to improve the electoral process with the pew center, david becker. >> in october, former president bill clinton marked the 20th anniversary of the start of his first presidential bid. from the clinton presidential center in little rock, arkansas, this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> good evening everyone, welcome to the clinton presidential center. i'm the executive director of the clinton foundation. thank you all for joining us for this discussion of the clinton gore campaign and the emergens of a democratic agenda for the 21st century. tonight our panel is going to

take us back to 1991 and the political climate that gave rise to bill clinton's evental victory in the 1992 presidential election. this evening, our moderator is a renowned author. currently ron is yeoh national journal" editoral director. he is a regular contributor to both "national journal" and "the atlantic." he was a national political correspondent for "the los angeles times." in addition to writing a weekly column. he has received several journalism awards, author of six books and appears on national television. please join me in welcoming ron

brownstein. >> i guess i should start by thanking president clinton and the clinton foundation and i speak for the entire panel here when i say thank you for recognizing 24-hour cable, internet and talk radio that one of our grat national challenges is a shortage of opportunities for political pundits to have their views heard. [laughter] democrats won 43% of the popular vote. the situation in the electoral college was even worse. over the six elections, republicans had won on average

417 electoral college votes and one of my favorite statistics during the three elections of the 1980's, the democrats had won a smaller share of the available electoral college votes than in any three consecutive election sequence since the formation of the modern party system in 1828. it was not an exaggeration when commentators talked about a lock on the electoral college. when then governor clinton stood in front of the old state house, that was literally the backdrop for his presidential announcement in october of 1991. but i thought the real backdrop was that legacy of failure and even marchingalization. bill clinton's goals as a candidate were sweeping. advance traditional goals through new means and also rebuild an electoral majority

for activist government. to assess how both how candidate clinton formulated that vision and how well he implemented it, we have an extraordinary panel who was at the center of his national political career both as candidate and president. anyone on this room could have been on this panel. so we had to narrow it down to our magnificent six. done was the communications director in the white house and vice chairman and chief strategy officer. james car vessel was the campaign manager for the 1992 campaign, star of the war room and is now and here i quote, an author, actor, producer, talk show host, speaker and owner of a restaurant. not clear what he is doing in his spare time. al was counsel of the democratic leadership council. he is now the principal of the

company. frank was the media consultant for president clinton's 1992 campaign and escaped d.c. for the other washington in seattle. vernon jordan, former president and chief executive officer of the national urban league, chair of the transitional team and senior counsel and author of a memoir that i had the privilege to explore with them in all places, public television in kentucky. and we have the hometown favorite, lotey, the former mayor of little rock and former vice chair of the democratic national committee. welcome all. [applause] al, let me begin with you because one strand of the story

does start with the d.l.c. democrats had hit a low and how the party might revive. some thought it would be possible to resurrect the new deal coalition. there was a competing camp that offered economic issues and trade but liberal positions on foreign policy and social issues and new democratic effort centered on the d.l.c. how did that differ from the other competing descriptions and how did it shape what bill clinton ran on in 1992. >> first of all, ron, i thank everybody for coming and president clinton, thank you for hosting this great reunion. when we look at the statistics that you cited about the previous presidential elections and looked at a map, there was

only one state out of the previous five elections, the democrats had won four times. and there were three or four others that had split 3-2 and we basically decided that we had to talk to people who go to work every day. the forgotten middle class. and we thought the traditional progressive democratic principles, but furthered with new ideas, modern ways, would be the way that you could actually get people to start voting for us again. but a key element of that was that people wouldn't even listen to us and we had to show we were different, we were different very quickly in five ways. one, we promoted economic growth and not just redistribution. second, we grounded our policies and mainstream, work, family responsibility.

third, we had a new ethic which said it wasn't like a lot of people perceive the democrats, something for nothing or as the republicans, every man for himself. there was this concept of opportunity and responsibility going together. concept of reciprocity. you got something from your country and had the opportunity to give something back. fourth, we tried to get beyond the isolationist image of the democratic party with sort of a reconnecting with truman, wilson, and timely we believed an activist government, one that didn't have to be bureaucratic. we tried to redefine the message and it was evident that we were different. >> president clinton adopted

arguments and policy ideas from the d.l.c. model that al talked about but he went beyond them in certain ways, the way he talked about the economy and middle-class families. how did the experience in arkansas shape his message and agenda in 1992. >> it was from the time arkansas first started to hear about bill clinton, from the first time he first ran for office he was talking about the potential and what we needed to do as the residents of arkansas to be better and truly to have an opportunity to experience the greatest potential. fast forward onto the 1992 campaign, it was the same kind of message. i think all of us -- you got the

sense that government has a responsibility, but, you, too, have a responsibility. and i think that was one of the real changes, so to speak, that we started to see in that campaign. it was the beginning of somebody saying i'm here to work with you. you think about the putting people first. and those things resonated with folks. and just like everything else, talking about giving you hope and making you feel that you can make a difference and you didn't have to be ashamed of your government. so i think that was the beginning. >> vernon, another aspect of the backdrop there was an element of tough love toward the party, towards his own party in the message in 1991 and 1992, maybe more amplified in other points. but certainly in one moment in

the campaign, d.l.c. speech in cleveland in 1991, he said, quote, too many of the people that used to vote for us have not trusted us in national elections, to defend our national interests abroad and put their values in our social policies at homes and take their tax money and spend it with discipline. pretty tough words about your own party. i'm interested in your thoughts about why was the party ready -- enough in the party ready for that message by 1992 for him to be able to win the nomination even while offering a stern critique where the party had been in the past decade? >> the party was lost at sea. the party didn't have much leadership. and bill clinton came in 1991 and he was for the democratic party what rosa parks was to the civil rights movement. he was to the democratic party

what the students at february 1, 1960 >> to the civil rights movement. he was to the civil rights movement what martin luther king brought to the movement. it was different, fresh, it was young. it was also experience. he had been governor a long time. and it was renaissance time in the democratic party and a lot of the older democrats had to be drove around, had to be converted, had to be convinced and here we are celebrating. [applause] >> you know by the time you get to the announcement speech, you

had to synthesize and when you read the speech today, there are a lot of notes that are familiar to democrats about expanding opportunity and economic fairness and also some new notes about resip ro call responsibility and marrying opportunity and responsibility and he talked about the process of that kind -- that speech, that landmark moment in the campaign and to what extent there was a pull or tug about how far you went in a traditional direction versus how far you wept in kind of challenging the party direction. >> one of the things in that period of time you need to remember is that bill clinton had been on the front lines for 10 years. in educational reform, in welfare reform. he had been on the front lines doing the hard work in a tough state, by the way. so that he had a better, kind of

understanding of how to communicate this new approach for democrats and how to communicate opportunity, but also responsibility and a sense of community that we need to restore to the country. i think it was based on his terrific experience in arkansas, his personal values and what he brought to the campaign. and the other thing which was very different for democrats, he is a hell of a good communicator. he had a message and understood the issues. he had the experience, like vernon said, but also had the ability to communicate. and the speech and reaction he had at the d.l.c., that was the first trial run of the message, was phenomenal. it was an amazing speech. and it's as relevant today and the speech he gave on the old state house lawn in 1991 is as relevant today in terms of the issues, the approach for democrats and the approach for

the country, as it was then. [applause] >> james, we will talk about the general election and some of the innovations you pursued, but let me ask you about the primary, because it was very different than what you and certainly most people expected and most people were gearing up for this ideological, generational battle with mario cuomo and clinton running as the sentist, new generation, new democrat. your main rival turned out to be paul tsongas, who ran clinton mostly fl the center in many ways. how much did that scramble our calculations and change your approach to the way he presented himself to the electorate? >> you have to go back and look at events right before the new

hampshire primary. that is a scramble for paul tsongas. [laughter] >> one of the things and anybody involved in the presidential campaign, everybody talks about the general. the general is easy. you have airplanes and staff and several phones and all of that stuff and stay in one place. the primary, you are always going. like harry thompson's airplane. sitting in there packed going to new hampshire in a four-hour flight and the freezing cold and you would have staff meetings at 2:00 in the morning. one thing that struck me was the unbelievable fatigue. the other thing is, you -- you

have no idea of like the things that president clinton could do in a campaign. if it was arsen yeoh hall, he could do it. if it was "meet the press," he could do it. very seldom where you would have the confidence and say it's going to be ok, sort of do it. [applause] >> even the week before new hampshire, i have never seen, if you look at the -- the >> so many hours. >> if you look at the polling the week before new hampshire, i never seen a human being perform to the standard that he performed from monday -- that final eight days, town hall in new hampshire, and it was one after another after another and that was the only way -- and by the way, even that night, we actually new hampshire.

president clinton was phoning chell sea clinton with the good news. we lost that one. it was so funny, but we ended up in new orleans after all of that and that was the head shirt "today show" and i couldn't go anymore. collapsed. that's the thing about primaries. they are harder than generals. they really are and so much more intense. you just hate everybody and you want to -- [laughter] >> i hate them. remember the tirade in the fundraiser in baltimore? [laughter]

>> there is something we should never forget about the new hampshire defeat and that is, they came in late that night and nobody was talking. everybody was quiet. you may remember this. and somebody asked the question, governor, what do we do now? and the governor said, take me to the people. that was his response the night of the defeat in new hampshire. he said, take me to the people. he didn't say call the "times," "journal" or the networks, he said take me to the people because he understood where democracy ultimately resides. and it's not in the editorial pages of "the post," "the

times." he went to georgia and the rest is history. >> one of the things i was going to go back to remind folks is that we went into new hampshire with a lot of good research from stan greenberg but took bill clinton's message and his experience and we took it into focus groups in new hampshire. this is actually before the announcement speech, and democrats in those focus groups said, thank goodness, this is what we have been waiting for. the response was amazing. and then to go to your point, people forget that the first spot of the campaign was a 60-specked spot and people said -- 60-second spot and bill clinton talking about his message and plan for america and

wept from 15% in the polls in 10 days to 35%. and it was from 35% that we had problems and then came back down. but thank god, given the message and research we had done and greenberg did a fantastic job, we had a message from the announcement speech to new hampshire that was so welcomed by democrats. it was new responsibility, welfare reform, cops on the street. >> let me go to don because that positive response in the focus group was one thing. the one thing of linking up and the way he talked about responsibility and was not in crime and not uniformly cheered. in 1991 in a speech at cleveland, jesse jackson was leading a counterprotest and there was a point earlier in the campaign where doug wilder was suggesting that bill clinton ought to start talking about

welfare after david duke did so well in louisiana. he always talked about reconciliation and it was popular with african-american voters. it wasn't like it was welcomed by everyone in the party. >> i saw it as a jourmist at the time. i was an -- journalist at the time. "u.s. news and world report", and i was covering part of the campaign. and my kids like to tease me and say, it was 17 years ago right now this happened. it was exactly 20 years ago today, sounds like the beatles, 20 years ago that i closed the first article that i ever wrote about bill clinton and go into the magazine the week he was announcing his candidacy down here. and i spent an extended period of time with him on a flight from washington to memphis

because you couldn't fly directly to little rock and pretty much can't now -- [laughter] >> and i don't know if he remembers that we hit bad weather around memphis and couldn't land. i got to spend three hours with him in the air instead of 1 1/2 hours and i do remember this, the governor was meeting mrs. clinton in memphis where they would be flying back to little rock because their daughter was going to a boy-girl dance and they wanted to get home in time. but we spent an extended period of time and there were two things to me as a journalist came through that were very different. and i covered the 19 8 presidential -- 1998 presidential campaign. two months later, when they put me on the plane, that candidate was out of the race.

but what i noticed was -- and i still have the transcript, mr. president, and i still have your ticket for your seat, which if you want it back for refund purposes, i can give it to you, but there were two things that came through loud and clear and that's the way the media covered him during that campaign. it all started with ideas. and as general and vague that may sound, that was unusual and had not had the ideas hyped policy and the work coming out of the d.l.c. but the second which relates to your point, ron, is this, it came out of this personal narrative and the story of his life in arkansas that went back to hope, but it was so clear that this was a person who was genuinely, not artificially or manufactured way connect todd a

place and real people. he cared deeply about and as you probed and scratched, they cared deeply about him and part of that was the african-american community and he could say things about welfare and say things about crime that most democratic politicians from places you would have imagined that could say these things were not in a position to do. and it wasn't seen as an attack, but seen as how do we come together to solve these challenges together. >> let me ask you and maybe frank and james can jump in to continue on the point that don raised. there was one of the memorable moments and one was in michigan during the michigan primary when at the suggestion of stan greenberg and dan ross, the president went to a

african-american church and gave a speech on opportunity and responsibility and delivered the same speech the next day at a community college and it was famous as the wellspring of the blue collar white democrats who became disaaffected from the party. that was symbolic and arguing that there was a common message that could appeal to all sides on the racial divide. talk about that finding the language to speak to whites and african americans on the same terms. >> jack rosen thal who was editor of the new york kimes that we could find a candidate -- editor of the "new york times" who could talk to both, like bobby kennedy. and i believe it was the day after the day of the illinois primary where he and in an

editorial acknowledged that we had done just that. but vernon made an important point. governor clinton always went to the people. when he started as chairman of the d.l.c., we laid out our philosophy. and historians, go to the speech he gave at hyde park in 2000 and see how every principle that we outlined led to policies because of the speech he gave in hyde park which showed everything he did as president came from those principles, something is the kind of deep belief that is important for the presidency. but the other thing, we went around and we were in 25 states, -- we weren't doing political fundraising. meeting with small groups of people and talking about the ideas that came to define the

campaign. so we had a very good feeling of how people would respond and also they helped us shape those ideas. but it always struck me whether we were in california or montana or south dakota, wherever we were, if president clinton could go to two groups that were absolutely 180 degrees opposed on a single idea, something like charter schools, for example, he would give the same speech to both groups word for word and both of them would come out saying, you know, i may not agree with everything but this guy is on the right side of the issue. >> one of the things is that bill clinton -- i also grew up in the segregated south, and we understood, i think it took

someone from that experience to bridge the gap between working class whites and african americans. and in the announcement speech he talked about, i know what they want to do. they want us staring across the divide instead of turning to the people who are responsible because we don't have jobs for blacks, whites and working people in this country and that's what he wanted to do. he understood it because he lived it and how do you bring that coalition together? that was growing up in the south. >> that's important to give credit to bill clinton. that was bubbling up across the south during that period among democrats who figured out in the aftermath of desegregation how to get back in the game. because republicans had been taking over. it was democrats who realized that there were crosscutting

issues, like education, which were the right things to do also, that understood they could bring people together rather than divide them. >> in the long run, the coalition ended up being more minorities and upper middle class or college-educated whites than blue collar whites. lottie. >> if you talk about african americans, one of the things that related so well because they could feel his genuineness. they knew when clinton talked to them, he was genuine. not someone who read a script the night before and then tried to spell it out for them. they knew that. and vernon talked about the democratic party and its leadership, i think we must recognize the fact that even the democratic party nationally was undergoing a change. ron brown had been elected in

1989, and that was a change occurring, because ron and paul, the political director, had started that season off -- [applause] >> and they were going across the country to democrats and there was just know hope showing them how they could win. so i think you take that, coupled with all of the clintonites, arkansas travelers to carol will ises buffalo group, all of this who started in 1991, going across this country saying, you know, my governor may run for president. will you take a look at him. and we went into all kinds of places doing that. so i think -- that was the first campaign, i think, on a national level that started all facets

and gave value and gave value to all facets and all groups because of bill clinton and because of what he did. >> even with the sharpening of his message and success in the primary against tsongas. there was polling in late spring or early summer that had bill clinton trailing president bush and ross perot. i remember in california among voters in the democratic primary, perot was running pretty well. but talk about where you ended up in the primary and the process that you went through to re-introduce governor clinton to the country, culminating in the convention speech. >> i'm the only person here that actually had to travel north to get to little rock. [laughter]

>> i like to point that out. >> can we go back to one thing. something has to be cleared up, and that is there is an impression that all democrats who grew up in a segregated society got the message, that's not true. bill clinton got it, but there are a lot of them who did not get it and do not have it now. [applause] >> what happened was is that -- i think it was, people were saying in may of 1992 that there was some chance you had to reach a certain threshold to qualify for matching funds and it was actually talk that we would not reach that threshold. it was like 30% or something like. it was serious talk. front-page story on the "new

york times" saying democrats on the hill were looking for some alternative, although it looked like that bill clinton had the nomination. all of those things were going on in may of that year. stan and i went in and said, look, we're going to get the nomination. we knew that. ron brown sent paul down here and wanted to know with certainty that we were going to get it because of the representational delegation. and it was referred to as the manhattan project, where we went and did -- i don't know how many and everything and what we found out is that people really saw that this is an extraordinary talented person and once were able to connect the biography.

who is this guy? he has all of these things to say that we kind of gee with. he looks like -- a lot of things rolling around there. who is the real bill clinton. and then harry and mappedy all of those and remember the man -- that whole thing connected. . . a thought -- child of privilege. >> they did not know. they went to the school. they had to reintroduce what they thought his values were. >> james said that that culminated in the convention speech. that he would defend the middle class as a product of the

middle-class. it was rooted in the arkansas experience and how he would ascend and help others ascend. >> he clearly went back to the new democrat reforms. when you have a primary in a state like new york, it sort of defines you as opposed to you defining it. >> he literally and figuratively may have lost his voice. >> a couple of things that i thought were important, along with others, is that when he picked his vice presidential candidate, he really did not balance the ticket. he made it clear with a message campaign.

one of the things that we cannot lose is how message oriented this campaign was. we were telling people that we were different. by picking out gore to be president, they said it would be a changing of the guard. but it was part of the message we were trying to deliver. a labor organization and a speech reinventing government. we did not do what every other democratic candidate did. we made that the platform. we were determined to run on our own platform. >> in addition to that, on the

did -- on november 3, lots of these folks, when the campaign started most of the movers and shakers did not want to have anything to do with practically every state, as james talked about, in practically every state it was a true grass-roots. and these were not the movers and shakers of the scene in these communities. they believed in him and his message and really got out there. that was one of the turning points. that was one of the true meanings of grassroots.

the clintons had the ability to empower. people have the ability to do things that you never knew that they were doing, but they were doing it because of the power they have from the campaign. that campaign will not stay in arkansas. two things. number one, no one was fired, they just kept hiring. and we have more lairs in the next campaign than any i have ever known. more people were empowered. a lot of good people came later. they did not want to moved to little rock, arkansas. >> you talk a lot about message

and agenda, but in many ways the most distinctive marks were the tactics and things that have now become commonplace. when he went on arsenio hall, there was a great debate on that been demeaning. even doing a town hall meeting on a morning show seemed like a big step. talk about running for president with the jeffersons. talk about that side of it. did you feel that you had to try new things? >> that was before the cell phone.

>> one thing that you have to go back and understand is that the steering impression that the dukakis campaign made, you cannot imagine how many things were, to some extent, governed by that. coping with those things that happened, you are right. how many war rooms have there been since 1990? companies with war rooms? it was hillary who came up with the term. how many times, if you will "it

is the blank, stupid." what will you get? president obama went on a bus tour. those have become a part of the culture. there is a change in all of that. the one thing where they sort of knew it was going to work, when they came to the rock, there was a visual of the governor's mansion. as soon as you started, you kind of new. you cannot imagine the new guard. kind of everyone knew it.

but to get a lot of the things that we did also seen so lot, the news cycle seemed so compressed. everyone would kind of wait for someone to write a column or put an interpretation of the debate. we had it unbelievably, as we were talking about. some of the most aggressively talented people in journalism were covering that every kind of day. it was a pretty amazing time. i do think that the campaign was a cultural transformation.

>> certainly, the bush campaign reprise many of the arguments that worked effectively over the previous 24 years. tax-and-spend liberals. foreign policy. but because there was so much that did not prove effective, what was different? did they not give a stronger line of defense? >> in my view, it gave him not just a great defense, but a great offense. they were leading the pack. the other things that we have to remember, we were in a completely new landscape. many new ideas, these were new

perspectives to lift up our heads. we saw the things that we have been facing all these years with all of the larger national security considerations. in the clinton presidency, starting in the campaign, bill clinton systematically took off the table what republicans and democrats had used to divide forces. welfare reform, crime, and not to sound like pollyanna, but to raise the force in american politics that it had been for the past century.

>> what is the narrative against governor clinton? his whole life was plotting and scheming to vance himself in politics. he had signature oppositions to the vietnam war. , that was the thing that you did. an excellent source of political consulting back then. >> i am interested, was there a moment where you thought of this could really happen? that this campaign could elect the president? >> this might sound self- serving, but i came to little

rock in 1973. the president and hillary came to that dinner and was the first time that i met them. i told my wife of the time that i had just met a president of the united states. i knew it and i was right. he left law school and came home. i left law school and came home. he came back to the south to do something about race. i went back to atlanta to do something about race. we have been connected ever since. >> anyone else?

[applause] 1992, when was the moment that you thought this could work. >> mine was before 1992. we did that celebrity out word bond deal in the fall of september of 1991, right before the announcement. about ready to take over "the new york times," and i told him that the next president would be bill clinton. i was convinced that this man would be president. i had a few doubts in may, but i knew he would be president in 1991.

>> i came up and introduced myself. these folks really have a message and know how to communicate. that was the key difference. they had these core values and beliefs. it was clear that more than any other democrat, this was someone who understood how to connect to people. the key turning point was doing town meetings and getting away from the press corps that had been beating the hell out of us. those real people give you strength, but this is what the message spelled. >> it is not like i am mimicking vernon, if you do not mind, but

i describe what i knew he would be president and it was that trip that we took in early september, 1991. we landed and he and hillary were here and flew back to washington that night. i went to a dinner party in georgetown. there were journalists that were very cynical. a man who worked on the white house staff of the bush administration, my wife was there, other people, and i said that i was absolutely certain the i had just spent the day with the president of the united states. my wife was nice to me. everyone else in the world said the we were out of our mind. this was someone who showed by

virtue of their investments that they were committed to people. they have gone to law school of north and did not go home. i became a media lawyer in new york and went on to be a journalist. i knew what they had given up to do when i thought was the most important thing in the world. >> we make him out to be this wonderful leader for arkansas, and he was. but i also remember his performance at the education summit in charlotte for. clinton literally tightened that -- captured that education reform movement. >> there was another speed bump in the fall. back in the race, it was a surprise in the audience that

seemingly disqualified themselves in the summer. suddenly you are looking at a race that at one. was three points or four points, as it went up. talk about that and what your interpretation was. why did ross perot find an audience? what did it mean for you? >> and lot of campaigns, we were not optimistic about much. we thought was the worst thing that happened. 6:30, getting the gold book, what ever was. i just would not allow myself to

think of it. the downside, i would not allow anyone to think of that. the convention was when the thing broke. there is a real reasoning behind that. people saw something talented where once they were able to connect to be was where he was from, the agenda and the biography. >> consistent with what i believe about bill clinton, in

1991 i took bill clinton to the build a bird -- builder word -- buildaberg meetings. two other u.s. politicians there were doug wilder and senators dianne feinstein. at that meeting, what do you do and how do you do it? they want to know who this guy is and where arkansas is. >> i said to the europeans that he is going to be the next president of the united states. that he is a republican for

bush. so, he won. the steering committee came to washington in january. i said, mr. president, they are here. [laughter] they came to the four seasons hotel. the europeans felt like they owned him because they met him when he was completely unknown. >> i want to ask one final thing. thinking about a lasting impact of this campaign and agenda coalition, republicans have won five of the six elections in 1968 to 1998. democrats have won the popular vote in four of the past five elections. on the other hand, some of the problems that were there when

they arrive there still there. in 2010 the democratic vote amongst whites ran down to the lowest level ever. whichthe 1990's in politics needed to be the rationalized, there were enormous gaps. you look at the whole ledger. what was the lasting impact of this agenda and message in reshaping the coalition? as it evolved since president clinton's time? >> everything about -- there are so many lasting impact. vernon is talking about the european leaders. in the 1980's and in every european country, there were conservative government's starting with tony blair and the

new labor. a formula that bill clinton developed to change the face of politics. i think that there are probably some political things where the party had to work its way through it again. there are a lot of other things that are very important. no one questions a lot of the ideas that got us through and caused us so much grief. i do not see people wanting to repeal welfare reform. the whole idea of americorps and the national service, schools as the central element of the president obama of reform for education, and i think most importantly that i do think --

there are always some back sliders, because we are a coalition party. we are not like to republicans, where everyone is exactly the same. the understanding that if we are going to be a successful party, you will create jobs for ordinary people. that may seem like a simple thing, but it was not in 1991. >> that seems like a good summary. thank you for listening. i think the president would like to make some final remarks? let's first of all, i want to thank the panelists. i thought they were great. thank you for taking me down memory lane. the truth is, today -- the day

that i declare for president, my mother was the only person. undecided, maybe. there are a couple points of light to make. based on what they said. first of all, we could not win the election in new hampshire, but we could have lost that. new hampshire work for me. it was enough light here. so many of our others were great. i just want to say that since we are here in little rock, it would be a big mistake to -- here's what the deal was. the republicans thought i was the only person with a theoretical chance to win.

so, they knew they could not beat me on the issues. they decided to go after me. and so i went up to 35 and i was sitting down to single digits. greenberg said the next time i had a strong foot on the break, they wanted single-digit. and 18 was not enough. hundreds of people came from arkansas spontaneously. literally, it was almost not organized. i was told that his employer had to go and he could not afford to fly, so he drove straight through. the he said you had to let me talk about this. 600 people from arkansas taking out a full-page ad with their phone numbers saying to call us collect and do not believe what

they're telling you. in new hampshire takes this seriously. thousands and thousands of people call these other people in arkansas collect. and then, with our volunteers that were already there, jason remembers this. we bagged 100,0001992 equivalent eight of max or something i do not know. vhs. we put them on the doors of the voters that right? five. so, we came back and said that we stopped going down at some point below 28%.

the rest is history. i am very grateful to the people of the state. [applause] the second thing is that having in narrative is very important. if one side does and the other does not, it is not a good deal be according the policy, it would be about leaving and this man right here is responsible for that theme song. stand up. a little-known fact in american history.

when he was practically an infant, i flew to california to give a speech that was not particularly political. he said that this song to be my theme song if i ever run for president. i had never met him before. he was like 12 years old. true story. [laughter] he had a tape. we had take that. this is the song on the tape deck and it says to not stop thinking about tomorrow. i looked at him and said -- you were not born when that was made. [laughter] actually, he was 30 years old. the minute that i listen to it for 30 seconds, i knew that he was right. and if you were a part of that campaign, you should thank him. he had a lot to do with it.

you all talked about race. i wanted to come back to the narrative, but one of the things that always mystified me, every time i looked back at something i said in 1974 or 1976 was how the media said that i did not believe anything and that i was slick, when they're really saying i was not serious about this. we know how we want to talk about politics. conservatives are people of the b-2 despise the government and pay taxes. you are confusing us and therefore have no soul, no

conscious, no nothing. specially it did no work with african americans, who had a tendency with the adjectives that we can i use on c-span. any group of workers that has been worked over, it is not rocket science. obeying outside sources for years, something that he never stops telling me, i spent three years of that practicing in the state. 20% of my professional staff and

the attorney general's office in america that had the highest percentage of african-american lawyers, when they went after me in the boardrooms of the of the liberal newspapers, i told them that 15 years ago when i was a kick attorney-general and continue to do this, i had a higher percentage of african- american professionals in my office than you do today. when you catch up to me, you tell me how that you did not believe in me. [applause] the media was coming to grips with the problem that they have now. this is not a criticism. i am expressing empathy. it is tough to run these tv shows today. the economics of newspapers are horrible. they are horrible.

the economics of magazines are horrible. that is why you see these blurring of the news, commentary, and entertainment. if you are like me and our semi-retired, you do not have to watch the news at all. you can watch sports or something. this is difficult. that is what they look for shorthand boxes to put people in. when president kennedy was in office, the average president on the news spoke for 30 seconds. now it is down to six or eight? anyway, i wanted to thank everyone. including those that rode it all the way to the cabinet.

ron brown is really a democrat in his heart of hearts. not a week goes by that i do not think of him and his presence. he was a wonderful man. i love him. the idea of having an idea, that is the other thing i was going to say. since people were hurting so bad, they were starved for ideas. i put out this booklet, they said it was to policy-wonky. paul tsongas, the men that beat me in a hampshire, we had 60% of the vote in the field because we were the only person that said that this was what you're going to do. we were driving up to claremont

one night and i said how many people do we have to have to avoid humiliation? it was a very primitive bulletin and flyer. i said -- what is the grand success? we had showed up without a fire marshal coming through the door. just because that was what we were going to do. very important for people to remember, when they hire you to be president, people understand it is a job and they want to know what you're going to do. his detailed plan, it did not heard anything that he was 5 miles from the border of new hampshire. they made fun of it saying that we were second. i said -- that is right. let's see how he does in memphis.

where 81% of the people voted for me. but i like him, because he said what he was for. it is important. important not to forget. it is very important not to get caught up in all of this labeling. it is important to take a back to the people they are so much better at narrative than they are. of course, it is easier to have a narrative if the story is always the same. government is evil, taxes are bad. still, give it to them, they're good at it. part of the narrative was that there were saved from their cells by the election of a republican congress that forced me on to welfare reform and made

the balanced budget possible. a lot of these folks in his profession keep saying this. they are all looking at relevant facts. [laughter] fact number one, the budget was 90% balance before the balanced budget act was passed. it is not true that only democrats voted for the budget. they carry the load. fact no. 2, when it comes to welfare reform, the first new democrat was bobby kennedy. if he had not been killed, the whole world would have known this. my second new democrat on welfare reform was jimmy carter. it was their right to start welfare reform experiments.

they gave it to us. number three, before welfare reform bills passed, donna and i had given 43 of the 50 states implementation of welfare reform before there was a bill. but i kept reading how this was a republican idea. that president obama -- that president reagan had a good story about the welfare queen that did not exist. we need a coherent narrative. [applause] it is the only thing i am willing to say about the current circumstances.

i thought the president did the right thing in attempting to jump-start the economy now. i think he did the right thing in telling the american people that we would never balance the budget at this rate of economic growth. new would have to have spending cuts, new revenue, and economic growth. my last budget was another surplus budget. it is because this parking lot of growth. you have to have all three things. i think it is really important for those of us who look back of that time to remember what they said. the economy was not as bad then as it is now, but it was pretty bad. we kept slipping into recession.

we went to see a bunch of the people that were hurting. the number one word of effective politics, have a simple narrative. the government is always the problem. there is no such thing as a good tax or a bad tax, a good program cut or a bad program cut. that,'re going to fight your counter has to be rooted in the lives of other people. so, they made that happen. one thing that i would be remiss if i did not do this, i have deep gratitude for every one of these people. i have to tell you, we were looking at total meltdown about one week before new hampshire. james carville, he likes to act

crazy because it helps in to get speaking gigs. he figures that if he goes around acting like he needs a rabies shot, more and more people will want to see him. but we were alone, remember? just a handful of us in at the motel room? they were saying that i was dead and all the commentators said that i should withdraw. james carville said that he had served in an united states marines -- in the united states marines and that he came from louisiana. but he liked people that served the country in combat. he said unlike these people the said bill clinton is dead, i have read his letter. i believe that we should take out a full-page advertisement in the manchester union believed --

manchester union lit -- manchester union leader. he said not to let people define this. but he was a kid. that he said things that he would say different today, but he loved his country and had a good reason to do with. he said that if he felt that way, we could still win this thing and we should go back to work. he deserves a lot of credit for that. he stood alone in that room and said that. [applause] that is my thing. we always needed a narrative to be people-centered and specifics of the people knew what we would be doing. we needed to understand that one of the things that tended to tilt things for the republican narrative was that our country was born out of a suspicion of government. government was not accountable to us.

when the tea party started out, at least they were against on accountable behavior from top to bottom. then it more into something different. you have to tell people that you understand it is a privilege and responsibility to spend their tax money. but there are some things we have to do together. that is the purpose of government, to do the things we have to do together that we cannot do on our own. believing in shared prosperity and response ability, sharing membership in the community being better than on our own. if we can make that choice credible, than our candidates, starting with the president, and our principles will be financed. we also have to always realize

that we might be wrong about something. that also was a good thing. one group, once you show your own strength, if they say they might be wrong about a particular thing, and the other group never does, the average person thinks more of the honest side than the proud side. i do not think that any of that has changed very much. since they read the speech a lot of it was today. again, i thank all of these people for what they did all of those years ago. thank you to the people of arkansas, without whom i like we would not have survived in new hampshire. when i was criticized, i read it seriously. i consider it to be looking not

at what you said through a smoke screen, but through what you did. that is all that anyone should ever want from the press. they show us our faults. we always played it straight. i am honored by your presence here today. it was great. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] cable satellite corp. 2011]