Clintons Join Biden to Campaign for Obama in Scranton

Bill Clinton speaks at an Obama-Biden rally in Scranton, Pa. With him on the podium are Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was born in Scranton; his wife, Jill Biden; and the former president's wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. (By Jimmy May -- Associated Press)

Clinton said she looked forward to "being on the back lawn of the White House, on a beautiful day like this, when President Obama signs into law quality, affordable health care for you and you and you."

On that day, Biden responded, Obama will hand the signing pen to Clinton for her work on the issue. He lavishly praised the senator from New York, saying, "Hillary and I truly, truly are friends."

Biden also delivered a tough speech about his "old friend" McCain, hammering the Republican for his reaction to the financial meltdown. He reminded the audience, in what has become a standard Democratic repetition, that McCain's initial response Sept. 15 to the turmoil on Wall Street was that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy were "sound," followed several hours later by his saying that the economy was in "crisis."

"Folks, that's what we Catholics call an epiphany," the senator from Delaware said to laughter. "The problem with John McCain -- God love him, as my mother would say -- John's epiphany wasn't that he saw the light. What John saw was the presidency receding from his grasp."

Hillary Clinton is scheduled to campaign Monday in the "collar" suburbs around Philadelphia, where McCain is also scheduled to go this week. But Democrats are brimming with enthusiasm about the state, which Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) narrowly won in the 2004 election.

McCain had hoped to capitalize on some of the same misgivings about Obama that Clinton had exploited in the primary -- especially his remarks at a private fundraiser in California, when he said small-town voters sometimes "get bitter" and "cling to guns or religion" because of their frustrations.

But public polls in Pennsylvania show Obama with a double-digit lead. Obama made four campaign stops in Philadelphia on Saturday and has flooded the airwaves there with commercials. Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a strong Clinton supporter now working hard for Obama, said he believes the Democrat is in surprisingly good shape.

Obama is "doing as well in central Pennsylvania as any Democrat has done in a long time," said Rendell, who said economic worries have trumped any cultural concerns about Obama.

Democratic voter registration is up about 500,000 since 2004, and there are 1.2 million more Democrats than Republicans in the state.

The recent news has been such that Hillary Clinton felt the need to issue a warning.

"Sure, the polls show Barack and Joe ahead now, and that's good news," she said, but "nobody should be lulled into any false sense of security."

She noted there have been 10 presidential elections since she became active in politics, and Democrats "have only won three of them." She paused. "And, of course, Bill won two out of the three."