Bill Clinton: “Well, the Republicans tried for years to convince the American people that only one party had values. And…”

“Well, the Republicans tried for years to convince the American people that only one party had values. And unfortunately--I believe it was unfortunate--they were too often rewarded for that. But I never believed that only Republicans could stand up for the American family. I never believed that only Republicans could be tough on crime. I thought those were American issues. But if we were going to argue that they belonged to one party or another--I mean, here's a fact: The first bill I signed was the Family and Medical Leave Act. My predecessor, my Republican predecessor, vetoed it twice, and Senator Dole led the fight against it. Now, who is the more pro-family? I fought the crime bill through, which put 100,000 police on the street, banned assault weapons, and had tougher punishment programs and prevention programs for young people. The bitterest, I mean really, literally, bitterest opponent of the crime bill in the entire Congress was Senator Dole. Now, who is strong against crime? We've got 4 years of declining crime. So I didn't steal their values. On welfare reform, long before they ever passed a bill, 3 months into my Presidency I granted the first waiver to a State to try a welfare-to-work experiment. We now have 1.8 million fewer people on welfare than we did the day I took office-- before this welfare bill takes effect. So I didn't steal their values agenda. I believe they're American values, and I did something about it. And I think they're angry because they made so many votes for years just by talking about it and not doing anything about it. So we did something about it, and they're complaining about it. Ms. Soren. Are you afraid of being seen as sort of--are you afraid of your politics being perceived as sort of Republican-like, a less radical approach to their ideas?”