Bill Clinton: I'll Be Surprised If Obama Is Not Re-Elected
Bill Clinton expects President Obama to be re-elected in 2012, he told ABC in an interview which aired on Thursday.
"I've always thought he would be," said the former president.
Clinton is optimistic about the economy, which he expects to improve enough by Election Day to give Obama an advantage, although, according to the AFP, unemployment is likely to remain high.
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Currently, unemployment is hovering around nine percent.
"When President Obama took office, we were in the midst of avoiding having a financial collapse turn into a depression. So, the unemployment rate was higher (than during Clinton's presidency) and people were scared to death about what was going to happen," he said.
Clinton maintained that Obama's stimulus measures have "outperformed expectations, not underperformed."
He went on to say positive things about the GOP field. The former president is "not surprised" that Michele Bachmann, the Tea Party favorite, has become a frontrunner.
"I've been watching her speak," he said. "She comes across as a real person. The story that they tell is pretty compelling, all those foster children she's taken in, and children she's raised and the work she's done."
Clinton revealed his thoughts that Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is "quite an impressive man" who is "refreshingly unhidebound." Also Mitt Romney, according to Clinton, is doing a better job than he did in 2008.
"Romney comes across as more relaxed, more convicted about what he did do, less willing to just be forced into apologizing for it," Clinton told ABC.
Still, he predicts that GOP candidates who are too ideologically based won't fare well against Obama. Clinton sees moderate candidates being more of a threat to Obama because they "are more connected with the real world."
"You won't just be able to say, 'Vote for me, I'm the non-Obama.'" According to Clinton, Obama will be able to bring up improvements he made in job creation as well as the automobile industry.
"I also think when he gets an opponent, people will be able to compare what the opponent is promising to what he is," the former president noted. "I'll be surprised if he's not re-elected."
Clinton occupied the White House from 1993 to 2001. He was the last Democratic president to be re-elected since Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940s.
