WOODBRIDGE -- In an interview with NJ Advance Media on Friday, former President Bill Clinton argued that serving as U.S. secretary of state is the best training for the presidency than at any other time in modern memory.

"This is the first time I can remember the domestic and international responsibilities are so tied up together," Clinton said during a visit to the Reo Diner in Woodbridge.

The former president made the comments shortly after appearing at a rally at nearby Edison High School to campaign for his wife, Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state who is now the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"There's turmoil in elections everywhere," Bill Clinton said. "You've been watching it in Europe. You know, they had a very close election in Austria over whether they should basically close the borders."

Earlier this week, Austrians went the polls to elect their own president, and were faced with an eerily similar version of Donald Trump: Norbert Hofer, a right wing populist, had campaigned with a Trump-inspired slogan of "putting Austria first," a promise to build a fence along Austria's southern border and to "stop the invasion of Muslims."

Hofer won the first round of voting but narrowly lost in a run-off election.

"It's very important that the next president be strong enough in international relations," Clinton said. "You know, keep us safe, but also: Give us the space we need to keep growing (economically). Because if we get stronger, it'll drag the right world in the right direction, and a lot of these tensions will go down."

The former president argued that Hillary Clinton's expertise in global diplomacy wasn't merely helpful, but practically a job requirement for a president who'll run a nation that's nearly a fourth of the economic output of the global economy.

"We just had a report in the last couple weeks that America's growth was dragged down in the last quarter," the former president said. "At a time when we're hiring people, wages are finally rising, we're coming back, was dragged down by all this trouble in the world."

In late March, Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve chair had warned that "global developments pose ongoing risks" to the U.S. economy.

Yellen's concerns about China's cooling economy were heightened by uncertainty about what the next U.S. president's policies might be to manage the financial disruptions accompanying it.

Trump, for example, has called for a 45 percent import tax on Chinese goods brought into the U.S., which some experts say could lead to a trade war.

Earlier that afternoon at the Edison rally, Clinton told a throng of 700 stuffed into a sweltering high school gym that "if you believe in a strong defense, a strong diplomacy, and an intelligent sense of safety, then she's the one you want to be president."

The problem Hillary Clinton faces is that while Americans had an overwhelmingly favorable view of her while serving as Secretary of State, they now have a largely negative view of her as a candidate for president.

A year after leaving the Cabinet, a Pew Research survey found in March 2014 found that 67 percent of Americans approved of the job she'd done as secretary of state.

But she now suffers from high disapproval ratings: The latest NBC News poll shows that 54 percent of registered voters have a negative or somewhat negative opinion of Clinton.

That's only slightly better than Trump, who scores 58 percent negative.

As such, the November election may turn on who is least unpopular, rather than most popular.

Back in the Reo Diner, Clinton acknowledged that Secretary of State was a complicated, nuanced job that didn't readily lend itself to bumper stickers like "Make America Great Again."

"Yeah, I know," said the former president, groaning a bit.

But he then proposed that voters wondering whether they should support the former Secretary of State's White House bid should ask themselves how they see the world.

"If you think we can live together and grow together so we all rise together, you should be for her," Clinton said.

"If you don't think that's true, and that we all have to fight over a dividing pie, with walls, you shouldn't. And that's really the decision people are gonna have to make."

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.