Assessing the field of potential Republican challengers to President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton says he expects Obama to win reelection, even while acknowledging “how well Michele Bachmann has done” and praising some other GOP hopefuls.
Clinton said he’s “not surprised” by Bachmann’s quick rise to the top-tier of the field of GOP hopefuls.
“I’ve been watching her speak. She comes across as a real person — all those foster children she’s taken in and raised and the work she’s done,” the former president said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Clinton said he likes the Republican candidates who are seen as “more moderate” and who might be “formidable” opponents to Obama because they are “more connected to the real world”
Former ambassador and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is “quite an impressive man,” Clinton said, adding he is “refreshingly unhidebound” and “comes across as a non-ideological conservative … practical.”
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romeny, meanwhile, seems to be doing a better job this time around than he did when running for the GOP nomination in 2008, Clinton noted. “Romney comes across as more relaxed, more convicted about what he did do, less willing to just be forced into apologizing for it.”
But the former president said the race is Obama’s to lose.
“I’ll be surprised if he’s not re-elected. I always thought he would be,” Clinton said.
Though unemployment rate and other economic conditions may still be mediocre by the time voters go to the polls in November 2012, Clinton said Obama stacks up favorably to the competition.
“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 said.
Politico/ Epstein/ 06/30/2011
Bill Clinton sizes up the GOP field
Florida Latin Connection/Arnoldo Varona, Editor
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