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With his time in the White House linked for many Americans to an era of economic boom, Mr Clinton will be dispatched to campaign in key states where Democratic candidates regard Mr Obama as a political liability.

A senior Clinton advisor recently sat down with Obama aides to map out the strategy to support "endangered" Democratic candidates as the party battles to retain its majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate in November.

It is a dramatic transformation from the hostilities of 2008 when Mr Clinton was often reduced to red-faced rants as an unbridled cheerleader for his wife Hillary in her acrimonious battle with Mr Obama for the Democratic nomination.

As The Sunday Telegraph revealed the former president was so furious with the way that he was portrayed by the rival camp, particularly his belief that that they had portrayed him as racist, that he told friends that Mr Obama could "kiss my ass" in return for his support.

Mr Obama for his part ran his campaign against Mrs Clinton on the mantra that he was overturning "politics as usual" – a barely-veiled dig at the Clintonian style of operations.

There was an uneasy truce before the general election in November 2008 and Mr Clinton delivered a handful of set-piece speeches for the Democratic nominee before focusing on his philanthropic work.

But two years is an eternity in politics – as Mr Obama can testify after seeing his sky-high popularity ratings slide inexorably in the meantime.

In the latest polling, 43 per cent of American strongly disapprove of his leadership, while only 26 per cent strongly approve. And a mere 13 per cent believed that his economic policies had benefitted them.

So it was significant that Mr Obama last week invited Mr Clinton to a meeting at the White House to discuss the economy on Wednesday just as the US Chamber of Commerce accused him of a "general attack on our free enterprise system".

The previous day, the President named Jack Lew, Mr Clinton's budget director at a time when the US was enjoying several years of surpluses, to the same role in his administration.

He is the latest in a slew of Clintonistas drafted to fill key roles in Mr Obama's staff. Indeed, the Senate will this week vote on Mr Obama's nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy – Elena Kagan, yet another former Clinton official.

Of course, the most notable Clintonista in Mr Obama's government is the former First Lady herself, whom he drafted as his secretary of state after vanquishing her in the primary campaign.

Her husband's presidency is most notoriously remembered for the Whitewater financial scandal and his illicit sexual liaisons, most notably with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in an affair that ended in impeachment proceedings.

But as the US flounders with unemployment rates at near 10 per cent and a soaring budget deficit, his stewardship of the economy is the legacy many Americans now recall, however rose-tinted their view.

Mr Clinton was elected in 1992 after relentlessly targeting President George HW Bush over his handling of the economy. Indeed, his advisor James Carville coined the memorable phrase, "It's the economy, stupid".

And he bequeathed a booming economy and budget surplus to the next President Bush, George W, in 2001 - even if many economists now blame his relaxation of bank lending rules for the sub-prime mortgage crisis that sparked the global economic meltdown of 2008.

Mr Clinton will carry his economic clout when he returns to his most beloved role – on the hustings. He will shortly visit Arkansas, his native state, plus Kentucky and Florida in an effort to woo voters, particularly white Southerners, with whom Mr Obama has never gelled. He will also be deployed in swing states such as New Hampshire that he won during his own presidential campaigns.

The former president's increasingly high profile has prompted embarrassing talk of a Clinton restoration. "This week alone, President Obama has taken several steps to implement Bill Clinton's third term," Dana Milbank, the Washington Post political sketch-writer, noted wrily.

The picture caption accompanying his article helpfully clarified: "The current president is on the left" - locating the incumbent.

Mr Obama is not the first prominent Democrat to face the challenge of deciding whether and how to harness Mr Clinton's formidable but sometimes unpredictable campaigning his skills.

Mr Clinton's vice-president Al Gore did not turn to him in his 2000 presidential battle with George W Bush after strategists decided the fall-out from the Lewinsky scandal would be too toxic. It was a fatal miscalculation as Mr Gore narrowly lost several states, including Arkansas, where Mr Clinton could have swung the vote.

"It was a disastrous mistake," Dan Gerstein, a Democratic strategist who worked on the campaign of Joe Lieberman, Mr Gore's running mate, told The Sunday Telegraph. "All they had to do was send Clinton to Arkansas or New Hampshire and Gore would have been the next president."

He said that for all the personal animus of 2008, President Obama was making a wise political calculation now. "There is certainly lingering resentment, but Obama is not going to allow the bad blood from then get in the way of his interests now.

"Bill Clinton is a tremendous political asset, not just within the Democratic fold but more broadly in the general electorate. He won the presidency in 1992 by focusing on the economy but also by connecting brilliantly with the middle-class.

"He is a brilliant communicator who has a rare knack for boiling issues down and getting to the heart of the matter in a way that really resonates with voters. And his achievement in creating the economic boom of the 1990s gives what he says credibility. When he talks about the economy, people listen."

Republican strategists have been revelling in Mr Obama's decision to turn to his old nemesis. "President Obama taps Bill Clinton to be president," read one email circulated among activists after Wednesday's White House meeting.

There is no doubt that Mr Obama faces the unwelcome narrative of the young pretender who usurped the old order with a message of "hope" and "change", only to be forced to call his predecessor back for assistance as he struggles with the job.

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman who as a senior Obama campaign operative was closely linked to the pre-election criticisms of Mr Clinton, seemed ill at-ease last week when asked about the former president's unannounced meeting with his boss last week.

He said that the meeting was focused on improving energy efficiency in buildings – an area that Mr Clinton's philanthropic foundation has championed. He declined to answer questions about whether Mr Obama needed Mr Clinton's assistance on business matters.

He added the opportunity for the President to meet with Mr Clinton was too great to turn down.

"I think it would be crazy not to have a real popular former president out campaigning as he has," he said.

The Clinton brand has historically been viewed as a mixed blessing by many Democrats. But if the former president and his team ride to the rescue this autumn, it could set the stage for yet another saga in the seemingly never-ending Clinton political psycho-drama.

For among family loyalists, there is still the hope that if Mr Obama looks like becoming a one-term liability, the party may yet ditch him for a more experienced candidate for the next presidential campaign – Hillary 2012