Mark Curnutte

mcurnutte@enquirer.com

Former President Bill Clinton, appearing Saturday in Cincinnati at the Underground Railroad Freedom Center, opened his remarks on behalf of his wife's presidential campaign by making note of violence Friday night at a planned Donald Trump rally in Chicago.

"I was disturbed by all those pictures from Chicago last night," Clinton said at a rally for Democratic Party frontrunner Hillary Clinton, three days before the Ohio Democratic primary election on Tuesday. "This has been building up for a long time."

Bill Clinton then talked about the importance of "making room for everyone" in democracy, a task in an increasingly divided country that he said his wife, Hillary Clinton, is most qualified.

Hillary Clinton leads Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in both Ohio and Florida, which also holds it primary Tuesday. She leads Sanders 63 percent to 33 percent in Ohio, according to a CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday.

Bill Clinton contrasted the policy differences between Hillary Clinton and Sanders in the areas of higher education, health care and managing the economy. He took a shot at the Republican race, comparing it to watching a "sixth-grade playground fight."

"We ought to disagree, but there has to be space to come back together," the former president said to a crowd estimated at between 300 and 350 supporters.

He also said the country has serious problems to address, saying Flint, Michigan, is not the only American city in which children are afflicted with elevated levels of lead from drinking water.

"She is a gifted change-maker," Bill Clinton said of his wife, citing her experience in the U.S. Senate and four-year stint as Secretary of State under Barack Obama.

For example, he said, his wife wants to "build on" Obamacare instead of starting from scratch," as he said Sanders wants to do.

The former president referenced conversations he had with the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who, as an anti-apartheid leader, was jailed for 27 years before his release and election in 1994. Bill Clinton said he once asked Mandela why he included some of his former adversaries in his cabinet. Mandela, Bill Clinton said, told him, "We can't do it alone."

"The whole purpose of (Hillary Clinton's) campaign is to get someone in (the White House) who will help us all rise together; we can only rise if we rise together," the former president said. "I met her 45 years ago this month. I was in awe of her then. I am in awe of her now.

"Everyone is going to be watching how Ohio votes. The only thing that matters (in a presidency) is are people better off when you end than when you started. She will do that."

Bill Clinton campaigned Feb. 12 at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center as part of a Get Out the Vote event.