Bill Clinton back on his game

Ex-president takes on climate change and even politics

By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 27, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Bill Clinton may still be the angry man he's often portrayed to be in the wake of the bitter Democratic primary between his wife, Hillary, and Sen. Barack Obama, but give him a good policy talk and he's back on his game.

Tuesday morning, speaking before a panel of former world leaders and in his first public appearance at the Democratic National Convention, the former president said he "still loves politics." But he largely avoided the subject to focus on how the world's democracies can deliver results in combating climate change.

In the 15-minute address at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, he also threw in a compliment on Denver's savvy approach to energy through its use of efficient street lighting.

Still, he did take note of politics.

He touched on a Democratic primary that he said "will go down in history" because of its hard-fought nature and the massive infusion of cash from small donors.

"This was an endlessly fascinating process already, and it's still got some twists and turns between now and November," he said.

Clinton, introduced Tuesday by his former secretary of state, Madeline Albright, speaks again tonight at the convention podium, the same night as Obama's running mate, Joe Biden.

All attention will be focused on whether Clinton can put together a unifying 10 minutes. Many accounts say he is still upset over the primaries and how he believes the Obama campaign injected race into the campaign and that the media portrayed him unfairly.

At the same time, he sounds like a man resigned to being on the outside looking in.

"I still love politics," he told the group, drawing laughs with his follow-up: "I thank you for giving me one more excuse for showing up at my party's convention."

Clinton praised Denver, telling the audience of perhaps 200 to take a look at the city's streetlights while moving about town.

"I want you to look at this; this city is one of the most energy-efficient in its streetlights in the world," he said. "A very high percentage of lights are LED lights, which save about $1 million a year on (Denver's) electric bill."

As to the subject at hand - how democracies can deliver on difficult tasks - Clinton noted that countries that have aggressively addressed climate change, including Great Britain and Germany, have benefited from the effort.

"Everybody who is going to meet their (emissions) targets has benefited from it," he said, also citing Norway, Sweden and other countries that are moving fast in cutting carbon emissions. "Everybody that's taken this seriously has really proved that there are significant economic benefits for trying to turn the tide on climate change."

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