Former President Clinton is the only major speaker slated to address the Democratic National Convention this week who has not yet submitted his speech to convention vetters, according to BuzzFeed.
Clinton’s delay in submitting his speech has many senior Democrats worried, a party official told the website. Most major convention addresses are subject to meticulous vetting and rewriting before the main event.
As the Democrats fight to maintain their lead among blue-collar whites, Clinton’s speech will be a highlight of the convention. The former president made headway with that constituency in the 1990s, and the Obama campaign is hoping some of that affection will rub off on the Democratic ticket in 2012.
But the Obama-Clinton relationship has been rocky at times, a reflection of the increasing unease between liberal Democrats who support Obama and the more moderate faction of the party that supported Clinton's presidency.
Clinton has diverged with Obama on key issues at times during the campaign season. He has said he would recommend temporarily extending all of the Bush-era tax cuts, while Obama would allow them to expire for households earning more than $250,000. Clinton has also praised Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s business record at Bain Capital, while Obama and his surrogates have attacked him for making business deals that closed facilities and threw people out of work.
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