text: CHARLOTTE -- The second day of the Democratic convention features one president -- Bill Clinton -- promoting another -- Barack Obama. 
   
   USA TODAY is providing full coverage of the Democratic National Convention online and in print. Check local TV listings for when you can catch the action from the Time Warner Cable Arena. 
   
   Here are five things to watch for Wednesday, Sept. 5: 
   
   1) Bubba is back: Observers will be looking to see how much Bill Clinton talks about Obama, and how much he talks about his own record from the 1990s. Also in the back of every Democrat's mind: Will Hillary Rodham Clinton run for president in 2016? The former president speaks last, probably starting after 10:30 p.m. ET 
   
   2) Elizabeth Warren is ready for her close-up: Warren, a Harvard law professor and long-time consumer advocate, is the Democratic nominee for Senate in Massachusetts. It's one of the nation's hottest Senate races, and could determine which party controls the chamber. She is challenging Republican incumbent Scott Brown, who won the seat after the death of Edward Kennedy. 
   
   3) Locking down the women's vote: Warren is one a series of female speakers at the convention, as Obama seeks to exploit his advantage over Republican challenger Mitt Romney among female voters, using such issues as contraceptives and abortion rights. Among the speakers tonight: Sandra Fluke, who was called a "slut" and "prostitute" by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh after she testified on behalf of contraception services in health care plans. 
   
   4) The "great state" roll call: Officially, the convention is about nominating Obama and Vice President Biden to a second term and to do that, the roll call is required. Obama had no major party opposition in the primary season, so guess who's the favorite? But it's unclear how much TV viewers will see: The roll call is supposed to begin after Clinton speaks. 
   
   5) The arrival: President Obama arrives in Charlotte this afternoon. Will he make a "surprise" appearance at the convention? Perhaps on stage with Bill Clinton? We don't know. We do know Obama will address the convention on Thursday night. ||||| President Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina and deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter downplayed questions about Bill Clinton's speech not being vetted by the campaign at a Bloomberg News breakfast this morning, calling it a "mountain out of a molehill." 
   
   "We have had lots of conversations with President Clinton," said Messina. "This is a mountain out of a molehill. He's going to give a great speech tomorrow." 
   
   Has he seen the speech? No, Messina acknowledged at the start. Cutter added, "Someone in our organization is likely to see the speech before [Clinton] gives it just because that's the normal course of business." 
   
   She added that everyone believes Clinton will give a strong endorsement of Obama's policies, which Messina said Clinton will describe as similar to his own. . 
   
   "We are not one bit worried about what President Clinton is going to say" in his speech, she added. 
   
   Still, there was no illusion about controlling the former president — asked at the outset who is editing Clinton's speech, Cutter replied, "Bill Clinton." ||||| BOSTON -- Ask any Republican or Democrat to name the most important Senate races in the fight for control of the Democratic-led chamber, and they will undoubtedly include one state in particular: Massachusetts. The state's Republican Sen. Scott Brown will go up against Democrat and Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren in what polling indicates is likely to be a close race. 
   
   Such a contest, so far the most expensive U.S. Senate race, was not unexpected in this traditionally Democratic state. Brown, 52, shocked the political establishment in 2010 with his victory in the special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy's seat. This is the year that Kennedy would have been up for re-election, so Brown is up again a mere two years after his first win. 
   
   Those familiar with Massachusetts politics, including Brown himself, always expected Democrats to mount an attempt to take back the seat this time around. 
   
   WHAT TO KNOW A closer look at what's going on in the most closely watched Senate race in the country 
   
   "They want the Kennedy seat back very badly," Brown told ABC News. "They've made that clear. But bottom line is, it's not the Kennedy seat, it's not the Democrats seat, it's still the people's seat." 
   
   What was unknown was who would jump in to challenge the freshmen senator. That candidate turned out to be Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School and creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a newly formed, federal department that came about under the Obama administration. 
   
   With a good level of name recognition established as a result of her work with the agency, as well as her oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (more commonly known as TARP) and a lengthy resume, Warren was the Democrats' answer to the much-considered question of who could challenge the popular senator. Warren, 63, announced her candidacy in September 2011, and the race has been fierce ever since. 
   
   The candidates share the same wedding anniversary date, and each one has proven to be a strong fundraiser. But the similarities end there. Brown, who was recently promoted to colonel in the Army National Guard, plays up his regular-guy image (he famously drove his pickup truck around the state when campaigning in 2010) and his bipartisan record. His campaign has run a series of ads featuring a slew of prominent Massachusetts' Democrats, such as former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, endorsing the Republican candidate. His history of reaching across the aisle is something Brown highlights himself. 
   
   "Bottom line is, I'm the second-most bipartisan senator in the U.S. Senate," Brown said. "I've done exactly what I said I was going to do, which is to read the bills, understand them, see how they affect Massachusetts, our country, our debt, our deficit and vote." 
   
   Warren's campaign has also talked a lot about her humble beginnings: Her father worked as a janitor in Oklahoma, she received a scholarship from George Washington University at age 16. But the campaign has also emphasized her history of protecting the consumer, and of fighting for the middle class. 
   
   "I didn't get into this race based on some strategic vision of I could check off six boxes and somehow win the Senate seat," she said. For me, it truly is around the urgency of the movement. I guess you could say the fight came to me." 
   
   The conversation in the Senate race has mirrored the presidential race, with Brown attacking Warren for comments she made in 2011 when she said "there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own." The comments mirror Obama's "you didn't build that" remarks last month on which Republicans have pounced. 
   
   Brown last week launched a "Thank You for Building This" tour, as part of his campaign's efforts to highlight the senator's support for free enterprise. Brown kicked off the tour Friday by bringing coffee and donuts to a construction crew in Framingham, Mass. 
   
   "I've visited over 500 businesses, this is an extension of what I've been doing since I was elected," Brown said. "I'm going to go out there and thank those job creators, people who have put their hard earned sweat equity, their livelihood on the line, and my word to them is, 'Thank you.'" 
   
   Warren isn't backing down from her comments, however. Indeed, the first-time candidate has made infrastructure a big part of her proposed policy agenda, recently launching her "Rebuild Now" tour that calls for an investment in the country's infrastructure. 
   
   "American businesses can compete with anyone so long as they're competing on a level playing field," Warren said. "But when the Chinese are making big investments in infrastructure, that means that their businesses will get their goods to market on state-of-the-art roads and bridges, they'll have state-of-the-art communications and power ... that gives their businesses a real competitive advantage over the next 25 years." 
   
   Warren's unapologetic support for such government investment has helped to make her a rising star within the Democratic base. Her status was highlighted by the recent announcement that she would have a prominent speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., next month. Warren will be introducing Bill Clinton. 
   
   "I'm going to talk about what I've talked about for years now," Warren said when asked about her speech. "America's middle class is getting hammered and Washington is rigged to work for the big guy. That's what got me into this race, and that's what I will talk about." 
   
   Whether it will win over the hearts of a majority of Massachusetts voters is the bigger question, though. The race is everywhere in the state: turn on the radio, glance a newspaper, even just walk down the streets of Boston and you will hear an ad, see an article, or pass by a bumper sticker for one of the two candidates. And that presence is only going to increase in the coming weeks and months. 
   
   The race is the most expensive Senate race in the country so far in terms of money raised. A combined total of $46 million has been raised already, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and so Massachusetts residents can expect to be blanketed with a lot more TV, radio and Internet advertising as November draws closer. Voters will also get a chance to see Brown and Warren go head-to-head soon. In the fall, the candidates will face off in a series of four televised debates. 
   
   What voters might not see, however, are ads from outside groups. Brown and Warren in January signed an agreement called "the People's Pledge," which vowed to keep advertisements from third-party spending groups out of the race. Eight months later, the pledge is still in place. Warren says she believes the plan has allowed the candidates to focus more on the issues. 
   
   "It has at least opened the space to be able to talk about issues," Warren said. 
   
   For months now, polling has shown the two candidates in a statistical tie, and barring any big surprises, it's expected to stay that way. Unsurprisingly, each candidate holds a different opinion on what the race is ultimately about. 
   
   "This is really about jobs and the economy and how we are going to get our country moving again," Brown said. "You're going to have somebody down there who has been doing his job, me, working on the issues that matter, jobs and the economy, versus somebody who's a rock- thrower and doesn't want to compromise." 
   
   Warren said, "I think it's about the kind of people we are, and the kind of people we're trying to be. 
   
   "To me, it's about this vision, what kind of people are we and what kind of country are we trying to be?" ||||| For Barack Obama, the risk of Bill Clinton is worth the reward. Their sometimes awkward relationship will be showcased tonight when the former president takes the stage to place the current president’s name in nomination at the Democratic National Convention. 
   
   “There’s the possibility of Clinton outshining Obama,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University in Houston. “But that’s a minor fear if you’re Obama, to having Clinton embrace you in prime time.” 
   
   Read More: Bloomberg Insider - Convention 2012 
   
   Bloomberg Insider - Convention 2012 Download:Bloomberg Insider 9/5 
   
   The relationship between the two men has long been a complicated one. Clinton, 66, often referred to as the Big Dog by fans and foes alike because of his stature in the party, was outraged by Obama’s treatment of his wife, Hillary Clinton, during the 2008 primary campaign and miffed he didn’t often seek his advice until after the Democrats’ losses in the 2010 midterm elections. 
   
   Brinkley said tension between past and present presidents isn’t unusual. Hillary Clinton’s role as secretary of state in the Obama administration has added a level of complexity to the relationship. 
   
   “It sort of forces camaraderie between Obama and Clinton,” he said. “They are not intimate or close or personal friends, but they are sort of forced to tolerate each other.” 
   
   Boom Times 
   
   The threat of losing the White House has united the two leaders, the most popular figures in their party in recent history. Still, Clinton’s prominent role in Obama’s re-election convention could remind voters of the booming economic times during the former president’s tenure in the 1990s. 
   
   Matthew Dowd, a Bloomberg analyst and political consultant, told those gathered yesterday at a Bloomberg-sponsored panel discussion near the convention site in Charlotte, North Carolina, that Obama’s campaign needs to be careful about contrasting Clinton and Obama too much. 
   
   There’s a chance undecided voters could say to themselves, “Barack Obama is not like that kind of president. He’s never going to be like that kind of president and maybe I’m going to try a new guy,” said Dowd, a former strategist for President George W. Bush. 
   
   “They have to be really careful with Bill Clinton,” he said. “I think they can overdo this.” 
   
   An Obama campaign spokeswoman yesterday played down the risk that voters would compare Obama to the more prosperous days of the Clinton administration, when the national unemployment rate dropped from above 7 percent to below 4 percent. 
   
   ‘Deeply Involved’ 
   
   “He is somebody who can speak directly from experience, not only from his time as president in the ’90s, but also as somebody who’s been deeply involved in the last decade post- presidency about what we need to do to move this country forward,” re-election spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters traveling with Obama in Virginia. 
   
   Counter to typical protocol of vetting speeches well in advance of their convention delivery, Obama’s campaign hadn’t yet seen the text of Clinton’s speech as of early yesterday. 
   
   “But we have had lots of conversations with President Clinton and his team,” Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager said at a separate Bloomberg News breakfast in Charlotte. “He’s going to give a great speech tomorrow night.” 
   
   Stephanie Cutter, the deputy campaign manager, said at the same event that “someone in our organization is likely to see the speech before the president gives it, just because that’s normal course of business.” 
   
   Courting Independents 
   
   Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has himself tried to draw Bill Clinton into the campaign. The former Massachusetts governor has spoken favorably about the former president’s White House tenure in an effort to appeal to independent voters and show he doesn’t disparage all Democrats. 
   
   “President Obama tucked away the Clinton doctrine in his large drawer of discarded ideas, along with transparency and bipartisanship,” Romney said in Des Moines on May 15. “It’s enough to make you wonder if maybe it was a personal beef with the Clintons, but probably it runs much deeper than that.” 
   
   As is the case with many presidents, Clinton’s popularity has grown since he left office. Two-thirds of Americans have a favorable opinion of him, according to a Gallup poll in July. 
   
   Clinton could help Obama, 51, win over “white middle-class voters” in battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Brinkley said. 
   
   Credibility on Economy 
   
   “There is only one person in the world who knows how to put an economy back on its feet after a president named Bush and that’s Bill Clinton,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Boston-based Democratic strategist, referring to the administration of President George H. W. Bush. “Given his credibility on the economy and with voters, it’s hard to imagine a better endorsement Barack Obama could get.” 
   
   Clinton’s speech is just part of a multi-faceted campaign effort on Obama’s behalf. He’s been drafted to serve as a prime surrogate for campaign events, pitched Obama’s economic policy, raised money, endorsed the president’s rescue of the U.S. auto industry and highlighted his killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. 
   
   Like virtually any high-profile personality, Clinton can go off-message, too. During a May 31 CNN interview, he undercut the narrative Obama’s campaign has tried to build around Romney being interested only in profits when he was a private-equity executive, saying that a “man who has been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold.” 
   
   ‘More Relevant’ 
   
   In a subsequent interview with PBS, Clinton said it’s “much more relevant” to look at what Romney did as governor and what he says he’d do as president. 
   
   In one of Obama’s campaign ads, Clinton frames the election as a “clear choice” between a Republican plan to cut taxes for upper-income earners and the president’s proposals to strengthen the middle class by spending more on education and job training. 
   
   “We need to keep going with his plan,” Clinton says in the ad, which ran 2,299 times from Aug. 24 to Aug. 27, according to New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, which tracks advertising. Another Obama campaign ad cites Clinton in its response to a Romney spot that says Obama wants to remove work requirements from welfare. 
   
   People knowledgeable about the relationship say that while the two are in a good place, it isn’t one described as overly warm. Obama and Clinton are respectful and friendly, without being effusive. 
   
   To contact the reporter on this story: John McCormick in Charlotte, North Carolina at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net 
   
   To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at jcummings21@bloomberg.net ||||| There’s only one president who actually came from Hope. 
   
   Former President Bill Clinton — a native of Hope, Ark. — is expected to offer a rousing endorsement of President Barack Obama in his speech Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention. But four years ago, while his wife Hillary competed for the Democratic nomination, Clinton wasn’t always so supportive of Obama’s “hope and change” message. 
   
   Text Size - 
   
   + 
   
   reset 
   
   (Also on POLITICO: Clinton's big speech a mystery) 
   
   Here are Bill Clinton’s most controversial quotes about Obama: 
   
   1. “The idea that one of these campaigns is positive and the other is negative when I know the reverse is true and I have seen it and I have been blistered by it for months is a little tough to take. Just because of the sanitizing coverage that’s in the media doesn’t mean the facts aren’t out there.” — Jan. 7, 2008; New Hampshire campaign stop 
   
   2. “I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign, that they planned to do it all along.” — April 21, 2008, WHYY News Radio 
   
   3. “In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentator and let them run. They’d have only one year less experience in national politics.” — Dec. 15, 2007, PBS’s “Charlie Rose” 
   
   4. “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” — Jan. 7, 2008, addressing Obama’s record on Iraq during a New Hampshire stop 
   
   5. “Hillary’s opponent, in his entire campaign, every two or three weeks has said for months and months and months, beginning in Nevada, that really there wasn’t much difference in how America did when I was president and how America’s done under President Bush. Now, if you believe that, you should probably vote for him, but you get a very bad grade in history.” — April 17, 2008, Lock Haven, Pa., campaign speech 
   
   6. “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.” — Jan. 26, 2008, to reporters in Columbia, S.C. 
   
   7. “I mean, when’s the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running? I mean, he will have been a senator longer by the time he’s inaugurated, but essentially once you start running for president full time you don’t have time to do much else.” — Dec. 15, 2007, PBS’s “Charlie Rose” 
   
   8. “Oh, I think yes.” – Dec. 20, 2011, Fox News, when asked if the media favored Barack Obama during the 2008 election. 
   
   (PHOTOS: Bill Clinton’s career) ||||| Some things to watch for at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday: 
   
   Delegates cheer as First Lady Michelle Obama addresses the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Monday, Sept. 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (Associated Press) 
   
   1. THE CLINTON SHOW: The former president, no stranger to talking at length at Democratic conventions, takes the podium. How much of it will be about Barack Obama _ and how much about Bill Clinton? 
   
   2. ELIZABETH WARREN: It's a personal mission for the Democratic Party to get the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat back from the Republicans. Candidate Warren's opponent, Republican Scott Brown, didn't speak at his convention last week. But Warren is a star at the Democrats' and the featured challenger in arguably the most competitive Senate race this year. 
   
   3. THE WEATHER: As Obama's outdoor stadium speech approaches, will the sun begin to peek through? 
   
   4. OBAMA _ GOOD FOR BUSINESS: That's what some CEOs on tap to speak are undoubtedly going to trumpet. But what will they have to say about Mitt Romney? 
   
   5. CHARLOTTE IS HOPPING: It's a totally different feel from last week in Tampa. Streets are packed, in part because there are more delegates, in part because of a smaller security perimeter and the convention hall's proximity to the city and restaurants.
target: – The Man From Hope, Bill Clinton, returns to the spotlight of the Democratic National Convention on its second night—and that worries some people. "There's the possibility of Clinton outshining Obama," one presidential historian tells Bloomberg. "But that's a minor fear." Clinton and Obama have famously crossed swords, but the campaign sees him as a powerful voice who can liken Obama's experience to his own. Here's what else you need to know tonight: Rumors have been swirling that the Obama team demanded to vet Clinton's speech, rumors it played down yesterday. "We have had lots of conversations with President Clinton," Jim Messina said, according to Politico. "This is a mountain out of a molehill." But Obama aides say someone is likely to see it. Clinton will be introduced by Elizabeth Warren, who's locked in possibly the nation's most competitive Senate race against Scott Brown. "I'm going to talk about what I've talked about for years now," Warren told ABC last month. "America's middle class is getting hammered and Washington is rigged to work for the big guy." It's worth noting that Brown didn't speak at the RNC. Warren won't be the only woman, either; Democrats intend to showcase many, USA Today reports, including Sandra Fluke, whom you might remember from her run-in with Rush Limbaugh. A number of CEOs are also on the docket, ready to affirm that an Obama presidency would indeed be good for business, the AP reports. Tonight will also mark Obama's official nomination. Since he ran essentially unopposed in the primary, this will simply be a roll-call of all the states, scheduled for after Clinton's speech. Obama himself is set to arrive in Charlotte today, meaning he could make a "surprise" appearance on stage with Bill Clinton, USA Today speculates.