PRESIDENT Clinton is a regular church goer, so what better place to start a day's campaigning and fund raising than the local Baptist church?
If it's Sunday it must be Newark, New Jersey. So the congregation of New Hope Baptist Church there gave the President a rousing reception at an aisle dancing, balcony shaking service while he smiled and swayed in his pew.
When he took the pulpit, Preacher Clinton joked: "About this time of year, people in our line of work are tired on Sunday morning. They hurt from head to toe. Well, I'm not tired anymore.
That went down well with a congregation that included singer Dionne Warwick, whose local church it is, and Sissy Houston, Whitney's mother, who is the church's musical director.
Then there was a pious invocation of that Clinton hero, John F. Kennedy. "When he was alive, President Kennedy used to say that we must always remember that here on earth, God's work must be our own. And there are many questions before us now in this last presidential election of the 20th century, and the first presidential election of the 21st century.
The rest of the "sermon" was what the cynical White House press corps called "bridge to the future boilerplate". Or what the Irish pol corrs would call "the same old stuff", heard so often on a campaign that the press can say it off by heart. But the Baptist congregation was more respectful and applauded frequently.
"God bless you," the president wound Lip. But he did not go as far as saying that God is a Democrat, so vote for me. He was more subtle. "On November 5th, be there. It is your responsibility," he urged. The congregation got the message.
Then it was time for tribute to Mammon. The President headed for a fund raiser in the Marriott Hotel in Teaneek where the New Jersey Italian community was out in force to support Congressman Robert Torricelli, campaigning for a seat in the Senate.
But in the hotel ballroom where the faithful had gathered after paying for the privilege of hearing the president, a young woman from the World Workers' Party spoiled the good humoured atmosphere with some serious heckling.
To the disgust of the audience she denounced the president for letting "millions of kids go hungry from your welfare cuts". This was an unwelcome reference to the Republican inspired bill he had signed last August "to end welfare as we know it". It is a measure Mr Clinton has promised to amend if re elected.
The president was not pleased. The faithful chanted "four more years" to drown out the heckler some shouted "shut Lip". Then the president had a bright idea: "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to talk and you can pay attention to her or you can pay attention to me."
"Get her out of here," shouted the crowd as the police closed in. But the president was in magnanimous mood.
"Hey, wait, this might be interesting. She talked about the war on the poor. Fact - facts are inconvenient. We had the biggest drop in child poverty last year in 20 years." (Applause).
"Second Fact: we had the biggest drop in poverty in households headed by women in 30 years." (Applause).
"What else should we talk about? I like this. This is good." (Applause).
By now the woman was being bundled out of the ballroom.
"Bye. Good bye," called the president. (More applause). "I have to tell you, folks, I don't mind people coming to our crowds to demonstrate. I just think that free speech should be a two way street. I think it's fine if they come here and say whatever they want to say." (Applause).
The president saw a funny side to the cheering. "This is Sunday, and in our church we used to call this preaching to the saved. I guess that's what we're doing here today." (Laughter).
Then there was more of the boilerplate "bridge to the future" ending with a quotation from the great British poet John Donne". The president recited: "No man is an island entire of himself. Every man's death diminishes me. And therefore send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."
(The transcript of the speech said "sin not to know..." instead of "send not ...")
John Donne must have been a Democrat too. "If you believe that, you should side with us because we believe we're in this together," the president said.
After raising a few more million dollars at the Rockefeller estate in Tarrytown, the president helicoptered into Wall Street and motoreaded up Broadway to the Sheraton Hotel for yet another fund raiser.
Harry Belafonte and Whoopi Goldberg whooped it up as a curtain raiser. "Bob Dole's gone and the Democrats come" crooned Belafonte to the strains of "Day -oh, day ay oh".
The president joined in. He looked happy and thanked Whoopi for making it "bearable to turn 50" when she was MC at his recent birthday party.
And then it was on to Cleveland. Ohio, after midnight. He prayed and worked hard for those millions.