Bill Clinton: “Thank you very much, John, Teresa, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would very much like to thank Senator Kerry for…”

“Thank you very much, John, Teresa, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would very much like to thank Senator Kerry for explaining the commitments he made in the last election, because we were all wondering why we were here tonight. [Laughter] And now we know we've come to help Reverend Kerry keep his vow of poverty. [Laughter] Let me say on a only slightly more serious note, I liked a lot of things about the campaign of 1996. I liked the fact that we were able to go out and finally say that there were two different visions of this country. The American people voted for one of them in 1994; they voted for another one in 1992. They fought us on everything we tried to do with the economy, with crime, with welfare, with the environment. The results were in, and the American people made a judgment. And John Kerry in many ways had to run the most difficult of all races for an incumbent, because he had to run against a sitting Governor who was immensely popular and was not sort of a cardboard cutout of the contract on America. And I was absolutely determined that if I could do anything to help him get reelected, I would do it. And I loved every minute of every day I ever spent in Massachusetts, and I was tickled that he won. And I might say, in the campaign that he had to put together to win, with the grassroots support and the intensity, it was--Massachusetts became the only State in the country where every single Republican running for Federal office was removed.…”