CLEVELAND (AP) - Bill and Hillary Clinton know something about winning votes in Ohio. The politically powerful Democratic duo on Thursday began two days of separate appearances in the battleground state on behalf of Barack Obama's presidential bid.

President Clinton praised Obama's calm, analytical approach to the nation's financial markets crisis at a campaign rally in Cleveland.

"Look, this is not a complicated question. We've got to elect a president who will straighten our financial system out," Clinton told a crowd mostly of unionists during a 14-minute speech in a downtown park.

Clinton said economic concerns will override racism issues among voters in a presidential race involving a black candidate.

"We can't afford any racist votes, folks," the former president said. "We are in the ditch, and we've got to get our government going here, and people know that. Everybody knows we've got to go forward together."

From Cleveland, Clinton was heading to a fundraiser in Columbus with Gov. Ted Strickland and other leading Ohio Democrats.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has planned to lead rallies for Obama on Friday at Youngstown State University in northeast Ohio and at a high school in central Ohio, in Delaware north of Columbus.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin also is scheduled to return to Ohio on Friday, for an outdoor rally in the northern Cincinnati suburb of West Chester.

Bill Clinton's Cleveland rally was in the heart of Ohio's Democratic stronghold and where he could easily deliver a message about the nation's economic plight.

Both Clintons campaigned frequently this year in Ohio, which has suffered from foreclosures and lost blue-collar jobs, in the weeks leading up to the March 4 presidential primary.

Hillary Clinton won the state's Democratic primary race over Obama. She carried all but five of Ohio's 88 counties but lost the large urban Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati areas, home to the state's largest concentrations of black voters.

In September, she returned to economically hard-hit northeast Ohio, urging supporters in Elyria, about 30 miles west of Cleveland, to work hard for Obama and his running mate Joe Biden.

Obama was in New Hampshire on Thursday, a day after the third and final debate with his Republican rival John McCain. Obama continued to link McCain to Bush administration policies and stressed that the American economy is in turmoil.

McCain said Thursday in Downington, Pa., that an Ohioan he dubbed "Joe the plumber" during the Wednesday debate was representative of the problems facing small businesses across America, although the plumber isn't a business owner.

Former President Clinton made no mention of the plumber during the Cleveland rally.