WAPO Story on Clinton's

President Clinton tells why Senator Clinton should be elected

"You have to have a leader who is strong and commanding and convincing enough . . . to deal with the unexpected," he said. "There is a better than 50 percent chance that sometime in the first year or 18 months of the next presidency, something will happen that is not being discussed in this campaign. President Bush never talked about Osama bin Laden and didn't foresee Hurricane Katrina. And if you're not ready for that, then everything else you do can be undermined. You need a president that you trust to deal with something that we will not discuss in this campaign. . . . And I think, on this score, she's the best of all."

After trying out various themes and rationales for her campaign, Hillary Clinton has settled in the final week before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary on the experience plank, arguing that she is the only one of the front-running Democratic candidates prepared to lead from the first day in office, a claim her rivals have challenged by questioning the value of her tenure as first lady. Clinton advisers noted privately this week that the experience argument was bolstered by the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the threat of wider unrest in that country. Clinton pressed the point during a stop in Eldridge, Iowa, telling reporters: "I'm not asking you to take me on faith. I'm not asking you to take a leap of faith."


But the campaign has apparently decided that the person best able to make this case in the bluntest terms is the former president. "Who better to explain what it takes to be president than the last two-term president the Democrats have had since FDR?" said Mark Penn, chief strategist for the Clinton campaign.

Bill Clinton has been edging closer in recent weeks to arguing that the country would be taking a chance if voters nominated someone with less experience in Washington, a dig at her main rivals, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Speaking in Plymouth, N.H., last week, he said that his wife would be best suited to handle the challenges of terrorism, climate change and income inequality. He hinted that if these challenges were not met, the world, or at least American democracy, might be in peril in the coming decades.

"How we meet those challenges will determine whether our grandchildren will even be here 50 years from now at a meeting like this listening to the next generation's presidential candidates," Clinton said in Plymouth. He did not elaborate on what he meant by the prospect of the audience members' grandchildren not being there in 50 years.

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