President Bill Clinton was running behind schedule Wednesday night when he arrived at The Gatekeepers House, but that didn’t deter the thousand-plus supporters who had gathered on the lawn surrounding the house.

Shortly after his motorcade rolled to a stop and he emerged to address the crowd, he made one point clear: If the people of the United States want change, Hillary Clinton is the person who can make it happen. She is, he said, the best change maker for the job.

Clinton, who stopped in Asheboro after stops in Hillsborough and Elon, hit on all the issues that have electrified the Democratic nomination battle: healthcare, the war in Iraq, education, care of the nation's veterans and the rising cost of gasoline and food.

"This country has got some big challenges," Clinton told the crowd. "This campaign is too big to be small about. People in small towns and in rural areas who have been left out and left behind know that help is on the way," he said.

"Over the last seven years, the cost of healthcare in America has more than doubled yet the coverage Americans receive is headed in the opposite direction.

"She is the only person who has offered a plan of affordable health care to every single person. This has got to be done," Clinton said, adding that Sen. Clinton wants people to have a choice: if they like the medical coverage they have, they can keep it. But if they don't, they need to have the option of choosing a better alternative.

"We can’t solve the problem unless we cover everybody," he said.

Citing the number of homeowners in the United States who have lost their homes in the mortgage crisis – including 47,000 people in California alone who lost their homes in the first quarter of this year, Clinton said that it is only going to get worse.

The stimulus rebates that should begin coming at the beginning of May are not going to help the country in the long run, Clinton said. The economy will feel the effects short term and for a time the economy will be bolstered. But, he warned, the rebates' long-term effect will "blow us into a recession."

"You work the arithmetic," he said, pointing to the effects of trickle-down economics. "We have flat incomes and exploding costs. If we don’t do something about this soon we’re going to have to do something over the long run."

What the country needs to do is create jobs and lower costs on fuel and food, he said, adding that with the rising cost of fuel comes the need to create better vehicles that get better gas mileage. The technology is there, he told the crowd. But like iPods and high definition televisions sets, until the demand is there, the affordability becomes a handicap.

“We are trapped in an old economy and trapped in an old mindset," he said of the current administration. "If you elect her president, it won’t be an option."

Patricia M. Edwards writes for The Randolph Guide in Asheboro, N.C.