Clinton: Small towns can elect president
Small towns have power to elect president, Clinton says
Former president returns to area to campaign for wife
By Dee Henry
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Sunday, May 4, 2008
NEWTON - When Wanda Thompson lived in Arkansas, she knew then-Gov. Bill Clinton.
“I was a teacher down there and I knew him, so I wanted to bring my daughter here to meet him,” said Thompson, who now lives in Newton and works as a volunteer librarian.
She and her daughter, Arden, enjoyed Clinton’s speech Sunday evening from the front porch of the Brad Byrd residence on South College Avenue in Newton.
Clinton is stumping for his wife, Hillary, to become the Democratic nominee and president. Newton was one of seven stops on his “Solutions for America” tour, between Lenoir and Kernersville.
He is taking the message that small towns have the power in deciding the next president of the United States to those small towns.
“If she does well enough in places like Newton, she stands a good chance of winning the presidency,” Clinton said. “It’s people like you in places like this that can make a difference.”
The crowd, filling Byrd’s front yard and spilling past barricades on each side, burst into loud cheers when Clinton stepped through the front door of the house. Even Clinton was taken aback by the reception.
“Wow! Amazing! What a great crowd,” he said.
He centered his speech around the hot spots in the 2008 campaign - Iraq, the economy, the price of gasoline and medical insurance.
“She’s got the best ideas to turn this economy around,” Clinton said of his wife. “And the next president is going to have to do something in a hurry from the get-go to get us out of our current situation.”
Hillary Clinton, he said, also will act quickly in bringing our military home from Iraq.
“She will bring the troops home and restore our standing in the world,” he said.
That aspect of Hillary Clinton’s campaign has won her a vote from Carolyn Donohue-Ellinas of Hickory.
Donohue-Ellinas keeps her residency in the United States current, but lives part time in Cypress, near Turkey, a hot spot for any American. She planned her travels so as to be in Hickory on Tuesday to cast her vote.
“I looked at foreign policy, and I think Hillary will restore America’s position in the world,” she said, adding she fields negative comments about her home country almost every day. “I’m tired of taking up for Americans.”
