Gingrich: Bill Clinton May Overshadow Obama at Convention

Democrats may be making a mistake by giving former President Bill Clinton a large role at the party’s convention next month, says former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

Clinton will formally nominate President Barack Obama at the confab in Charlotte. And the former president may dwarf Obama, as Clinton’s strengths and Obama’s weaknesses will shine through, the former House speaker told CNN’s “Starting Point” Wednesday, Politico reports.

“I think it’s a very high-risk thing for President Obama to have President Clinton at the convention and nominate him,” Gingrich said.

“It’s going to drive home how big the differences are. President Clinton could work in a bipartisan way. President Obama can’t. President Obama repealed, by executive order — in my judgment, illegally — the welfare reform that was the center of the Clinton years. President Clinton got four consecutive balanced budgets. President Obama has had huge deficits.”

The bottom line is that “having Bill Clinton there is going to remind people of the Democrat they used to like, and may in fact shrink Obama by comparison,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich said he won’t be speaking at the Republican convention in Tampa later this month. Instead, he will lead a group of policy workshops.

“I’m very comfortable not speaking at the evening convention. We’re working on a project now to have two hours a day, every day, training workshops on major issues, including energy, economic growth. And I think I’ll probably have the lead role in putting together four straight days of those kinds of workshops. So I’ll have a fairly big role at the convention.”