Bill Clinton: “May I ask a question? May I ask you something before we get off, Mayor? These things always work like this. We could…”

“May I ask a question? May I ask you something before we get off, Mayor? These things always work like this. We could stay here till the cows come home to do this. And I love this. And you've been great. But I want to--[applause]--I want to say--wait a minute. I want to make two points, and then I'll answer the last question, whichever, whoever the Mayor designates to be the last question. The first is that one of the things I've been really proud of in the last month--it proved the election worked, it proved all the town meetings worked, it proved the Ross Perot charts worked, it proved the whole thing worked--is that the volume of our mail and telephone calls is running at historic highs in the White House. That means the American people--a lot of its people who disagree with me, a lot of its people who agree, a lot of its people who are just asking honest questions--but my point is, it means people believe maybe their Government can be made to work for them again and maybe we can be accountable again. So a lot of you have questions you haven't gotten answered today. I would encourage you to write to us. I have reorganized the White House Correspondence Office. I've tried to put a number of people there who really understand the issues that I believe in and the things that we care about. We're trying to minimize the number of just formal responses we give--unless people send us a form letter; that's different--but I mean people that really write us. So I would encourage you to do that. The second thing I want to do is to say that I want to encourage you to continue to hold me and everybody else accountable and ask the tough questions. I don't think it was all that easy for that young man to stand up there and ask the question he asked on abortion because he knew he had a different position than I did. And I was proud of him for doing that, and I think you should be, too. And believe me, none of us have all of the answers. This is a new and uncharted time. And I want to encourage you to continue to believe in your country and to participate in this. Hold our feet to the fire, but try to make it a constructive thing. This is an exciting time for this country and it's sort of a make-or-break time, I think, and I'm doing the best I can and I think you are, too. And if we keep doing that, I think the chances are we're going to come out okay. I think I can say for the other elected officials here, I'll bet you they're pretty proud of their constituents in Ohio after this town meeting. Who is last, Mayor? Who did you select, Mayor? Mayor Sulzer. Right over there, Mr. President. Education Reform”