WASHINGTON (AFP) - Former president Bill Clinton gave terse backing to Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama Tuesday, as his wife returned to politics for the first time since her agonizing primary defeat.

Timed to coincide with Senator Hillary Clinton’s reappearance in Congress, Bill Clinton issued a one-sentence statement through his spokesman to put a lid on months of fireworks on the party’s nominating campaign trail.

“President Clinton is obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next president of the United States,” spokesman Matt McKenna said.

Hillary Clinton said the Democrats must unite after her bruising primary fight with Obama, to maximize their chances of success against Republican John McCain in November’s presidential election.

But Bill Clinton chose not to declare his allegiance to Obama in public. And he is not scheduled to speak at the first joint campaign rally between his wife and the nominee on Friday, in the aptly named New Hampshire town of Unity.

After greeting dozens of staff and well-wishers gathered on the Senate steps, Hillary Clinton told reporters that Friday would “be a symbolic event that I hope will rally the Democratic Party behind our nominee.”

Asked about running as Obama’s vice presidential nominee, the New York senator said: “You know, it is not something that I think about. This is totally Senator Obama’s decision and that’s the way it should be.”

And Clinton, nearly three weeks after conceding to Obama and pledging an all-out joint effort against McCain, warned disaffected supporters who might be considering a protest vote for the Republican to reconsider.

“If you care about the issues I care about and the future that I outlined during my campaign, then you really have to stay with us in the Democratic Party and vote for Senator Obama to be our next president,” she said.

Bill Clinton was the fiercest partisan of his wife’s failed shot at the Democratic nomination, and frequently lashed out as the African-American Obama built up unstoppable momentum against the Democrats’ first couple.

The former president dismissed Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war as a “fairytale,” and appeared to belittle Obama’s triumph with black voters in January’s South Carolina primary.

Obama and Hillary Clinton spoke Sunday to discuss how the new Democratic standard-bearer could liaise with Bill Clinton in future, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

“A unified Democratic Party is going to be a powerful force for change this year and we’re confident president Clinton will play a big role in that,” he said.

Hillary Clinton, attending a luncheon with her Democratic Senate colleagues, was all smiles as she made a high-profile entrance at the steps of Congress, rather than going through one of Capitol Hill’s discreet tunnels.

On Thursday, after addressing a conference of Latino politicians, Clinton is scheduled to introduce Obama to a private meeting of her leading fundraisers at a Washington hotel.

She has her own campaign debts of 22.5 million dollars to pay off, and some Clinton supporters want Obama to help in that effort.

At an event with working mothers in New Mexico Monday, Obama said he wanted all American girls including his two daughters to “truly have the same opportunities as our sons.”

He said “we have drawn closer to making this America a reality because of the extraordinary woman who I shared a stage with so many times throughout this campaign — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

The Illinois senator pledged to work with Clinton on “the issues that matter to American women and to all American families,” including healthcare, education and equal pay.

Courtesy of;http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080624/usa/us_vote_politics_clinton