It's great to be back here in New Hampshire; great to be with really good friends.  I always say that I love to be with [Manchester City Democrats chair] Ray Buckley and [NHDP chair] Kathy Sullivan 'cause these are two people who enjoy politics and Ray particularly reminds me of people I grew up--years ago before any of you were alive, maybe Bob Shane was alive, Bob and Strom Thurmond were alive, and there was a guy in the Bronx, New York, who ran the Democratic organization, called Boss Muggley, and that's the way I feel about [inaud.].

You know Will Rogers once said that I belong to no organized political party--I am a Democrat.  But the great thing that I notice as I come up here to New Hampshire is that of the two political parties, the one that's really better organized and more united today is our Democratic party.

As somebody once said, on the Republican side they kind of can't tell the difference between their right hand and their far right hand.  And they are, they don't have it all together, but we do and that's going to help our candidates this year.

I can't tell you how much it matters to me to see young people here working on this campaign.  I started in politics about your age and there's nothing like this for the experience, and believe me you will make a difference in this election.  I was on the treadmill, literally not figuratively, at the fitness center at the hotel here this morning watching television, and I got to see some of the ads, oh boy, negative stuff slashing back and forth, and if you just watch that and didn't focus on the kinds of things you're focusing on and that your presence reminds us of, you wouldn't appreciate what's going on here.

This election, like every election, is about the future and it's particularly important that you younger people are here because it's about your future as well as ours and the choices before the people of New Hampshire and the people of America couldn't be more clear this year.  We've got two great political parties with two very different visions of America's future.  And that's the message that is on the line here which will affect the future of New Hampshire and the people of New Hampshire; your state candidates will determine the quality of the schools, the health of the economy, the safety and beauty of this magnificent environment you have, and the same is true nationally and it's all working its way out here in the Senate and congressional races.

We're at a very difficult and unusual time in American history.  We've just come through the terrible, unprecedented trauma of September 11th 2001, and now we have an economy that has just stagnated, and people are out of work; people are worried about the economic future.

What's on the line is the question of leadership.  Who can better lead America?  And I gotta tell you, we've got a president today who's given us some leadership in the war on terrorism, but that's about all.  And you know we elect presidents to lead us on more than one thing at a time don't we?  We pay 'em to lead us on a couple of things at a time, and the lack of leadership that President Bush has given on questions related to our economy is really hurting people.

And there's a good lesson here.  During the Clinton-Gore administration, America created 22.9 million new jobs, right!  In a year and a half of this Bush administration, one and a half million jobs lost.  In the Clinton administration, employment, I'll put it another way, unemployment dropped 3 percent.  In the Bush administration unemployment has gone up--year and a half, 1 1/2 percent.  In the last year of the Clinton administration the national bank account had a surplus of $260 billion; in the last years of the Bush administration, national bank account a deficit of $160 billion.

So my friends I can stand here, a little taller than I usually am, today, and say to you something that if I had said a dozen years ago people would have either been amazed or laughed, but it's the truth today.   It's the Democratic party that is the party of fiscal responsibility and economic [inaud.]  I'm glad you agree with me.

And that's on the line this year and the candidates you've got, particularly for Senate in Jeanne Shaheen, and for the two great congressional candidates in Martha and Katrina.  But it's on the line in all the races--for governor, for the state ticket, for the state senate--we got Lou D'Alessandro here...  Lou, I didn't expect that the mere mention of your name would draw such [inaud].  And we have the Democratic leader in the Assembly, in the House, Peter Burling.  There are more members of the State House here in New Hampshire than in some towns in the state of Connecticut.  It is that large.  So those issues are on the line all over.

We also have this difference.  I'm going to say it real briefly 'cause I want to let you get back to work.  The national Republican party may talk a centrist or moderate talk, but the walk they walk is on the wild right side when it comes to environmental protection, when it comes to health care, when it comes to a woman's right to choose, when it comes to the question of whether our nation, fighting a war against terrorism, will remember we're fighting it to preserve American freedom, so we don't compromise the basic civil liberties that the Constitution guarantees American citizens.

There is a difference, and that is why we need Jeanne Shaheen in the United States Senate, and Martha Fuller Clark and Katrina Swett in the United States House of Representatives, 'cause dear friends, Lord protect us if both houses in Congress go Republican.  There'll be no balance left.  There'll be nothing to protect us from a far right agenda that does not represent not only the best interests, but the mainstream values of people in a state like New Hampshire.

You've got great candidates here; they're centrist candidates.  You've got a great organization, and your work will make the difference.  I'm telling you that how the Senate and the House go will be determined right here in New Hampshire, and I don't want to put to much pressure on you, but the future of Western Civilization...[laughter and applause].

We're getting to a point as we come down to the wire and it's the magnificence of our political system that pretty soon all the smart pollsters and pundits [inaud.] had their say and then it comes down to the day that counts, which is the day that everybody's vote counts.  I stand before you as piece of evidence number 1A, based on my experience in 2000 [laughter] about how every vote counts.  And you know as disappointed as I was obviously about the result of that election, what would disappoint me even more is if in response to it or after it there was less of turnout that thre was in the last state election here.  We can't let that happen.

So it's up to you to go out, to talk to people face to face.  This gets to be very personal at the end.  Convince them that Election Day is their day.  They've got to come out and vote, and the vote will matter to their lives, their future lives, the kinds of education their kids will get, the kinds of environment that they will live in; the kind of economy; whether their jobs will be protected; and the safety of the world, whether we can not just win the war on terrorism, but have a foreign policy in which the United States is not disliked and dispised in a lot of the world.

Your Democratic candidates here in New Hampshire are capable of making that happen.  So with your help and the good Lord's help, we're going to win and for New Hampshire and America the best is yet to come.  [inuaud.].