Bill Clinton: “Well, for one thing, I think that--two of the things I mentioned in my speech. I think that the things that candidates…”

“Well, for one thing, I think that--two of the things I mentioned in my speech. I think that the things that candidates all over the country and Members of Congress are trumpeting, the people supporting me today, were directly out of decisions that were made in '93 and '94 that were unpopular then that have been proved right now. And the two that I mentioned specifically are the economic program and the crime bill. You heard me say, I remember very well when Senator Gramm said, ``If you pass this economic program, it's just going to be a terrible thing. It's going to have a big recession, and everybody's income will go down. It'll be awful.'' And of course the results are just the opposite. But I think that they were effective in attacking that. I think the second thing is, in the crime bill, they--in a lot of rural places that had a lot of Democratic voters but were real conservative voters, like east Texas, there was an effective attack on the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban that, you know, this was somehow going to lead to the impairment of hunters' and sports men and women's rights. And of course, now we know it didn't do it, but it did help to lower the crime rate. So I think that's dramatically different. Then, of course, we were just in the teeth--just in the immediate aftermath of the defeat of the health care bill, where a vast amount of money had been spent to try to convince people that the Government was trying to take over health care. And I think now, when we went back to a step-by-step reform process, taking various elements that were in our original bill--like the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill that says you can't lose your health insurance if you change jobs or someone in your family gets sick, or the bill I signed yesterday, no more drive-by deliveries and a partial mental health insurance coverage included, and then the spina bifida benefits to Vietnam veterans with children--those things, they show that we're making progress on health care. Another very important provision we passed that was a part of our original bill was increasing the deductibility, tax deductibility of health insurance premiums that self-employed people have to buy. So I think now when people see we're making progress in health care, we're going to do it step by step instead of trying to do it all at one time, so everyone can see that the Government's not trying to take over health care, we're just trying to create the conditions in which we can, if you will, enable the American people to fill in the blanks, to take these gaps, these terrible gaps and problems out of our system. So I think the country is better off. A lot of those decisions look better in retrospect than they did in '94 because they've brought good results. And I also think that the things we've been doing in the last 2 years to build on that, to show how this country can meet its challenges and protect its values, have been very helpful as well. So that's why I think it's changed. But it was not good here in '94. I think it's better here in '96. And the only thing I can ask the people of Texas to do is to look at the evidence, look at the record, listen to the alternatives, and make up their own mind.”