Clintons join Biden in Pennsylvania

Bill and Hillary Clinton joined Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden in Scranton, Pa., Sunday, as they sought to rally supporters considered a weakness for their party's ticket.

The Clintons, whose depth of commitment to Democratic nominee Barack Obama was questioned after the long and bitter Democratic primary, joined Biden in using the faltering economy as a reason to vote for the Illinois senator next month.

{mosads}Biden and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) share a bond in Scranton, a city where he was born and Clinton's father is buried.

The town also represents a critical part of an important swing state that Clinton won handily over Obama in the state's April primary, one of several late primaries that raised questions about whether Obama could win white, blue-collar voters.

Former President Bill Clinton pointed out Sunday that "three-quarters" of the town's Democrats voted for Clinton in April.

The Clintons, however, made the case that Obama, not Republican presidential nominee John McCain, is the candidate who can solve the ongoing financial crisis that is affecting those same blue-collar voters as well as Wall Street.

Sen. Clinton said "sending the Republicans to solve this economic crisis is like sending the bull to clean up the china closet."

"They broke it and we’re not buying it anymore.  Barack Obama and Joe Biden will be leaders who will lead us out of this economic crisis. They will once again clean up this economic mess that Republicans have left behind," Clinton said.

Both Clinton and Biden drew comparisons to the economic recession President Clinton inherited upon taking office in 1993 after defeating the first President Bush.

"It took a Democratic president to clean up after the last President Bush. It’s going to take a Democratic president to clean up after this president," Clinton said. "Make no mistake about it  and we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. America will once again rise from the ashes of the Bushes."

Republicans prefaced the campaign stop, the first to include both Clintons and one of the nominees, by using Obama's former rivals' words against them, pointing to criticisms that the Clintons and Biden made against Obama during the nomination battle.

“As voters in northeast Pennsylvania continue to raise serious questions about Barack Obama’s judgment and character, it is befitting that they will now hear from the three leading voices who sounded the alarm on the risk of an Obama presidency," McCain spokesman Paul Lindsay said in a statement. "Whether it was calling a vote for him a roll of the dice or attacking his relationship with unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, Joe Biden and the Clintons were right – Obama’s poor judgment proves he is not ready to lead.”

But Biden raised those character criticisms in his remarks, arguing that the McCain campaign is trying to turn the page on the economy with "personal attacks."

"Did you notice, in Barack’s debate last Tuesday, not one of those undecided voters asked a single question about the ugly inferences and unbecoming personal attacks that have been launched by the McCain campaign on Barack Obama?" Biden said in his prepared remarks. "That’s because people get it.  People get that this election is about something much bigger than personal attacks."

Biden pointed to recent reports that McCain's advertising has gone 100 percent negative, an argument that McCain spokesman Ben Porritt said is full of "fictitious claims."

“Angry Joe Biden today riled up his crowd with fictitious claims about John McCain," Porritt said in a statement. "For an Obama-Biden campaign spending more money on negative advertising than any campaign in history, red-faced Joe Biden shouted and cursed but couldn’t shake Obama’s job-killing prescription of higher taxes and bigger government."

Obama and Biden have jumped out to significant polling leads over McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in recent weeks as the financial crisis on Wall Street and the global markets has captivated voters' attention.