Bill Clinton on Romney strategy: "I look like a president, I act like a president.... Elect me!"

Big photos below.

If enough people really understood just how backwards Mitt Romney's policies were in so many different areas, the race for the White House wouldn't be as close as it is a week before election day.

This was a recurring message from ex-President Bill Clinton, who came to Denver yesterday for Obama, after the president canceled a Colorado appearance due to Hurricane Sandy.

Clinton, who played an important role championing Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, made stops at two schools yesterday -- first in Commerce City, then in Denver, at Manual High School. At the latter, Clinton broke down the president's policies step-by-step, arguing that the Obama plan pushes forward an inclusive path to recovery, while the Romney strategy is one that furthers inequality or in many cases, remains very much unknown, given the Republican candidate's tendencies to flip-flop, depending on the setting.

Sam Levin

Bill Clinton at Manual High School

In a thirty-minute address (longer than the typical stump speeches from Obama and Romney), Clinton began by criticizing the role of money in politics and the polarizing nature of the elections across the country.

"My experience is that in the modern world, where there are a lot of complicated problems...cooperation works and conflict doesn't," he said. "Evidence works and ideology doesn't. Arithmetic works and illusion doesn't. A philosophy that says we're all in this together works better than 'You're on your own.' Shared prosperity and shared responsibility work better than 'Give it to the top and hope it trickles down.'"

Clinton spoke after the usual Colorado surrogates for Obama addressed the crowd -- Mayor Michael Hancock, Representative Diana DeGette and Governor John Hickenlooper, who all appeared at Obama's City Park rally last week.

With Clinton's stops just days after Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, rallied in Lakewood, and two days before the president is expected to visit Boulder, it's clear that the campaign is maintaining a steady stream of high-profile events in the key swing state of Colorado between now and election day.

"You've heard from all the previous speakers that it's a close election," he said. "It shouldn't be. But it is."

Clinton said there are three major issues in the race.

"Which candidate is more likely to restore the middle class with jobs and incomes and give poor people an honorable chance to work?"

"Obama!" the crowd shouted back.

"Which candidate is more likely to build a new economy? You can't go back to the 1990s. You've got to build a 21st Century prosperity based on 21st Century jobs and educating and training people to do that work," Clinton said, prompting another cry of "Obama!"

"Which candidate is more likely to do what every president is charged with doing?" he continued as voters offered an "Obama!" before he could even finish his sentence. "To form a more perfect union!... Our eternal mission is to widen the circle of opportunity, to deepen the meaning of freedom, to strengthen the bonds of our community. The answer to those three questions is President Barack Obama."

After this more philosophical argument for the president, Clinton went on the offense.

"Governor Romney's case is just what it always was. We left you a mess. It's not fully fixed. Put us in, throw him out. Let us do what we did before on steroids," Clinton said. "The essential argument of Governor Romney is, 'Hey, I look like a president, I act like a president. I proved I can change my message for any circumstance.... So elect me and I'll claim the credit for the jobs that Barack Obama's policies [created]."

Continue for more from Clinton's speech and photos from the rally.