Bill Clinton, Elizabeth Warren to anchor Wednesday night lineup at the 2012 DNC

For­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton and Mass­a­chu­setts U.S. Sen­ate hope­ful Eliz­a­beth War­ren will anchor the Wednes­day prime­time line­up at the 2012 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Char­lotte, the par­ty announced today.

Wednes­day will be the sec­ond-to-last day of the con­ven­tion. Since the mid-1990s, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee for vice pres­i­dent has tra­di­tion­al­ly accept­ed the nom­i­na­tion on the Wednes­day evening of the con­ven­tion. But this year, Joe Biden will deliv­er his accep­tance speech on the same night Barack Oba­ma deliv­ers his — on Thurs­day, the final night of the convention.

Wednes­day will belong to Bill Clin­ton and Eliz­a­beth Warren.

“Eliz­a­beth War­ren has cham­pi­oned the pro­tec­tion of the mid­dle class through­out her life,” said 2012 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion Chair Anto­nio Vil­laraigosa in a state­ment announc­ing War­ren’s speak­ing role.

“At Pres­i­dent Obama’s side, she helped lev­el the play­ing field for all Amer­i­cans and worked to make sure that every­one from Wall Street to Main Street plays by the same set of rules. Like Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Eliz­a­beth is a leader com­mit­ted to rebuild­ing the econ­o­my from the mid­dle class out, instead of focus­ing on the top down eco­nom­ics of the past fueled by out­sourc­ing good jobs, risky finan­cial deals and bud­get-bust­ing tax cuts for only the wealth­i­est few.”

War­ren is slat­ed to intro­duce Clin­ton, who has spo­ken at every Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion since the Rea­gan era began (includ­ing two that took place dur­ing his pres­i­den­cy, and anoth­er two since he left office).

“It will be an hon­or to share the con­ven­tion stage with Pres­i­dent Clin­ton on Wednes­day, and to talk about what is hap­pen­ing to Amer­i­ca’s fam­i­lies,” War­ren said. “I grew up in a hard­work­ing fam­i­ly, in an Amer­i­ca that was invest­ing in kids like me. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure that Amer­i­ca has a lev­el play­ing field for all our fam­i­lies and to ensur­ing that every kid has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make it. When I worked with the Pres­i­dent to cre­ate the Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau, I saw first-hand his com­mit­ment to build­ing a future for our chil­dren and our grand­chil­dren. Mitt Rom­ney and the Repub­li­cans want to go back to the same poli­cies that broke this econ­o­my. It is time to move forward.”

Accord­ing to news reports, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma per­son­al­ly asked Clin­ton to serve as the head­lin­er on Wednes­day night and place his name into nom­i­na­tion. Clin­ton was delight­ed to accept.

“Pres­i­dent Clin­ton over­saw the longest eco­nom­ic expan­sion in U.S. his­to­ry, pur­su­ing many of the same poli­cies that Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is propos­ing and imple­ment­ing today,” Vil­laraigosa said in a sep­a­rate news release that con­firmed Clin­ton as Wednes­day night’s headliner.

“That eco­nom­ic progress was squan­dered in the fol­low­ing decade by a set of deci­sions that explod­ed our deficit, crashed our econ­o­my, and hurt the mid­dle class. So, there is no one bet­ter to lay out the choice in this elec­tion between mov­ing for­ward with Pres­i­dent Oba­ma or falling back­ward with Mitt Rom­ney, who sup­ports the same failed poli­cies that led to the worst eco­nom­ic cri­sis since the Great Depres­sion,” the Los Ange­les may­or added.

War­ren’s cam­paign broke the news to its own donors and vol­un­teers in an email. Mindy Myers, War­ren’s cam­paign man­ag­er, told supporters:

This is big, big, big — and it means yet again we need to step up our game.

The Repub­li­cans no doubt will be com­ing after us hard — not only as we fight for work­ing fam­i­lies here in Mass­a­chu­setts, but also as we take the case to the coun­try about what’s at stake between Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and Mitt Romney.

We need to give Eliz­a­beth all the sup­port she needs as she plays this piv­otal role at the convention.

The race between War­ren and incum­bent Repub­li­can Scott Brown is wide­ly con­sid­ered to end up being one of the most fierce­ly con­test­ed in the coun­try. Con­trol of the U.S. Sen­ate might depend on the out­come, as well, so it is no exag­ger­a­tion to say the stakes are high.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Brown’s cam­paign react­ed to the news of War­ren’s speak­ing role with a fee­ble attempt at a put-down:

“Pro­fes­sor War­ren’s rad­i­cal, anti-free enter­prise rhetoric is so far out of the main­stream even with­in her own polit­i­cal par­ty that she got down­grad­ed from her speak­ing role at the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­ven­tion,” said Brown spokes­woman Alleigh Marre.

The Repub­li­can oper­a­tives run­ning Brown’s cam­paign are pret­ty inept if they believe their own sil­ly spin. To be asked to serve as the intro­duc­to­ry speak­er for Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton in prime­time at the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion is a very high hon­or. War­ren is going to be shar­ing the nation­al stage with one of the biggest names in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty; her remarks will be seen by mil­lions of peo­ple across the Unit­ed States and around the world. How can they sug­gest with straight faces that War­ren got “down­grad­ed”? Ridiculous.

NPI will be cov­er­ing both Bill Clin­ton and Eliz­a­beth War­ren’s speech­es live from Time Warn­er Cable Are­na in Char­lotte on Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 5th.