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Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Mickey Kantor, and Vernon Jordan went on my behalfThey got a cordial reception, as did the Bush peoplePerot announced that he had learned a lot from both groupsThen a couple of days later, on October 1, Perot announced that he felt compelled to get back into the race as a servant of his volunteersHe had been helped by quitting the race back in JulyIn the ten weeks he was out of it, the memory of his nutty fight with Bush the previous spring had faded, while the President and I had kept each others problems fresh in the public mindNow the voters and the press took him even more seriously because the two of us had courted him so visibly As Perot was getting back in, we finally reached an agreement with the Bush people on debatesThere would be three of them, plus a vice-presidential debate, all crammed into nine days, between October 11 and 19In the first and third, we would be questioned by members of the pressThe second would be a town hall meeting in which citizens would ask the questionsAt first, the Bush people didnt want Perot in the debates, because they thought he would be attacking the President, and any extra votes he garnered would come from potential Bush supporters rather than those who might go for meI said I had no objection to Perots chanel earrings stud inclusion, not because I agreed that Perot would hurt Bush moreI wasnt convinced of thatbut because I felt that, in the end, he would have to be included and I didnt want to look like a chickenBy October 4, both campaigns agreed to invite Perot to participate In the week leading up to the first debate, I finally endorsed the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement, which the Bush administration had negotiated with Canada and Mexico, with the caveat that I wanted to negotiate side agreements ensuring basic labor and environmental standards that would be binding on MexicoMy labor supporters were worried about the loss of low-wage manufacturing jobs to our southern neighbor and strongly disagreed with my position, but I felt compelled to take it, for both economic and political reasonsI was a free-trader at heart, and I thought America had to support Mexicos economic growth to ensure long-term stability in our hemisphereA couple of days later, more than 550 economists, including nine Nobel Prize winners, endorsed my economic program, saying it was more likely than the Presidents proposals to restore economic growth Just as I was determined to focus on economics in the run-up to the debates, the Bush camp was equally determined to keep undermining my character and dolce and gabbana bags reputation for honestyThey were facilitating a search request with the National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, for all the information in my passport files on my forty-day trip to northern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia back in 196970Apparently, they were chasing down bogus rumors that I had gone to Moscow to pursue anti-war activities or had tried to apply for citizenship in another country to avoid the draftOn October 5, there were news reports that the files had been tampered withThe passport story dragged out all monthThough the FBI said the files had not been tampered with, what had occurred put the Bush campaign in a bad lightA senior State Department political appointee pushed the National Records Center, which had more than 100 million files, to put the search of mine ahead of two thousand other requests that had been filed earlier, and that normally took months to processA Bush appointee also ordered the Uembassies in London and Oslo to conduct an extremely thorough search of their files for information on my draft status and citizenshipAt some point, it was revealed that even my mothers passport files were searchedIt was hard to imagine that even the most paranoid right-wingers could think that a country girl from Arkansas who loved the races was omega seamaster de ville subversive Later, it came out that the Bush people had also asked John Majors government to look into my activities in EnglandAccording to news reports, the Tories complied, although they claimed their comprehensive but fruitless search of their immigration and naturalization documents was in response to press inquiriesI know they did some further work on it, because a friend of David Edwardss told David that British officials had questioned him about what David and I did in those long-ago daysTwo Tory campaign strategists came to Washington to advise the Bush campaign on how they might destroy me the way the Conservative Party had undone Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock six months earlierAfter the election, the British press fretted that the special relationship between our two countries had been damaged by this unusual British involvement in American politicsI was determined that there would be no damage, but I wanted the Tories to worry about it for a while The press had a field day with the passport escapade, and Al Gore called it a McCarthyite abuse of powerUndeterred, the President kept asking me to explain the trip to Moscow and continued to question my patriotismIn an interview on CNN with Larry King, I said I loved my country and had never considered giving up my new omega watches American citizenshipI dont think the public paid much attention to the passport flap one way or the other, and I was kind of amused by the whole thingOf course it was an abuse of power, but a pathetically small one compared with Iran-ContraIt just showed how desperate the Bush people were to hang on to power, and how little they had to offer for Americas futureIf they wanted to spend the last month of the campaign barking up the wrong tree, that was fine with me In the days leading up to the first debate, I worked hard to be well preparedI studied the briefing book diligently and participated in several mock-debate sessionsPresident Bush was played by Washington lawyer Bob Barnett, who had performed the same role four years earlier for DukakisPerots stand-in was Congressman Mike Synar of Oklahoma, who had Rosss sayings and accent down patBob and Mike wore me out in tough encounters before each debateAfter each of our sessions, I was just glad I didnt have to debate them; the election might have turned out differently The first debate was finally held on Sunday, October 11, Hillarys and my seventeenth wedding anniversary, at Washington University in StI went into it encouraged by the endorsements in that mornings editions of the Washington Post and the Louisville gucci indy bag Courier-Jou