Bill Clinton: “Well, I think that one big difference is the country is going to be in good shape instead of bad shape. And so they're…”

“Well, I think that one big difference is the country is going to be in good shape instead of bad shape. And so they're going to be--right now, unless something unforeseen happens, by next February we'll have the longest expansion in history, peacetime or wartime. We'll have a 26-year-low in crime rate, a 30-year-low in the welfare rolls, a 29-year-low in unemployment, first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years. We'll have--the social fabric of America will be mending. And the economy is lifting. We have a low in poverty rate of 20 years. So I think they'll be looking for things and thinking about--and they will know that they have a chance to shape the future in a way that we've not had in my lifetime. And so, I can only tell you what I think. What I think they will be looking for is someone who will offer big ideas about how to make sure that we deal with the aging of America, as we double the number of people over 65, how we deal with the explosion of children and their increasing diversity. I hope that they will say--we see a little bit in this debate on the gun safety issue in the Senate now. I hope they will say, ``Oh, it's fine we've got the lowest crime rate in 26 years. We want to vote for somebody that'll make this the safest big country in the world.'' And I hope they will say that they are now much more concerned than they were able to be in '92, when people were worried about how they were going to get from one month to the next, that they really, really want us to make a sustained effort to bring opportunity to all the people and places that are still trapped in poverty. And I hope they will say that--they've been given a new issue now. I hope they will say that they don't want America to adopt a new isolationism, they want us to lead into the future. So there is a different sort of thing there. I also think that they want somebody who can deal in a sensitive way with the continuing evidence we have of violence in our country and of people manifesting all kinds of bigotry, that in its most extreme version you see in the killings in the Middle West and the shootings at the Jewish community school and all of that. But it's a different world. On balance, it's better, but I think we're much more sensitive than we were 7 years ago to the problems of the poor among us, and that's a good thing. And I think we're much more sensitive to the problems of discrimination and violence against people because of their race or their religion or their sexual orientation. You know, I hope that they will want someone, and I hope who will try as hard as I have tried and maybe be more successful--although I think they'll have to make some changes in Congress to do that--to create a genuine, constructive, bipartisan atmosphere. We get it here, but we get it about once a year, and it doesn't last long enough to suit me. When we get it, great things happen. [Laughter] Mary, [Mary McGrory, Washington Post] did you have a question? Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty”