Bill Clinton: “Mr. Mayor, Mrs. Dinkins, Senator Moynihan, Governor and Mrs. Cuomo, distinguished leaders of this magnificent city…”

“Mr. Mayor, Mrs. Dinkins, Senator Moynihan, Governor and Mrs. Cuomo, distinguished leaders of this magnificent city, other distinguished head table guests. You know, when I do a speech, because sometimes, as you will remember, I'm a little long-winded--[laughter]-- my acute advisers always say, ``Now, Mr. President, imagine what you want the headline to be.'' What is the headline? I think I've already heard the headline. The headline is the Mayor would very much like to have his job for 4 more years, and we ought to give it to him. I always love to come to New York, but I certainly would have come here tonight just to listen to my Senate Finance Committee chair and your brilliant Governor and the Mayor give these speeches. And now I feel like I did the night I gave my first speech in public life, in January 1977, at the Pine Bluff Rotary banquet. It started at 6:30. There were 500 people there. Everybody in the whole place was introduced except three people; they went home mad, kind of like Dave did. And I got introduced at a quarter to 10, and the guy that was introducing me was the only person in the crowd more nervous than I was. And so everybody got awards and the whole deal had gone on, and the first words out of his mouth were, ``You know, we could stop here and have had a very nice evening.'' [Laughter] And that's kind of how I feel. It is wonderful to be back in New York, wonderful to be here with all of you, and wonderful to be here on behalf of Mayor Dinkins. I do want to thank publicly in this city, I think for the first time I've had a chance to do it, Mario Cuomo for giving the finest speech at the 1992 Democratic Convention nominating me for President. And I want to thank---- [At this point, there was a disturbance in the audience.]”