Manama: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed confidence that President Barack Obama will be re-elected.

"He's our President. He represents all of the United States, and he will be reelected President," Clinton told a town hall meeting in Tunis. "I think that that will be a very clear signal to the entire world as to what our values are and what our President believes."

Clinton was answering a question from a participant who said that most Republican and Democrat candidates ran "towards the Zionist lobbies to get their support in the States", but "once they are elected, they come to show their support for the common Arab citizen."

In her reply, Clinton urged people "not to pay attention to the rhetoric" during the campaigning.

"You will learn as your democracy develops that a lot of things are said in political campaigns that should not bear a lot of attention. There are comments made that certainly don't reflect the United States, don't reflect our foreign policy, don't reflect who we are as a people. I mean, if you go to the United States, you see mosques everywhere, you see Muslim Americans everywhere. That's the fact. So I would not pay attention to the rhetoric," she said on Saturday.

Clinton told the audience that she was "sometimes a little surprised that people around the world pay more attention to what is said in our political campaigns than most Americans, say, are paying attention."

"So I think you have to shut out some of the rhetoric and just focus on what we're doing and what we stand for, and particularly what our President represents," she said.

The town hall appearance in Tunis could be among the last by Clinton who had repeatedly said that she would not run for president in 2012. In December 2010, she told a town hall meeting in Manama that her current role in the US Administration was "my last public position."

"I think I'll serve as secretary of state as my last public position, and then probably go back to advocacy work, particularly on behalf of women and children and particularly around the world," Clinton said in Manama.