Bill Clinton: “Well, that is, I think, an extraordinary way to wrap up our morning session. I can't think of anything that could be…”

“Well, that is, I think, an extraordinary way to wrap up our morning session. I can't think of anything that could be added to what you said. But if you think about what all of our last speakers said, it amounts to a plea to us to do what we can to both increase the coherence and completeness of community-based action within a framework that creates a system that involves all our children. And again, let me say to all of you involved in this work, I am profoundly grateful to you. I thank you for being here today. This has been an immensely enlightening day to me. I have been struggling to understand this issue, especially since one day several years ago--we all have our little epiphanies in life about these matters, but Hillary had been talking to me about child care for years, and one day when I was running for Governor, well over a decade ago--I used to make a habit in every election season of going to the earliest plant gate in my State, because the workers came to work between 4:30 and 5:30, and even the vote-hungriest politicians wouldn't get up that early, so I always had them all to myself. [Laughter] And I never will forget, one day I came home and I told Hillary, I said, ``You won't believe what happened to me at a quarter to 5 this morning.'' It was a Campbell soup plant in North Arkansas, and this pickup truck rolled up. And as often happened, the husbands and wives-- and one was taking the other to work, and they would come up in the dark and kiss each other good-bye. And so this pickup truck came up, and this lady leaned over and kissed her husband good-bye and opened the door. And the light came on, and inside were three children under the age of 5. And so I went over and talked to the young man when his wife went into work at a quarter to 5. I said, ``What are you doing with these kids? I mean, how do you do this?'' He said, ``Well, we've got to get them up every morning at a quarter to 4, and we dress them up.'' And he said, ``I keep them as long as I can, but I have to be at work at 7. So I had to find somebody who would take care of them at 6:30''--three kids under 5. But he said, ``We've got three kids under 5. We both have to work.'' Now, there are millions of stories like that. And they are no less gripping for the parents than those who don't have quite such strange circumstances. But it is inconceivable to me that we have had all of you wonderful people working at this and we've put all this money in it, and we still never developed a systematic approach or, in the words of Patty, a quilt that everybody can be a part of. And that, I think, we should all leave as our mission. Thank you very much.”