Clinton: Obama has 'better answers' for US

Barack Obama has “better answers” for the United States, former President Bill Clinton said as polls showed the Democrat had regained the lead in the race to the White House.

Mr Clinton told voters in the key swing state of Florida that his wife’s former rival had “better answers for the economy, for energy, for health care, (and) for education”.

It was the former president’s first appearance on the campaign trail for the Illinois senator and came as an Associated Press-GfK poll showed Mr Obama has surged to a seven-point lead over his Republican rival John McCain.

Speaking at a rally in Orlando, Florida, Mr Clinton said: “Here’s why you ought to be for Barack Obama; he’s got better answers - better answers for the economy, for energy, for health care, for education. He knows what it will take to get this country back on track.”

He praised Mr Obama’s approach to the country’s economic crisis and told the crowd: “You know what he said? ’Show me what the problem is and how to fix it and don’t bother me with the politics. Let’s do the right thing’.

“There’s a lot of pessimism and doom and gloom and... people are waking up with their guts in a knot, worried about the economy.

“America has a choice – we can worry about these things, or we can do something about it.”

Later, Mr Clinton gave a similar speech in Fort Pierce, Florida, before a crowd of several thousand at an outdoor waterfront event in sweltering heat where several people fainted.

Famed for its “hanging chads” in the controversial 2000 election, the Sunshine State has the largest number of the all-important electoral college votes of any battleground state and could prove decisive in November.

George Bush’s victory followed a series of close-run contests in the state during the 1990s and he went on to strengthen his lead there in 2004. The McCain campaign views the state as crucial in 2008.

But a Quinnipiac University poll showed Mr Obama with a 51-43% lead over Mr McCain among likely voters in the state yesterday.

Mr Clinton did not attack Mr McCain, whom he has described as “a great man”, but said: “You don’t have to say one bad word about Senator Obama’s opponent. You just have to tell them the truth.”

Mr Clinton’s support of Mr Obama has been closely scrutinised after the pair clashed during the US primary season, when his wife Hillary was battling the Illinois senator for the party’s nomination.

A key moment came when Mr Clinton was accused of seeking to diminish Mr Obama’s victory in the South Carolina primary, a scene of success for previous African American candidates.

At another point, Mr Clinton bitterly rejected Mr Obama’s claim to have opposed the Iraq war from the beginning as “a fairy tale”.

Meanwhile, the latest AP-GfK poll showed 48% of likely voters now back Mr Obama, compared with 41% for Mr McCain.

It marked a significant change from the previous AP-GfK survey, taken less than three weeks ago, which gave the Republican a slight edge before Wall Street collapsed and sent ripples across worldwide markets.

The survey showed 60% of likely voters said it was more important to them to choose a president who would make the right economic decisions than a commander in chief who would make the right decisions on national security.

Mr Obama leads among economic voters, with 63% support, while Mr McCain is ahead among security voters, with 73%.

It also showed 16% of likely voters thought Mr McCain hurt negotiations over the $700bn (€487bn) rescue package for the US economy when he suspended his campaign and headed to Washington last week to get involved.

Just 5% thought Mr Obama caused damage when he returned after a summons by President George Bush to attend a White House meeting on the crisis.

:: The AP-GfK poll involved telephone interviews of a nationwide sample of 1,160 adults, including 808 likely voters, from Saturday through Tuesday. Interviews were conducted on both landline and mobile phones. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points, 3.4 percentage points for likely voters.