Revealing the beauty of the Clinton romance

On their 41st anniversary, the story of Hillary and Bill — as told by Bill

“In the Spring of 1971, I met a girl. The first time I saw her we were, appropriately enough, in a class on political and civil rights. She had thick blond hair, big glasses, wore no makeup, and she had a sense of strength and self- possession that I found magnetic.”

“I just went ahead and asked her to take a walk down to the art museum. We’ve been walking and talking and laughing together ever since. And we’ve done it in good times and bad, through joy and heartbreak.”

“I asked her to marry me and she said ‘I can’t do it.’ So the second time I tried a different tack. I said ‘I really want you to marry me, but you shouldn’t do it.’ And she smiled and looked at me, like, what is this boy up to? She said ‘that is not a very good sales pitch.’ I said ‘I know, but it’s true.’ And I meant it, it was true.”

“We were married in that little house on October the 11th, 1975. I married my best friend. I was still in awe after more than four years of being around her at how smart and strong and loving and caring she was. And I really hoped that her choosing me and rejecting my advice to pursue her own career was a decision she would never regret.”

“A little over a year later we moved to Little Rock when I became attorney general, and she joined the oldest law firm west of the Mississippi. Soon after, she started a group called the Arkansas Advocates for Families and Children.”

“On February 27th, 1980, 15 minutes after I got home from the National Governors Conference in Washington, Hillary’s water broke and off we went to the hospital. Chelsea was born just before midnight. And it was the greatest moment of my life. The miracle of a new beginning. The hole it filled for me because my own father died before I was born, and the absolute conviction that my daughter had the best mother in the whole world.”

“She became, as she often said, our family’s designated worrier, born with an extra responsibility gene. The truth is we rarely disagreed on parenting, although she did believe that I had gone a little over the top when I took a couple of days off with Chelsea to watch all six ‘Police Academy’ movies back-to-back.”

“The rest of the decade sort of flew by as our lives settled into a rhythm of family and work and friends … (and) I can tell you this. If you were sitting where I’m sitting and you heard what I have heard at every dinner conversation, every lunch conversation, on every lone walk, you would say this woman has never been satisfied with the status quo in anything. She always wants to move the ball forward. That is just who she is.”

“(Hillary) has earned the loyalty, the respect and the fervent support of people who have worked with her in every stage of her life, including leaders around the world who know her to be able, straightforward and completely trustworthy. (She) calls you when you’re sick, when your kid’s in trouble or when there’s a death in the family. (She) repeatedly drew praise from prominent Republicans when she was a senator and secretary of state.”

“You could drop her into any trouble spot, pick one, come back in a month and somehow, some way she will have made it better. That is just who she is.”

“I’ve lived a long, full, blessed life. It really took off when I met and fell in love with that girl in the spring of 1971. Hillary is uniquely qualified to seize the opportunities and reduce the risks we face. And she is still the best darn change-maker I have ever known.”