Bill Clinton Predicts Obama's 2012 Re-election: I Agree!

Bill Clinton: Obama will win despite 9% jobless rate

Former president Bill Clinton says he would be "surprised" if President Obama doesn't win re-election next year, even given today's 9% unemployment rate.

In an upbeat assessment of Obama's political future and the U.S. jobs picture, Clinton told reporters Tuesday afternoon that several years worth of economic stimulus, bank and auto bailouts, and business incentives are paying off.

The ex-president is trying to do his part. His Clinton Global Initiative will hold two days of meetings in Chicago Wednesday and Thursday in an effort to get hundreds of new commitments from the public and private sectors for job-creating endeavors.

"There is enough money in the banks and the corporate treasuries to get not just the United States but the entire world out of the economic doldrums that we're in," Clinton said during a conference call. "There's more than enough there to stimulate not only an American recovery but a global recovery."

While extolling the potential for new initiatives to come out of the tw0-day confab, the nation's 42nd president couldn't resist offering his views on Obama, the deficit-reduction talks going on in Washington, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and other topics:

On Obama's re-election chances: Once Americans are made aware of his efforts to boost the economy and create jobs, Clinton says, the president will win -- particularly because most of his Republican opponents are trying to "cut taxes and eviscerate the government."

"If people know what he has done and what he is trying to do, I think that he can be re-elected," Clinton said. "I expect that he'll win. I'll be surprised if he doesn't win."

On deficit-reduction negotiations: The president who presided over two major deals that slashed red ink in 1993 and 1997 warned that too much, too soon this time could harm the economy.

After the 1993 deal that cut nearly $500 billion from the deficit over five years, interest rates went down and investment went up, Clinton recalled. This time, following a financial collapse, it's not so clear that would happen.

He recommended agreeing on the broad outlines of a deficit-reduction package "but not let it bite so soon that you actually could slow the recovery."

On the 2009 stimulus law: Despite charges from Republicans that it didn't work because unemployment remains above 9%, Clinton said the law signed by Obama prevented the jobless rate from being 1.5% to 2% higher.

At the time, he said, the country had lost about $3 trillion from the economy, companies' market wealth and higher unemployment. "Nobody can fill a $3 trillion hole with $800 billion," he said.

"I think the stimulus did as well as it could have done," Clinton said. "There just wasn't enough of it."

Sources: AP, Indy Star, USA Today, Youtube