>>> "the new york times" called it a cleanup operation. former president bill clinton was back on message at three fund-raisers in new york city last night saying a romney presidency would be, quote, calamitous to our country and the world. this comes just days after he praised mitt romney for, quote, sterling business career.
>> let me just be as simple as i can. i don't think it's important to re-elect a president. i think it's essential to re-elect the president.
>> joining me now " washington post " deputy national political editor anne kornblut . i think your title gets longer by the day, anne. good to see you on here.
>> sorry about that.
>> that's okay. i love it. let's talk about bill clinton . our first read team points out this hard-hit at romney got a lot of attention because of the perception or reality that he was off message when referring to romney 's, quote, sterling business record .
>> yeah. it's almost as if they planned it, right? we spent a lot of last week revisiting the subject of where president obama and former president clinton diverge, of course, after he talked about the business record , as you mentioned. and that only served to tee up the event we saw last night. now, it would have gotten a lot of attention either way . had a lot of celebrities involved, it's president clinton and the clinton/obama rivalry even though it's long gone and four years old now still piques a lot of attention. nonetheless, i think what we saw last week really drew more attention to it. that's not to say there were real differences. i'm kidding about teeing it up. i think there were real differences. i think you saw him speaking to the campaign a little bit in public there.
>> there are real differences perhaps, but when he was in wisconsin, the president -- former president noted that when you are not campaigning or when you're the former president, you can kind of say what you want. obviously though he saw the need to come at romney in a significant way saying that it would be basically a disaster for the country and for the world.
>> no question. and, you know, while he might have some strategic differences with the way the obama campaign is executing it, obviously in the big picture when it comes to the economy, when it comes to probably just about everything, he sees president obama as far superior, not to mention his wife is in president obama 's cabinet. so there's no question that he is in line and if anything this was the other shoe dropping. i think we probably saw the romney campaign celebrating a little bit too early what amounts to more or less a minor strategic difference rather than a major philosophical one.
>> let's talk about this article. roger simon with politico has written an article pretty critical of the former president, but he says basically though the obama campaign wants to use clinton to raise money, tone it down, and chill out. do you see it the same way?
>> well, look, they want to get the most out of the former president and so far they've said that they will take the good and the bad. you know, they're not going to be able to control him. they're not going to be able to control any former president. a former president is probably up there in the category of donors and lawyers as the categories of people who are involved in politics who will not be told what to do. so they might hope that he would tone it down some, but i think that's unlikely and in some ways that's what actually lends president clinton his credibility. he's going to say what he thinks, and they're going i would expect continue to take the good with the bad.
>> in that same article i mention, roger simon personally shot down this idea, but it is out there, that perhaps the former president is more focused onllusive run by hillary clinton in 2016 . do you buy any of that 1234 .
>> no. and if he is i think you could game it out either way . is it better for romney to win, is it better for obama to win? there would be upsides to both. it's hard to see that. that run obviously took a great toll on their family. obviously a lot of peep want to think about it. it's fun and it's really alluring to think about because her popularity is so high right now, but the minute she steps back into the fray, they'd be back in the fire. so we don't know and i think, like i say, you could argue it either way . anne kornblut , great pleasure having you on.
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