What We'll Remember

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Doris Kearns Goodwin
Historian
The real turning point for Clinton was when the Republicans took Congress in 1994. If the Democrats had kept the majority, think what we would not have had: no rise and fall of Newt Gingrich, no triangulation, no pizza delivered by Monica Lewinsky during the government shutdown, no impeachment. Assuming Clinton would have been re-elected with a Democratic majority, then it would have fallen to Clinton and the Democratic Congress to figure out how to spend the surplus. If Clinton could have gotten passed the very legislation that Gore's been proposing, then think how extraordinary his legacy would have been.

The loss of the Congress straitjacketed Clinton from being able to fight for traditional Democratic goals and made him a much more tempered version of his original self. Ideally, assume he keeps the Congress in 1994, but it is really close, so that he has to deal with the Republicans and doesn't have a liberal majority. He responds to the pressures for a balanced budget with versions of that, and of welfare reform, that are less harsh, and there's no impeachment. Once the budget is balanced and the economy is prosperous, then his liberal instincts come back to the fore, and it's he who gets to spend the surplus on education, health care and Social Security. Then he would have had a brilliant presidency. But then again, I was one of those who wanted to believe he was more liberal than he was. But I admit there was hardly any evidence of it, even when he was freed up at times.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Radio and TV host
I will always remember that the First Father of the First Family, who is responsible for setting a national example, brought shame and public humiliation on his wife, his daughter and his country by marital infidelity and by lying under oath--right into the camera, looking straight into my face! I take it personally. As President of the United States, he betrayed his obligation to his family, his profession as an attorney and his office.

Henry Cisneros
Former HUD Secretary
The Oklahoma City bombing was when Clinton really became the President. He was steeled by the need to stand up to the venomous elements of hatred in the country that erupted there. This drove home to him the seriousness, the stakes of this business that we're in. It changed him inside. Afterward, he was more steady, rooted, surefooted in his understanding of where the American people are. Yes, he made personal mistakes, but those in some way have been a sideshow to the main current of his public leadership, and the approval ratings show that.

Don't forget, during the same period he lost his mother; he lost a friend like Vince Foster to suicide, a searing, personal moment. It took things from the realm of the gamesmanship of politics to a very profound sense of how important this business is to the people and to the country. The combination of these things made him President in the larger sense, as opposed to someone skilled at politics who had made it to the top level.

Jesse Ventura
Governor of Minnesota
As time moves on, one thing that will identify the Clinton Administration is the opening of trade to China. It's the biggest economic decision this century. It will literally affect every person in my state of Minnesota, and everyone else in America. He ran into a lot of opposition from within his own party, so it took some courage on the part of the President to step away from his normal party politics. As a result of this decision, you're going to see China be much more capitalistic, and ultimately, better human rights will come out of it also.

Dick Morris
Former Clinton adviser
On Aug. 22, 1996, Bill Clinton did what no other Democratic President would have done: he signed historic welfare reform into law. It made welfare recipients work to get paid and required that they leave the rolls in five years. For a liberal Democrat to sign such a law was akin to a staunch anticommunist like Nixon going to China or a President from Texas like Johnson signing the 1964 civil rights law. It was a day that changed America.

For years, welfare mothers had been the favorite political football of Democrats and Republicans alike. With welfare reform, he took away the football. In the 2000 election, race and welfare were nonissues. The President's signature set in motion a process that has led to 2.1 million welfare families leaving a brutalizing, inhumane system, most for good jobs at good pay. Contrary to the fears of many of his own Democrats, in each of the past four years the percentage of children living in poverty has dropped, and black and Hispanic incomes have risen.

His signature split the Democratic Party--half the House Democrats, exactly, voted against the measure. The entire White House staff, with only two or three exceptions, wanted a veto, as did the party establishment. Clinton hated the benefit cuts and flirted with vetoing the bill because of them. But he realized that he could probably repeal the cuts in the next session of Congress. He was right. The signature was a move of great political courage, foresight and wisdom.