Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Oregon Trail is turning into the Presidential Trail.

On the heels of Illinois Senator Barack Obama's whirlwind tour of Oregon, New York Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is expected to visit Oregon this week.

But first, former-President Bill Clinton criss-crossed the state in support of his wife's candidacy for the Oval Office.

Hillary Clinton's husband  Bill Clinton addressed a crowd of about 500 at Oregon Health and Science University.

The 42nd president, whose own campaign motto was "it's the economy stupid," said many Americans are once again experiencing a recession.

Clinton said his wife has a plan to fix the economy; create jobs in renewable energy, and make centers of higher learning, like OHSU, more affordable.

Bill Clinton: It is morally right to save the planet from global warming, it's the only way to rebuild the middle class economy today.  It is  morally right to give everybody health insurance, it's the only way to stop the wasteful explosion of health care costs so we can invest the money in your future and the work you want to do to move America and the world to a better and more noble place."

Clinton said under his wife's health care plan, Americans could keep the plan they have if they like it.  But he said ultimately it would create the large pool of people needed to keep costs down.

He spent much of his speech addressing renewable energy, and Clinton said Hillary Clinton advocates creating a $50 billion "strategic energy fund."

Bill Clinton: "To accelerate the rate of which we are building more energy efficient new buildings and retrofitting every  existing structure we can possibly retrofit in this country as quickly as we can.  This will create millions of jobs.  These jobs cannot be outsourced."

Clinton characterized the seven years since he left the White House as an "American nightmare," pointing to a loss of living wage jobs.

He said factoring in inflation, the median family income is down $1000 from when he left the Oval Office.  Clinton also said his wife is the only candidate who opposed the energy bill that ultimately took away Oregon's right to direct the siting of liquefied natural gas facilities.

Streaming video of President Clinton's speech from OHSU.