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Former President Bill Clinton spoke to a packed house in Macon on Monday, delivering an issue-heavy, 45-minute speech about America's problems, its status in the world and how his wife can right the ship. About 2,000 people packed a large gymnasium at Mercer University, and Clinton took questions for more than an hour after his speech, which thinned the crowd quite a bit as the afternoon wore on. He hit on everything from health care to genocide in Africa to his role in a Hillary Clinton White House. And, yes, to answer a question put forward by one young man, Clinton said he does plan on living with his wife at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., should she become president. "Unless you know something I don't," Clinton said with a laugh. As for the ex-president's role should he become the first ever "first gentleman" in the White House, Clinton said he would serve as a sounding board for his wife, who is now a United States senator. But Clinton was careful to say that he wouldn't want any role that might undermine the vice president or Cabinet members. Instead, he expects to tackle specific assignments, particularly in foreign policy. That would include a bipartisan goodwill trip around the world to announce America's new direction under a second Clinton White House. "Hillary says that we have to send a very different message to the world," Clinton said. "Message No. 1: We're back. ... We cannot solve global warming alone. We cannot solve terrorism alone. ... From now on we're going to cooperate ... and act alone only when we have to, not the other way around." Monday's event, put together during the last few days, was so popular that several hundred people were turned away at the door. And with several presidential candidates in Atlanta for the weekend's Martin Luther King Jr. holiday events, Georgia was a focus of national campaign coverage. The national networks and CNN had cameras in Macon for the former president's visit, and there was so much interest that the campaign ran out of media badges. Many of Macon's high-profile Democratic operatives were there, as were a few state officials. But the crowd was made up mostly of young people. Mercer students, who did not have class Monday, came out in force. Pre-rally chants for Hillary Clinton got a boisterous response, but it was clear that much of the crowd was there to see an ex-president, not to campaign for the senator from New York. But Clinton himself kept the focus squarely on his wife's policy positions, using statistic after statistic to take the current administration to task for a lack of job growth and foreign policy missteps, then bringing the conversation back to what his wife would do if elected. Calling her an "established world changer" who is "rooted in the service ethic," Clinton said he never saw his wife pick up a problem that wasn't better when she put it down. And though Clinton opponents often mention her failure to push through a health-care plan during his own administration, Clinton said she did succeed in passing a children's health insurance program that has helped millions. "You need to know what your president's going to do when he or she fails ..." he said. "What did she do? She got up off the ground, went to work." Clinton also repeatedly referenced a plan to spur job growth while simultaneously increasing energy efficiency and green-energy technology use in America. The plan includes $50 billion for a federal energy fund to speed up research and implementation of solar energy, bio-energy and other environmentally friendly programs. He said energy-cost savings eventually could pay for the program. Retrofitting public buildings with green technology would create many jobs - particularly for builders hurt by the housing slump - that can't be outsourced to another country, Clinton said. Clinton said his wife is committed to getting America's troops out of Iraq, but without making the situation there worse for the Iraqi people. It is time for Iraqis "to make their own political deals," he said. "And if they think we're going to be there from now on, then it's just an excuse for them to keep kicking the can down the road," he said. On immigration, Sen. Clinton believes in a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in the country, as well as stronger border enforcement and the enforcement of current labor laws, Clinton said. The path to citizenship also will help fight terrorism, because it will help the government know "who's in this country," Clinton said. Clinton said prescription drug costs can be lowered if the federal government will just bargain with pharmaceutical companies for a volume discount, which a Hillary Clinton White House would push. He backed a new college tuition tax credit, as well as increases to existing grant and loan programs. Those programs also would be restructured to allow people to pay the loans back as a capped percentage of their after-college income. Those who work in public service - teachers, police officers and the like - would get credit toward loan payments just for taking that type of job, he said. Clinton also pitched his wife as the only Democrat still in the race that "has passed lots and lots of legislation with Republican co-sponsors," a key point with a thin Democratic majority in the Senate. He discussed America's trade deficit and the fact that much of the country's debt is held by foreign countries. "Endless deficit spending," Clinton said, has cost America "a lot of economic sovereignty." Trade regulations can't very well be enforced against a country such as China, because it holds so much American debt. "When's the last time you got rough with your banker?" Clinton asked. Clinton, as he's said many times before, said there's not a bad Democrat in the race. But he said his wife is the best choice, and that he's not just saying that. "If we had never been married ... if she asked me to do this for her, I would do it in a heartbeat," he said
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