Two warriors

There are newer names and bigger stars campaigning for Democrats this year: the Obamas, Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé.

But two veteran warriors, Bill Clinton and Jim Hunt, were back together this month doing what they’ve done for decades: campaigning for progress, fairness and equal opportunity.

Hunt and Clinton were at a get-out-the-vote event in Hunt’s Wilson County (photo), along with First Lady Carolyn Hunt and Rachel Hunt, candidate for lieutenant governor.

Clinton was campaigning around the state by bus, reminiscent of the post-convention bus tour that turbocharged his 1992 campaign.

Democrats were grim and worried that year, nationally and in North Carolina. Republicans had won three straight presidential elections, and President George H.W. Bush looked unbeatable after the Gulf War.

Here, Republicans had held the governor’s office for eight years and were confident they’d keep it another eight years.

Then Clinton and Hunt showed Democrats how to win again. Clinton won the presidency and served two terms. Hunt won his third term as governor and, in 1996, his fourth.

The two go back a long time, to when they were governors together in the 1970s and 1980s.

The first time I saw the baby-faced, 32-year-old Clinton at a governor’s conference, I thought he was somebody’s staffer.

Today, Clinton is 78. His voice is raspier, and his hands are sometimes shaky. Hunt is 87, and he isn’t on the campaign trail much.

This year, a group of veteran – I won’t say old – Hunt hands got together to raise money for Rachel Hunt. We owe a lot to Jim Hunt, but we weren’t paying it back.

We’re paying it forward: to the next generation of North Carolinians – and especially to children who need good health care, good education and a good start in life.

The future of those children and the future of our state and nation have been Hunt’s and Clinton’s cause and concern throughout their adult lives and political careers.

They may be slowed by age, but their enduring hope, positive outlook and steely determination are undimmed.

Let’s win it for them – and for the generations to come.