NEW YORK – Bill Clinton asked the American people Wednesday to give the Democrats two more years to dig the country out of the economic hole he blamed on the Republicans – and then, if the Democrats fail, “throw us all out.”

The former president said in an interview that the Democrats can still pull the November midterm elections out of the fire if they go on the offensive.

The Democrats won “a lot of exceedingly marginal seats” in the last two elections and have to assume they will lose some of them this year, but “whether these elections will be a big setback for the Democrats is yet to be determined,” he said.

Clinton spoke in a lengthy telephone conversation from the Clinton Global Initiative.