Collegiate Times

President Bill Clinton walks on-stage during a campaign stop in Roanoke on behalf Democratic Sen. Barack Obama Sunday night.

President Clinton campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in Roanoke on Sunday evening, exciting a crowd of thousands with his praise for Obama's commitment to policy change.

Click here for a photo gallery of the event.

At the outdoor rally at the City Market in downtown Roanoke, Clinton said that Obama had the instincts to be president, citing his plans for financial recovery and proposals for health care reform.   

"Barack Obama and Joe Biden are going to win here on Election Day with your help," Clinton said. "For the first time in 40 years, Virginia will be a Democratic state. We have a chance to fundamentally change the direction of the country."

Clinton said that he has now witnessed two "presidential moments" by Obama, furthering his faith in the presidential nominee. The first being Obama's selection of Biden as his running mate; Clinton said that the economic crisis revealed the second.

"(Obama) called all of his advisers together ... and said, 'first, I want to understand what is happening before I say something,'" Clinton said. "He is smart as a whip, so he did understand. He said, 'Don't bother me with what's popular, I want to know what the right thing to do is and I'll figure out how to settle it.' That's what a president does in a crisis."

Clinton elaborated further on what makes a good president, outlining the character traits that are essential.

"They have to have the right ideas; they have to have good instincts; they have to have to want to know, and they have to be able to know and understand," Clinton said. "You need a good supporting cast. When you get in a mess like this and there's no precedent, it really matters."

Clinton also addressed the Republican Party as a whole, telling the crowd that President Bush's current response is actually helping Obama's campaign.

"The administration keeps plowing an Uzi's worth of bullets into the McCain-Palin ticket every time they have something else go wrong," Clinton said. "It's good politics for us."

Clinton added that Obama has more potential than he did in 1992 to make changes in the United States.

"When I was elected, people blamed my predecessor, but not the ideas on which their whole deal was founded," Clinton said. "The country turns to us Democrats when they get into a ditch and you don't have time to vote on all the hyperventilated issues. That's where America is today."

Clinton also touched on energy dependency, supporting Obama's plan for alternative resources. Clinton said that the proposals would not only lead to cleaner energy supplies, but that they would also create employment opportunities in the new industries, an issue that may have become more and more disconcerting to the American people.

"We had almost eight million people moving from poverty into the middle class when you gave me a chance to serve; now we've had 5 and a half million move from the middle class back into poverty, almost all of them while they were working full time," Clinton said.

Clinton added that Obama's health care plan, if implemented, would give at least 26 million Americans health insurance, an issue Clinton said has been dormant since his administration.

"We are spending money in the wrong way, instead of the right way, because no one has had the courage to try and fix this mess since Hillary (Clinton) and I," Clinton said. "We've done a decade where 90 percent of the gains went to 10 percent of the people."

Clinton interjected a story about Winston Churchill, the United Kingdom's Prime Minister during World War II, in his speech.

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