Bill Clinton: “Thank you. Hello, New Mexico! Thank you for making me feel so welcome. Well, you know, they asked me back in Washington…”

“Thank you. Hello, New Mexico! Thank you for making me feel so welcome. Well, you know, they asked me back in Washington why I was going to Albuquerque to prepare for my debate, and I said, ``Well, we've done an exhaustive amount of research all over America, and Mayor Chavez was holding this balloon event, and there were going to be 800 balloons in the air at the same time. And it seemed to me that that meant that there was more hot air here already than any other place in the country, and a little more wouldn't do any harm.'' [Laughter] So I thought I should be here. I want to thank all of you for coming out today in this magnificent crowd, stretching out in all of these directions. I want to thank those who are here who entertained us, the Danita Native American Dancers, the God's Way Community Church African-American Choir, Perla Padilla, the Rio Grande High School Marching Band, the New Mexican Marimba Band, and Francisco LeFebvre who painted the murals in front of the armory. Let's give them all a hand. They were great, and I thank them. [Applause] I am honored to be here with our candidates today, with John Wertheim, Shirley Baca, Art Trujillo, my good friend Eric Serna. I hope you will support them in this election just 23 days away. Will you do that? Will you help us? [Applause] I want to thank your mayor for his friendship and support and for being one of the most innovative mayors in the entire United States. Thank you for that. I thank Secretary of State Stephanie Gonzalez for all that she said up here, for knowing and caring and supporting the work we are doing to try to build strong families and protect our children and give them a better future. I want to thank my good friend Senator Jeff Bingaman, and I want to say one thing about that. Just the other day we announced--a couple of days ago--a major, major new contract for Los Alamos here, to build a new supercomputer with Cray, a new Cray supercomputer that will create a huge number of good paying jobs for our country, move us forward. And I want you to know not only that Jeff Bingaman had a lot to do with that contract, but more importantly, when our friends on the other side finally got ahold of the Congress and they proposed among other things to close down the Energy Department---- Audience members. Boo-o-o!”