Talking Turkey In Arkansas

Home in Arkansas, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton raised $100,000 on Sunday for the first lady's campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from New York.

"In my whole life I have never met anyone who had a better grasp of the issues," the president said. "I think she would do a superb job for the people of New York. I think she would be great for America."

"We are on the brink of consolidating the progress we have made and building on it," the first lady told an audience of supporters who contributed $250 each to support her out-of-state campaign.

"I hope I will be able to win the trust and confidence of the people of New York so that together we can help keep our country on the right track," Mrs. Clinton said.

The president said that when the first lady was preparing to launch her campaign, "I practically beat her up time and time again working on the announcement speech because an election is like a job interview and it helps to let them know in advance how you would do."

The election is important, Clinton said, because it will mean embracing or rejecting the progress that has been made over the last eight years.

"Bill's absolutely right," the first lady said. "This election, like all elections, is about the future."

But she said Republicans are trying to breath new life into economic ideas that long ago proved unworkable.

"It is stunning that they would go back to where they were," she said. "It is deja vu all over again. If they succeed it will be bad for New York, bad for Arkansas and bad for America," she told the gathering at Little Rock's convention center.

The Clintons were in Arkansas for the wedding of Stephanie Streett, an Arkansas native and Clinton's White House scheduler.

Following the Saturday afternoon wedding at a Benedictine Monastery, the Clintons drove in a four-hour long motorcade through the Ozark Mountains to spend the night at the home of friends near Fayetteville.

Diane Blair and her husband Jim are among the Clintons' closest acquaintances, with a friendship that dates to the early 1970s when both Clintons taught at the University of Arkansas. Blair left her teaching post at the university last fall because of terminal cancer.

It was the Clintons' second visit with the Blairs in a month.

Then-Gov. Clinton officiated at the Blairs' 1979 wedding, and Hillary Clinton served as what Jim Blair described as "best person."

Jim Blair was Hillary Clinton's adviser during a nine-month period in 1978 and 1979, when she turned a $1,000 investment in the cattle futures market into nearly $100,000.

On the drive to Fayetteville, the president twice stopped his limousine, once to shake hands with nearly 300 people waiting in a supermarket parking lot in Ozark, Ark., once to reminisce and tell stories and to shake still more hands.

At the Turner Bend General Store an Canoe Rental across the road from a public camping area the president swapped memories of many previous visits while standing near a shelf filled with bottles of Tabasco sauce and cans of chili.

"I used to come in and talk politics with the owner," he said. Then a framed photograph hanging on the wall brought back a memory.

"Last time I was turkey hunting was in this county, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done," he said.

"I just loved being out and calling turkeys and hearing them sing to you," he said.