A crowd of more than 30,000 came out for the third act of Wednesday night's Obama-palooza to see Barack Obama and Bill Clinton's first-ever joint campaign appearance.
After months of running against one another, the two men, who were introduced as "the next President and the former President," took the stage in Florida to make the case that Obama is ready to lead.
"This man should be our president," declared Clinton, without any of the equivocation that had plagued him in the past when talking about Obama.
The primary battle for the Democratic nomination between Hillary Clinton and Obama pitted the two men against each other for months. And Clinton clearly had a tough time resolving himself to defeat in the weeks that followed. A traditionally disciplined orator, Clitnon made comments that seemd to undercut Obama's candidacy.
The rally "seems to signal that the pair have settled -- or at least put aside -- any lingering tension in their relationship, which was bruised during the hard-fought primary," according to The Huffington Post.
"In the eyes of hopeful Democrats, it carried the air of a torch-passing – absent any of the bitterness from the long presidential primary – as they wore wide smiles and heaped praise onto one another," reported the New York Times.
"The former president, said by friends to have taken his wife’s defeat to the Illinois senator especially hard, embraced, rhetorically and physically, the man who snuffed out hopes for a Clinton restoration," said Jonathon Martin of Politico.
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With Obama leading Republican candidate John McCain by the slimmest of margins in most polls of Florida voters, events like last night's could have huge implications. Clinton -- and his legacy -- can't afford a repeat of the 2000 election.
