I like Governor Clinton, he said, but hes a...
I like Governor Clinton, he said, but hes a loserAnd we cant afford to loseIt was a persuasive argument, all the more so because he had the guts to do it with me sitting thereI could feel the crowd slipping away

After a few seconds of silence, a man stood up in the back and said hed like to be heardJohn Lee Wilson was the mayor of Haynes, a small town of about 150 peopleHe was a heavy man of medium height, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, which bulged with the bulk of his huge arms, neck, and gutI didnt know him very well and had no idea what he would say, but Ill never forget his words

Lawyer Wilson made a good speech, he began, and he may be rightThe governor may be a loserAll I know is, when Bill Clinton became governor, the crap was running open in the streets of my town, and my babies was sick because we didnt have rolex watches for women no sewer systemNobody paid any attention to usWhen he left office, we had a sewer system and my babies wasnt sick anymoreHe did that for a lot of usLet me ask you somethingIf we dont stick with folks who stick with us, who will ever respect us again? He may be a loser, but if he loses, Im going down with himAs the old saying goes, it was all over but the shouting, one of those rare moments when one mans words actually changed minds, and hearts

Unfortunately, John Lee Wilson died before I was elected PresidentNear the end of my second term, I made a nostalgic trip back to east Arkansas to speak at Earle High SchoolThe school principal was Jack Crumbly, the host of that fateful meeting almost two decades earlierIn my remarks, I told the story of John Lee Wilsons speech for the first time in publicIt was televised across east quilted chanel bag ArkansasOne person who watched it, sitting in her little house in Haynes, was John Lee Wilsons widowShe wrote me a very moving letter saying how proud John would have been to have the President praising himOf course I praised himIf it hadnt been for John Lee, I might be writing wills and divorce settlements instead of this book

As we got close to election day, my support went up and down among voters who couldnt decide whether to give me another chanceI was worried about it until I met a man in a caf one afternoon in Newark, in northeast ArkansasWhen I asked for his vote, he said, I voted against you last time, but Im going to vote for you this timeAlthough I knew the answer, I still asked him why he voted against meBecause you raised my car tagsWhen I asked him why he was voting for me, he said, Because you raised my car tagsI knock off chanel told him I needed every vote I could get, and I didnt want to make him mad, but it didnt make any sense for him to vote for me for the same reason hed voted against me beforeHe smiled and said, Oh, it makes all the sense in the worldYou may be a lot of things, Bill, but you aint dumbYoure the very least likely one to ever raise those car tags again, so Im for youI added his impeccable logic to my stump speech for the rest of the campaign

On May 25, I won the primary election with 42 percent of the voteUnder the counterassault of my ads and the strength of our organization, Jim Guy Tucker fell to 23 percentJoe Purcell had parlayed his issue- and controversy-free campaign into 29 percent of the vote and a spot in the runoff, two weeks awayIt was a dangerous situationTucker and I had driven each others negative ratings up with the quilted chanel purse attack ads, and Purcell appealed to the Democrats who hadnt gotten over the car-tag increaseThere was a good chance he could win just by being the un-ClintonI tried for ten days to smoke him out, but he was shrewd enough to stay in his van and shake a few handsOn the Thursday night before the election, I did a poll that said the race was dead evenThat meant Id probably lose, since the undecided vote usually broke against the incumbent, which I effectively wasI had just put up an ad highlighting our differences on whether the Public Service Commission, which sets electric rates, should be elected rather than appointed, a change I favored and Joe opposedI hoped it would make a difference, but I wasnt sure

The very next day, I was handed the election in the guise of a crippling body blowFrank White badly wanted Purcell to win the chanel quilted handbag ru