Bill Clinton: “Well, first let me say I think the surveys all show that our prospects are looking up. But I think what happened was two…”

“Well, first let me say I think the surveys all show that our prospects are looking up. But I think what happened was two things. There is a lag time between when you accomplish something in Washington and when people feel it in their own lives. There are still a lot of voters who have jobs, but they're worried about whether they'll lose them or they'll lose their health care or will they ever get a raise. It's a tough, fast-changing global economy, and a lot of people feel personally insecure. There are also a lot of people who are worried about crime and social breakdown. The other big problem is, when Congress is meeting and the Republicans are trying to kill everything, delay everything, talk everything to death, all of the focus is on conflict, process, failure. The American people don't know what's happened. Now when the Congress has gone home for the last 2 or 3 weeks, you can sense a real movement out there. People sense that they've got a real fundamental choice here. If you look at Pennsylvania--you heard the quote there--we've had 86,000 new jobs in Pennsylvania. The economy is growing; the deficit is down. We've done things that the Congress had refused to address for years and years. We passed the family leave law to protect working people who have to take time off. We passed a law to expand Head Start, one to immunize children, one to give tax cuts for working families on modest incomes that have children in the home so they'll never be in poverty. We're making the Government work for ordinary people again. And we've expanded trade and promoted peace and security around the world. Russian missiles aren't pointing at Americans for the first time since the beginning of the nuclear age. So when you look at that record and then you look at this Republican contract which promises to take us back to the eighties and would promise everybody a tax cut, especially for wealthy people, spend more money on defense and Star Wars, balance the budget--they'll have to cut Social Security and Medicare and do it steeply to pay for it. I just don't think the American people want that, and I don't think the people of Pennsylvania do. Mr. Lancer. That is just my point, though. In recent polls--you keep talking about the recovery that's occurring, and I have no doubt that there is a recovery in certain parts of the country if they just bear that out. Here in the Northeast, however, there is no recovery; at least the perception is there is no recovery. There was a recent poll out by the Tarrence group that shows that only a third of Americans believe the claims of a recovery. My whole point to you, or my question to you is, why is it that this is the perception? It can't simply be because Republicans are trying to stonewall things in the Congress so there is gridlock?”