Bill Clinton: “Well, it's hard for me to know how much difference my personal lobbying made. I made dozens of phone calls. I finished…”

“Well, it's hard for me to know how much difference my personal lobbying made. I made dozens of phone calls. I finished my phone calls last night at midnight, and I started again this morning. And I continued up to the very end. To be candid, I never did know we were going to win. I don't think we ever knew for sure how this was going to come out. I had an instinct right at the beginning of the vote when I spoke with Congressman Carr. The hunters and sportsmen of this country and the National Rifle Association itself never had a better friend in the Congress than him. And he decided to vote for this measure because he thought it was the right thing to do. And after I hung up the phone--that was right at the beginning of the vote, I think--I said, ``You know, we just might pull this off.'' But I didn't know before then. Whitewater”