The Hill News

Former President Bill Clinton pleaded with voters to give Democrats two more years to fix problems facing the U.S.

Clinton said Democrats should be allowed more time in charge of Congress during a rally on Sunday for Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the longest-serving lawmaker in the House, who's facing a tougher-than-expected battle for re-election this fall.

“Give us two more years,” Clinton told voters at a rally for Dingell, as reported by the Michigan Daily. “You gave them eight years to dig the hole, give us half the time, four more years, to get out of it.”

The former president, of course, was referring to the eight years that President George W. Bush was in the White House, the first six years of which fe! atured a Republican-controlled Congress.

Clinton's comments seem to reflect a bargain Democrats might hope to strike with angry voters in the closing week of the campaign. The party might look to plead for just two more years to make their mark before voters render a truly permanent verdict on their governance.

That sort of closing argument would only up the ante for the 2012 elections, of course. President Obama will be up for re-election that year, and Republicans will be looking to add to the gains they're expected to make on Nov. 2.

Clinton said that key to preserving the work Democrats had already done, though, was re-electing Dingell, who's facing off against Republican Rob Steele on Election Day.

"If you want to protect this, you'd better re-elect John Dingell and everyone else who is for it," Clinton told Dingell supporters, accord! ing to a report in the Toledo Blade.