of the term when he came in trying to bridge the divides, anone of the reasons that he gave is that he is trying to spend some time at home with hism family in the evenings and on weekend and i asked him if that is different in a second term when the kids are older and he suggested yes, maybe it would be, but part of that begs a question, if it is such a priority, why didn't he do it to carve out one night a week to gout the socialize.

so if thedynamic stays the same in washington, we could see the president do the outreach, but more of the executive action than he did in the first term. >> and that is in the last six months to going on was a summation at least in the big picture of how mitt romney views his presidency versus the president's. take a listen. >> president obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> and to heal the planet. my promise is to help you and your family. >> so in a nutshell, when we all covered the obama campaign four years ago, it was about transformation.

i'll going to change the directions. here's mitt romney going i'm going to get stuff done. >> right. and it's very much the work a day mitt romney that his advi advisers hoped he would be able to project. they knew he's not going to win the laikability debate in this campaign. they want voters to take away that he has the tools, wherewithal, and leadership tools to make things work in a way that president obama has not been able to do so. he's not about transforming the country. and i think his hope is that people will say that's not what we want at this point. we don't think that's what's going to be able to be done. we just want somebody to come in and fix it. >> and the other piece of that message clearly is playing off the sense of celebrity and sort of over-the-top charismatic drama that attended the 2008 president obama campaign when he was making promises. it captures the sense of disappointment people have now that he obviously couldn't

realize healing the oceans. >> and in fact, it is sort of their kind of approach now as we're so disappointed. which is -- really a curse word for politicians when they say it about someone else. so disappointed about this. kind of giving voters a reason to say, you know, i'm disappointed. i don't hate him, but i'm going to vote against him. >> right. they're not trying to demonize president obama because they know that won't really work. they are trying to play on the send of you expected more, and what they're trying to say is you're not going to get more in a second term. i think it's incumbent on president obama when he's here this week to show that that's not the case. that he has a plan, that he has digested what's happened in the first term. not that he can rekindle hope and change the way he did in 2008 but that he's got a sense of how you get this country going again. >> did you get a sense when you talked to him for your documentary that the second term would somehow be different than the first in terms of policy? >> i think that he'll go after

-- i mean, i know from my reporting that he'll go after different policy items. i think he'll push, for example, immigration, energy plan, those kinds of things. but i do think that he is going to try to push some of these economic policies that he's talking about. and, you know, so -- >> yes, we're hurrying up. she gets a whole hour and a half. jessica, dan, thank you very much. next, the democrats' cheerleader and chief. are you watching "state of the union" from the site of the democratic national convention. ♪ why not make lunch more than just lunch? with two times the points on dining in restaurants, you may find yourself asking why not, a lot.

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finally this sunday, in the 12 years since he left office, former president bill clinton has set up a foundation to help meet the challenge of global interdependence, become close to and worked with the bush family on various projects. which is to say bill clinton, the best politician of his generation, has become an elder statesman. when that bell rings, he's still the go-to party man. then-governor clinton gave the nominating speech at michael dukakis' convention in 1988.

he morphed his 15-minute allotment into a 33-minute sermon that turned the friendly crowd impatient. >> in closing -- [ cheering ] >> this year, bill clinton will speak to his seventh straight convention, covering a span of nearly a quarter century. he is set to deliver the nominating speech for president obama which is not without some risk. clinton still subscribes to the more words the better school of speak, and he still has issues with message discipline. this year undercutting the administration's position on tax cuts and praising mitt romney. >> a man who's been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold. >> and there is always the possibility bill clinton outshines the sitting president, except that's almost the point. for team obama, struggling to activate some democrats disappointed with the last four years, bill clinton is the good old days, just the ticket.

in a gallup poll taken before the 2010 midterm elections, 53% of democrats said they'd be more likely to vote for a candidate whom clinton campaigned for. in a race essentially tied for months, clinton could help beyond the party base. a cnn/orc poll conducted in may found 2/3 of all americans view clinton favorably. more than any other living president. and so the comeback kid will come back again. >> everything i learned in my eight years as president and in the work i have done since in america and across the globe has convinced me that barack obama is the man for this job. [ cheers and applause ] >> the man who came to rally for obama in 2008 needs to do it again in 2012. thank you for watching "state of the union." i'm candy crowley in charlotte, north carolina. stay with cnn throughout the week for wall-to-wall coverage of the democratic national