(A LITTLE "HAIL TO THE CHIEF" AND THEN FADE)
TR (BUSH): Some people said that I didn't do so good in the debate. That I looked distracted. Worried. And maybe so. I was thinking about clearing brush, and when am I going to get the last of the carrots and beets and rutabagas out of my garden. And how long can I leave those green tomatoes on the vine. Darn things never got ripe this year. My wife thinks I oughta just pick em and bring em in to ripen on the windowsill. I don't think so. A gardener can't keep shifting course--you got to decide what you're going to do and then stick with it. She says the frost is gonna get 'em. She points to those big rotten ones on the ground. Says I'm gonna lose the whole crop if I don't bring 'em in. I say frost is not the problem. Confidence is the problem. To heck with weather and forecasting. You've got to stick with what you're doing. Are you for the tomatoes, or are you for the poison sumac? Yes, some of the tomatoes did rot on the vine. And that's because we had a catastrophic success. We got so many tomatoes that some of them fell off. But a gardener does not yield to temperature or season. And I am not bringing those tomatoes in until they turn red. In two weeks or four weeks or two months or whatever it takes. I am George W. Bush and these are my tomatoes.