The former president argued Trump appeals to Americans who are "scared" and "want to go home and lock the door."
EDISON -- Saying many Americans are "just scared and want to go home and lock the door," former President Bill Clinton on Friday drew a sharp distinction between his wife and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
Appearing at a rally at Edison High School for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, the 42nd president never mentioned Trump by name. But he did offer the crowd of 700 gathered in its gym a quick and easy decision-making guide to deciding between Trump or the former Secretary of State come November.
Those favoring "an economy and society that existed in some distant past and only for a few Americans?" Clinton asked. "Vote for a different candidate."
"If you think we're stronger when we put each other down, and insult each other?" asked Clinton. "She is not your candidate."
But Clinton is polling in a dead heat nationally against Trump, whose foreign policy proposals calls include a promise to "bomb the s--t out of ISIS" and "to build a great, great wall on our southern border."
Trump's wall in Bill Clinton's cross-hairs
On Friday, the former president offered one of the first concise explanations how Hillary Clinton's little-understood background as Secretary of State would better prepare her for the presidency than Trump. He boiled it down to just four words: "Strong defense, strong diplomacy."
"If you believe in a strong defense, a strong diplomacy, and an intelligent sense of safety," he argued, "then she's the one you want to be president."
A May Pew Research study found that Trump supporters share an approach to global affairs distinctly different than most other Republican voters.
Pew found 84 percent of those who support Trump for the GOP presidential nomination favor building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, compared with 56 percent of Republican voters who preferred U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, or Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who earlier this month suspended their presidential campaigns.
Similarly, while two-thirds of Trump supporters view U.S. engagement in the global economy as a bad thing, just half of non-Trump supporters say the same.
In a world that is "highly interdependent" but "filled with promise and peril," Clinton argued that his wife was "the only person you could vote for who has the knowledge, the grasp, the experience and the respect around the world to keep us safe."
Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.