Bill Clinton visits to support ‘best candidate’
WILKES-BARRE — Former President Bill Clinton lingered around the stage in the west end of the Coughlin High School gymnasium for several minutes Wednesday night, shaking hands and posing for pictures after a 40-minute speech in which he outlined why his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, should win the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I’d be here for her even if we had never been married,” Clinton told an audience of more than 1,600 people, including hundreds who packed the gym floor. “She’s the best candidate I’ve had a chance to support in such a long time.”
Clinton, who built his political career and two-term presidency with a magnetic public persona and rock-star appeal, continued the glad-handing backstage behind a blue curtain.
He signed books, photos and campaign posters collected from the crowd by volunteers, and spoke with local officials, including U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, and Wilkes-Barre City Mayor Tom Leighton, who earlier introduced Clinton.
Clinton’s appearance, which focused on Sen. Clinton’s proposals for stabilizing the faltering economy, ending the five-year war in Iraq and improving education, followed his wife’s two visits to Scranton last week and a question-and-answer session at Wilkes University that featured their daughter, Chelsea, 28.
“Hillary’s been up in this area a couple times lately and you have been so good to her, I am grateful beyond my ability to say,” Clinton said. “We love Pennsylvania.”
Clinton last visited Wilkes-Barre in 1996, when he spoke at King’s College in the aftermath of flooding along the Susquehanna River.
Clinton won Pennsylvania in the general elections in 1992 and 1996 and started campaigning for his wife in the state Wednesday with a series of events called “Solutions for America.” Hours before the Wilkes-Barre appearance, Clinton spoke in Allentown and Bethlehem. Later in the evening he appeared in Stroudsburg.
“What do we want for our communities and our country?” Clinton asked the Wilkes-Barre crowd. “We want an America that works again, an America where we share the benefits, we share the opportunities and we share the responsibilities.”
Clinton’s remarks were as much about building support for Sen. Clinton, D-N.Y., and portraying her as a stronger candidate than the Democratic front-runner, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as it was a critique of President Bush, who has served since Clinton left office in 2001.
“I’m here today because this country is in trouble,” Clinton said. “It’s in trouble economically and it’s in trouble around the world and we know we have to change.”
Change has been a fundamental theme of Obama, who leads Sen. Clinton in delegates 1,621 to 1,479, with 188 at stake in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary and 2,025 required to secure the party’s nomination.
“My case for (Hillary) is simple,” Clinton said. “She’d be the best president to lead that change.”
Sen. Clinton has proposed a 60-day draw down of military involvement in Iraq and has proposed to replace the Bush Administration’s “No Child Left Behind” education legislation.
She has proposed a five-year freeze on subprime mortgage rate increases, incentives to fuel job creation and a plan to rebuild and strengthen the middle class to return the nation to the levels of prosperity achieved in the 1990s, when she served as first lady.
“This administration has mortgaged the economic solvency of the young people in this room today,” Clinton said.
Clinton arrived more than an hour behind schedule and acknowledged his tardiness as he emerged in a gray suit to loud cheers and the pangs of Tom Petty’s “Don’t Do Me Like That.”
“Thank you for waiting for me,” Clinton said. “I started in the Lehigh Valley and I’ve been driving all over Pennsylvania today in the rain. I’m sorry that I’m late and I’m grateful that you waited.”
Kanjorski, whose district includes Wilkes-Barre, noted the Clintons’ strong relationship with Northeastern Pennsylvania as he delivered his opening remarks. Sen. Clinton’s father, Hugh Rodham, grew up in Scranton and her family maintains a summer home outside the city.
“I can assure you one thing,” Kanjorski said. “When Hillary Clinton becomes president of the United States, I’m not going to have to tell her where Wilkes-Barre is, or where Scranton is. I’ll be able to say, ‘Hillary, it’s in Sugar Notch,’ and she’ll know where that is.”
