and I remembered and appreciated the

I tried to keep things in perspective. The press had an obligation to examine the record of someone who might be President. Most reporters knew nothing about Arkansas or me when they started. Some of them had negative preconceptions about a poor, rural state and the people who lived there. I had also been identified as 1992s character problem candidate; that made the media vulnerable to whatever dirt they were handed to support the preconception. Intellectually, I understood all this, and I remembered and appreciated the positive coverage I had received earlier in the campaign. Nevertheless, it felt more and more as if the investigative stories were being prepared on the basis of shoot first, ask questions later. Reading them felt like an out-of-body experience. The press seemed determined to prove that everyone who thought I was fit to be President was a fool: the Arkansas voters who had elected me five times; my fellow governors, who had voted me the most effective governor in the country; the education experts who had praised our reforms and progress; lifelong friends who were campaigning for me all over the country. In Arkansas, even my honest adversaries knew I worked hard and wouldnt take a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon. Now it seemed I had snookered all these people from the age of six on. At one point, when things got really bad in New York, Craig Smith told me he didnt read the papers anymore, because I dont recognize the person theyre talking about. Near the end of March, Betsey Wright, who was at Harvard doing a stint at the Kennedy School, came to my rescue. She had worked hard for years to build our progressive record and to run a tight ethical operation. She had a prodigious memory, knew the records, and was more than willing to fight with reporters to set the record straight. When she moved into the headquarters as director of damage control, I felt much better. Betsey stopped a lot of factually incorrect stories, but she couldnt stop them all. On March 26, the smoke seemed to clear a little when Senator Tom Harkin, the Communications Workers of America, and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union endorsed me. I was also helped when Governor Cuomo and New York senator Pat Moynihan criticized Jerry Browns 13 percent flat-tax proposal and said it would hurt New York. It was a rare day in the campaign; the news was dominated by people concerned with issues and their impact on peoples lives.