11-year-old boy gives $440 to Clinton campaign by The Associated Press
WILLIAMSON -- Everyone who knows 11-year-old Dalton Hatfield sees it. There's something special about the young man. His mother Vickie says all who come in contact with the Kentucky elementary student look at him and say "He's going to be something'' when he grows up.
Apparently that goes for former presidents, too.
When Hatfield presented former President Bill Clinton with a check for $440 after Friday's rally at the Williamson Fire Station, the man who was once the leader of the free world seemed to nearly come to tears.
"You sold your bike to get this?'' Clinton asked the McAndrews, Ky. native.
The reply was "yes'' and a whole lot more.
Hatfield feels so strongly that Hillary Clinton should be the next president he not only sold his bicycle, but video games and anything else he could find that "I could make money with'' to donate to the former first lady's bid for the Democratic nomination.
"I was thinking one day how could I make money for the campaign,'' he says. "And I just went through my closet and found things I didn't need.''
"I though he was raising vacation money,'' says Vickie Hatfield, who along with Dalton's father, Bruce Hatfield, accompanied him to the event. "When I found out it was for Hillary, I told him to go for it.''
The result was a donation that for the most part left the former president, who is known as a great communicator, speechless.
He did, however, autograph a photo of himself and Hillary for the young man, and told him he was "going to call Hillary'' right away and tell her about his generosity.
"She's going to be talking about you all over the nation,'' Clinton said.
If she does, it may not be the last time Hatfield's name is known on a national level.
While most 11-year-olds are busy with the standard daydreams of being policemen or firemen, or maybe even a professional wrestler, Hatfield's future vision involves aspirations of one day living in a big white residence due east of Appalachia. He wants to follow the career path of the man he came to hear Friday.
"Well I hope that I can first be a lawyer,'' he says rather matter-of-factly. "Then I want to be governor or a senator, then president. The more I study politics, I just get more interested in it.''
And the reason he's such a staunch Hillary supporter?
"I think she can do just like Bill Clinton did in the '90s and we can have a good economy,'' he says. "I think the majority of people around here are struggling due to the economy. And she can get us out of the war.''
All in all, Friday was, on a scale of 1 to 10 in Hatfield's young life, a "12'' he says, and one he will "never forget'' for obvious reasons. Judging from Clinton's reaction to Hatfield's generosity, it may be one the former president never forgets as well.
The inscription on Hatfield's autographed photo reads "Thanks for being such a fan of Hillary.'' Hatfield may have won over a couple high-profile fans himself on this day.
"He said he was really impressed,'' Hatfield says. "I couldn't believe it.''