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BY BENJAMIN BRADLOW

In print | October 28, 2004

Former President Bill Clinton’s return to the campaign trail with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Monday in Philadelphia’s Love Park was akin to the return of a wounded hero to the battlefield.

Seven weeks after his triple-bypass heart surgery operation, Clinton appeared with Kerry in the beginning of the last full week before the presidential election to help give the Kerry campaign an extra nudge in the final stretch of the campaign.

At its peak, the crowd numbered 80,000 to 100,000, according to CNN estimates. “I was impressed by the sheer size of [the rally]. I really wasn’t anticipating that many people,” Arthur Chalmers ’05 said.

Before Clinton and Kerry made their way to the stage, which, instead of facing the majority of the crowd that stretched lengthwise through Ben Franklin Parkway, faced press cameras just on the other side of the parkway, political candidates from the Philadelphia area each gave an obligatory Bush-bashing speech and ceded the stage to the next person in line. Old-school union leaders, in their unique brand of vote encouragement, advised rally attendees to “vote early and vote often.”

Among the more prominent political stars making an appearance were former Democratic presidential hopeful Carol Moseley Braun, Democratic senatorial candidate Joe Hoeffel and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell.

Shortly before Clinton and Kerry made their appearance, singer Patti Labelle surprised the audience with a powerful rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Amid streaming confetti and Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” booming from speakers, Clinton and Kerry climbed the stairs of the stage to roaring approval from the crowd.

“If this isn’t good for my heart then I don’t know what is,” Clinton proclaimed. Appearing in a plain black suit that fit his newly skinny body following heart surgery.

A stray “Clinton-Gore” sign from what many in the crowd may have termed “the good ol’ days” often made its way through the sea of “Kerry-Edwards” and “Philly for Kerry” signs.

“I noticed that most of the crowd wasn’t really there for Kerry, but were there for Clinton,” Peter Gardner ’08 said.

Clearly aware of his cult of personality, Clinton was repeatedly self-referential in his short introduction to John Kerry. “From time to time I’ve been called the comeback kid. In eight days John Kerry is going to make this country the comeback country,” he said.

Later he referred to “Clinton’s rules of politics” when he said, “If one candidate is trying to scare you, and the other’s trying to get you to think; if one is appealing to your fears, and the other is appealing to your hopes — it seems to me you ought to vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.”

He soon wrapped up his short sermon in support of Kerry, which was relatively subdued. “He didn’t speak for long and that was probably because he was exhausted,” Gardner said.

Kerry stepped up to the podium to deliver a fiery litany of the blunders made by the Bush administration.

He immediately seized on a news story broken by The New York Times and CBS that morning that the U.S. Army had failed to secure stockpiles of weapons when they first invaded Iraq. The Bush administration “has miscalculated again and again and again,” Kerry said.

Some felt that Kerry’s attack may have undercut Clinton’s message. “One of Clinton’s main things was the dichotomy of hope and fear … It weakened the argument when Kerry got up and immediately started playing to fear,” Carrie Floyd ’07 said.

Once he had sufficiently bashed Bush’s foreign policy, he launched into a tirade about Bush’s domestic agenda arguing that he could be more successful in both areas. “We need a president who can defend America and fight for the middle class,” he said.

He also made light of Bush’s references to the job of president as “hard work” during the first presidential debate. “I am impatient to relieve this president of that hard work,” Kerry said.

Perhaps wanting to counter the perception that the rally was just about two figures - Clinton and Kerry - Kerry assured the crowd, “This is not about me. This is about us … I’ve got your back.”

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