Bill Clinton rallies Democrats in Rock Hill +gallery +video

Apologizing for a hoarse voice after weeks on the campaign trail for his wife’s presidential bid, former President Bill Clinton told a crowd of supporters at Freedom Temple Ministries he had “lost his voice for his candidate.”

Clinton made the last-minute stop at the East Main Street church two days before South Carolina Democrats go to the polls to decide between his wife, former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Polls show Hillary Clinton leading handily heading into Saturday’s vote, but her husband left nothing to chance, throwing out a detailed defense of his wife’s record and program for the country.

After all, there’s a reason you hear so many Republican candidates taking shots at her, Clinton said. “They’re just scared to run against her.”

Clinton contrasts Hillary’s campaign message with “another guy” running for president, Donald Trump, calling on voters to “Make America Great Again.” Instead, his wife’s message, Clinton said, is to “make America whole again.”

“You don’t do that by building walls around our country,” he said. “You do it by building ladders to economic opportunity.”

To reach that goal, a Hillary Clinton administration would uphold President Barack Obama’s health care reforms, Bill Clinton said. He called on states like South Carolina that have not expanded state Medicaid rolls under the health care law to do so. Most Republican candidates have vowed to repeal the law if elected, while Sanders wants to replace it with a government-run, single-payer model.

“It saves money, it saves more in costs than what it spends, and it creates jobs,” Clinton said. “We’ve come a long way. We don’t want to go back and start over.”

The former president also stressed the need to get more people a college education without incurring a massive amount of debt. Hillary Clinton would help students get out of school debt-free, helping those who need it to pay tuition at public universities and historically black colleges, and creating “a million work-study places” to help students pay for their own college education, the former president said.

Bill Clinton took another swipe at the Republican frontrunner and Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from traveling to the United States, saying the perception that Americans are anti-Islam works against our fight against the Islamic State in the Middle East.

“We need to win with moderate Muslims,” Clinton said. “Republicans are wrong to demonize all Muslims.”

Referencing last year’s shooting in Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, Bill Clinton touted President Obama’s proposal to tighten background checks and set new restrictions on gun dealers, and pushed back against an absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment.

“If you applied their logic to the right to travel, you would have the right to travel at 90 mph, while talking on a cell phone, with no seat belt on and no child restraint in the back seat,” he said.

While the next president may have the opportunity to appoint several new Supreme Court justices, Bill Clinton encouraged Obama to “do his job” and nominate a replacement for late Justice Antonin Scalia. Republicans have said Obama should let the next president make the appointment, leaving the seat open for a year or more.

“I always liked Scalia, by the way,” Clinton said. “Because you knew when he was coming after you ... he didn’t sneak around.”

Bill Clinton made some headway in bringing voters over to his wife’s side. Eva Gouin of Fort Mill said she had already decided to vote for Hillary Clinton, “but everything I heard just confirmed my conviction,” she said.

“For me, the important thing is her experience and her ability to get things done,” Gouin said.

Marlene Mielke was undecided heading into Clinton’s visit, but leaning toward Sanders. She wasn’t prepared to commit to Hillary Clinton afterward, but thought the former president made a strong argument for his candidate and her ability to make change in the country.

“He did an outstanding job for her,” Mielke said. “I believe she’s able to do it, and wants to do it. ... It will be a difficult vote.”

Cleopatra Allen will be a poll worker on Saturday, so she already voted absentee. She declined to say who she voted for, but said her attendance at a Clinton rally on Thursday “might give you a strong indication.”

“If she can get half these things done that she said, she will be amazing,” Allen said.

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 11:42 AM with the headline "Bill Clinton rallies Democrats in Rock Hill +gallery +video."