Bill Clinton: “Well, I'm going to try to do what we haven't done yet. I'm going to try to get the Congress to pass welfare reform. I'm…”

“Well, I'm going to try to do what we haven't done yet. I'm going to try to get the Congress to pass welfare reform. I'm going to take another run at health care. We've got to find a way to protect the health insurance of people; a million more Americans lost it last year. I'm going to take another run at campaign finance reform and at lobbying reform and at some of the environmental measures that we need so badly. But the most important thing I've got to do is to figure out a way to communicate with the American people better. I mean, all the evidence is that the American people basically do not know, for example, that the last 2 years our administration was only the third one since World War II in which Congress approved more than 80 percent of the measures that I recommended, that it included family and medical leave for working families and tax credits for working families with children who are just above the poverty line and immunization of all children under 2 by 1996 and an expansion of Head Start and a big expansion of more affordable college loans for middle class families; that if they did know these things they would have a totally different attitude. So, I really liked the Newsweek poll--focus group--because it showed what I think, which is that the American people, I think, if they knew what I had done and if they knew what we have achieved and if they knew where we were going, I think they'd feel better. I have to do a better job of finding a way to communicate directly with people in an atmosphere which is overwhelmingly dominated by controversy, conflict, failure, combative communication, and just talk straight to the folks. I've given a lot of thought to it; it's a great challenge. But in a democracy, even if you do something, if people don't know it, it doesn't quite register until they begin personally to benefit. Ms. Stern. Mr. President, the campaign trail is beckoning, I'm sure. And thank you for joining us on WBZ News Radio here in Boston.”