Five days before election, Bush gives speech in Cayman Islands

>>> next four years will produce 12 million jobs if we do not mess up what president obama has already done.

>> and welcome back to "the ed show." former president bill clinton on the campaign trail speaking in wackishaw, wisconsin, earlier. president clinton has proven to be the most effective surrogate for president obama or any president for that matter. clinton has held 13 events in 7 states over 4 days drawing crowds in thousands. he was a huge hit in good old fargo, north dakota . using the 40-second president to stump for president obama has been a good strategy.

>> bill clinton is always a thrill. he's been one of my favorite presidents.

>> we're just five days from election day . what are you feeling?

>> excited and very hopeful that we'll have obama continue for four more years.

>> so that's the 40-second president, what about the 43rd? george buw. bush isn't stumping. he's in the cayman islands , not welcome news if you're mitt romney and have money stashed down there. tonight bush is the keynote speaker at something called the cayman alternative investment summit. according to the summit website, institutional investors , private investors , asset allocators, fund managers, academics will benefit from the discussion on the future of the industry. it costs 4,000 bucks to attend. we wish we had more details to share with you, but organizers have been forbidden to disclose the information. in fact, a spokesman for the summit told "the associated press" organizers are forbidden to be talking about any aspect of the speech, even in general terms. quote, we've got a complete blackout on discussing the bush details. gosh, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? those restrictions were imposed by the former president's staff. well, some things never change. this is an admission that the gop brand is, what? it's severely damaged. the republicans don't even have a former president that can effectively campaign for the republican nominee or the party platform ? why? let's turn to michael tomasky , he is a special correspondent for "newsweek" and "the daily beast ." great to have you with us tonight, michael.

>> pleasure.

>> what does it say about the republican party that they just don't have someone of the stature of bill clinton , a former president, to be able to go out and feverishly make the pitch for mitt romney ?

>> they haven't had good presidents. i mean, ronald reagan , okay, maybe not to me and you, but, you know, to a significant chunk of americans, fine. good president. he died. so since that, they've got the two bushes. one of them was a one-termer. one-termers are not successful. and then the other one was one of the worst presidents in american history who left office with a 25% approval rating. it's not merely that, though, ed, to me. the amazing thing about this story is that he chose to do this. knowing mitt romney 's history, knowing mitt romney 's story, his money in the cayman islands , that bush chose to do this five days before an election. amazing.

>> we all know that disaster relief isn't exactly george w. bush 's forte, but why did he agree to give a speech in the cayman islands , as you say, just a few days before the election? i mean, do you think he really wants romney to win?

>> well, you know, i mean, these questions are risie ining in our minds, aren't they? does chris christie want mitt romney to win? this is something i've been wondering about for a couple days. does george w. bush want mitt romney to win? it's not so clear. and we do know that most of the people who have encountered this guy, a lot of them have come away just not liking him. and you just have to wonder why they're doing this.

>> on the other hand, you have got bill clinton who has been so terribly effective for president obama , and no one predicted the storm was going to take that much time away from the president, but this has been a real asset for the president.

>> it has, absolutely.

>> so have we ever seen a former president work so hard for someone to get re-elected?

>> no. i don't recall it. it's pretty astonishing and when you think of their history, which isn't all milk and honey , it makes it all the more interesting. you know, they had rough times in 2008 when obama was running against hillary clinton , and they both said some pretty tough things about each other, but they know that they need each other and obama obviously needs bill clinton as a validater, so the president who created the most jobs in recent american history , going out and saying in obama 's behalf that he can manage the economy is very important to obama . and i think it's good for clinton , too. i think not only in legacy terms, but i think if hillary clinton still has an eye cast toward the white house , i think it's much better for her, it would be much easier for her in 2016 if obama is re-elected.

>> back to the bushes for a moment. jeb bush . let's see. if mitt romney doesn't win, jeb might go for it. jeb bush was out defending his brother on the campaign trail yesterday. here it is.

>> president obama was dealt a tough hand. we were told that. we hear this every day almost if you watch tv. you know, and, of course, it's my brother's fault for everything that goes on. it's almost as though the dog ate my homework is the reason why we're going through tough times.

>> what are your thoughts on that, michael?

>> well, of course, that's what he's going to say, but the fact of the matter is that the financial crisis that we got into was george bush 's fault. it was the republican party 's fault. sure you can trace some things back to clinton , the deregulation of glass steagall in 1999 / 2000 , but nobody was watching the henhouse when the banks were doing what they were doing under bush. so it is true. if anything, ed, if anything, i believe that the democrats haven't done enough during this campaign season to draw a direct line between w. and romney and say, these are the policies that created the crisis and romney wants to enact exactly these policies. repeal dodd/frank and lower tax cuts on rich people which is exactly what got us into the problem in the first place. i think democrats haven't done that quite enough.

>> i think if mitt romney had been a candidate of more definition, where he absolutely took a stand on topic "a," "b," and "c" and maybe if they were starting to gain ground with voters and independent voters, maybe they would have used bush to connect him to the hip in that regard. kind of looks like they haven't had to. mike tomasky, great to have you with us tonight. thanks so much.

>>> coming up, in the aftermath of hurricane sandy, climate change gets its moment in the political spotlight.

>>> and with renewed interest in the candidates' environmental policies , president obama gets a surprising endorsement.