Hillary has big job for Bill: the economy

Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky.

Hillary Clinton has a big job in mind for her husband if she wins the White House: revitalizer-in-chief.

Before a cheering crowd in a Fort Mitchell, Ky., backyard on the weekend, Clinton pledged to put her husband – who won the state in 1992 and 1996 – “in charge of revitalizing the economy.”

Clinton is offering few details about what he’d do, though she’s previously said that her husband would focus on distressed communities such as those in coal country. When asked whether he would have a cabinet post, she shook her head and mouthed no.

Spokesman Nick Merrill said Clinton would be getting ahead of herself to talk about “any sort of formalized role for anyone. But, he added, Bill Clinton “has a lot to offer, and it would be foolish not to use that in some capacity.”

It would be a slightly surprising portfolio for the former president, who’s often blamed for overseeing the financial deregulation that led to the recession. But Hillary Clinton is hoping voters, particularly in depressed places such as West Virginia and Kentucky, remember the boom times of his administration.

Clinton frequently rattles off statistics from her husband’s time in the White House, pointing to economic growth that averaged 4 percent per year, rising median family income and a budget deficit that turned into a surplus.

“I’ve already told my husband that if I’m so fortunate enough to be president and he will be the first gentleman, I expect him to go to work,” she people at a smoky diner in Paducah, Ky., on Monday.

The diner was filled with many people who affectionately recall previous visits by the Clintons. Bill Clinton campaigned in the town right before the 1992 election that made him president.

Joanne Clark, 54, of Paducah exclaimed that she had shaken hands with Bill Clinton then. Hillary Clinton said: “He’s gotta get out of retirement!”