Bill Clinton: “I could have made it closer, maybe. [Laughter] I don't know. I'm concerned about it, you know, and there are all kinds…”

“I could have made it closer, maybe. [Laughter] I don't know. I'm concerned about it, you know, and there are all kinds of--there are explanations you read which may be reassuring, like, ``Well, when times are pretty good people maybe not vote;'' and explanations you read which are discouraging, ``The more the negative ads are, the lower the turnout is.'' And I saw a very disturbing--one of you on the television--I saw a series the other night about how local campaigns were now becoming also dominated by negative ads. Let me make a suggestion and say that I do not know the answer to it. I was elated at the enormous turnout in 1992. I felt good about it. But we had signals that this election would be a lower turnout election quite a long while before we had the turnout. And the first indication I had for sure was when the viewership of the debates was so much lower than it was the year before. And you know, we got all our folks together and I said, ``We're going to have a hard time getting our folks to the polls, and we need to really work on this.'' So let me just throw it back to you and say that I would welcome any analysis anyone has about what we can do to get voting up. I strongly supported motor voter and other attempts to increase the registration base, thinking that that would increase the turnout. We have dramatically increased the number of people who are registered; there's been a huge increase in registration in the last 4 years. And I'm disappointed it wasn't accompanied by an increase in voting. If you've got any more ideas--I saw Senator Feinstein on television saying that if we had a uniform poll closing, that that would increase turnout in the Western States. I wish I had a good opinion on it, but I'm open to doing something that will increase it if you all have any good ideas. Yes. Press Secretary Mike McCurry. Last question, please.”