Bill Clinton: “Thank you. Thank you very much for that wonderful welcome. This is the first time we've all been together since the day…”

“Thank you. Thank you very much for that wonderful welcome. This is the first time we've all been together since the day after the Inauguration at the White House. What a happy day that was. But this is a happy day, too. And in some ways a more meaningful one because, thanks to you and with your help, we have begun to fulfill the promise of the long campaign of 1992 and the commitment of our party to change America for the better. I want to say a special word of thanks to my longtime friend David Wilhelm for all the work that he has done, even if he didn't have a top 10 list for me. After Al Gore went on David Letterman I had a top 10 list for him. I said, ``The top 10 reasons I'm glad Al Gore is Vice President: No. 10 is that he has educated me in enormous detail on matters of great importance and matters entirely trivial.'' [Laughter] ``And reasons nine through one are that he has a vote in the United States Senate.'' I told the Vice President that without blinking an eye, and he looked at me and he said, ``Yeah, and every time I vote I'm on the winning side.'' [Laughter] I want to--just think about that for a while--I want to thank Lottie Shackelford who has been my friend, as all of you know, for many years; your Vice Chair, Jim Brady, who when I was running for President was head of the State Chair's Association; my neighbor and friend, Kathy Vick, also from Louisiana. There is probably some monopoly rule they're violating, but they voted right in 1992.…”