Bill Clinton: “Thank you, Jim. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and all the people who are watching. One thing I'd like to say is I…”

“Thank you, Jim. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and all the people who are watching. One thing I'd like to say is I agree with what Senator Dole said. It's a remarkable thing in a country like ours that a man who grew up in Russell, Kansas, and one who was born to a widowed mother in Hope, Arkansas, could wind up running for President, could have a chance to serve as President. So the first thing I want to say is thank you for giving me the chance to be President. This election is about two different visions about how we should go into the 21st century. Would we be better off--as I believe--working together to give each other the tools we need to make the most of our God-given potential, or are we better off saying, ``You're on your own''? Would we be better off building that bridge to the future together so we can all walk across it, or saying, ``You can get across yourself''? If you don't leave this room with anything else tonight and if the people watching us don't leave with anything else, I hope you'll leave with this: This is a real important election. The world is changing dramatically in how we work and how we live, how we relate to each other--huge changes. And the decisions we make will have enormous practical consequences. So we've talked about our responsibilities tonight. I want to talk about your responsibility and your responsibility. Your responsibility is to show up on November 5th, because you're going to decide whether we're going to balance the budget now but protect Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment. You'll decide whether we're going to keep fighting crime with the Brady bill, the assault weapons, and finish putting those 100,000 police; whether we're going to move a million people from welfare to work; whether we're going to give our families more protection for their kids against drugs and tobacco and gangs and guns; whether we're going to give our children world-class education where every 8-year-old can read, every 12-year-old can log in on the Internet, every 18-year-old can go to college. If we do those things, we'll build that bridge to the 21st century, and the greatest country in history will be even greater. Thank you. Mr. Lehrer. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Mr. President. This concludes--this is the last of the three 1996 Presidential and Vice Presidential debates.”