CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT VIDEO
©1991 Clinton for President Committee.  Produced by Great American Media, Inc.

"The New Covenant"     about 16 minutes
©1991 Great American Media Inc.

OVERVIEW
The Clinton campaign video is based largely on footage of his announcement speech along with some footage from his speech "The New Covenant: Responsibility and Rebuilding the American Community" delivered at Georgetown on October 23, 1991.  The video includes various shots and angles of Clinton speaking and the crowd reacting.  A series of newspaper quotes read by the narrator illustrate that Clinton is a candidate to be reckoned with.  There is a brief biographical sketch. The last part of the video focuses on seven themes -- health care, education, economic growth, corporate responsibility, government responsibility, reinventing government and restoring the American Dream.  Some of these topics are accompanied by relevant images—for education there are classroom scenes and for economic growth there are scenes of people at work and Clinton with workers. 


TRANSCRIPT
CLINTON: This election is about change, change in our party, change in our leadership, change in our nation.


CLINTON: It's been 30 years since a Democrat ran for president and asked something of all the American people. I intend to challenge you all to do more and to do better.

MALE NARRATOR:
"Bill Clinton has the heart, the talent, the vision for the job."
[The Washington Post  9/2/91  Edwin Yoder]

"Governor Clinton entered the presidential race pledging to fight for the forgotten middle class."
[The Washington Post  10/4/91]

"He's talking about what average people are concerned about."
[New York Magazine  8/12/91  Charles Cook]

CLINTON: We've got to engage in the old-fashioned work of confronting the real problems of real people.

MALE NARRATOR:
"Clinton's message is new, young, moderate."
[New York Magazine  11/4/91  Charles Cook]

The Philadelphia Inquirer calls him "the moderate radical," saying Bill Clinton has "sizzle and substance."
[Philadelphia Inquirer  10/6/91]

"The Arkansas governor's New Covenant puts all the pieces together."
[New York Magazine  11/4/91  Joe Klein]

CLINTON: And that is our generation's responsibility: to form a new covenant—more opportunity for everyone, more responsibility from everyone, and a greater sense of common purpose. I believe with all my heart that together we can rekindle that American dream. We can usher in a new era of progress, prosperity and renewal, an era of opportunity greater than anything any generation of Americans has ever known.

MALE NARRATOR:
"...if Clinton represents the Democrats in 1992...George Bush will know he's in a contest."
[The Washington Post  9/2/91  Edwin Yoder]

CLINTON: I refuse to be part of a generation of Americans that fails to compete in the global economy, and so condemns hardworking, middle class Americans to a lifetime of struggle without reward or security.

That is why I come here today because I refuse to stand by and let our children become part of the first generation of Americans to do worse than their parents. I don't want my child or your children to grow up in a country that is coming apart, instead of coming together.

MALE NARRATOR:
Governor Bill Clinton. Born in Hope, Arkansas. Educated at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and Yale Law School. A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Elected state attorney general at 28. The nation's youngest governor. Elected five times, he's the longest serving sitting governor in the country, and this year, he was voted most effective in the nation by his fellow governors, both Democrat and Republican. Together with his wife Hillary and her daughter Chelsea,  Bill Clinton has taken on the challenge to preserve America, rid our streets of crime and drugs, protect our environment, restore the hopes of middle class and reclaim the future for our children.

CLINTON: Today as we stand on the threshold of a new era, and a new millennium, I believe we need a new kind of leadership. Leadership not mired in the politics of the past. Leadership not tied to the old ideologies, but proven leadership, capable of reinventing government to help solve those real problems real people face.

Together, together, we can provide the leadership that will restore the American Dream, fight for the forgotten middle class, that will provide more opportunity, demand more responsibility from each of us, and create a stronger community in this great country of ours. And that is why today I proudly announced my candidacy for President of the United States of America.

For 12 years, the Republicans have been telling us at the national level, that America's problems are not their problem. They've washed their hands of responsibility for the economy, for education, for health care, for social policy. They've given it all to the 50 states and 1000 points of light. Well here in Arkansas, we've worked real hard against very steep odds to create more jobs and educate our people, and every one of us, in our own way, has tried to be one of those 1000 Points of Light.

But I can tell you, my friends, when there is no national vision, no national leadership, no national direction, 1000 Points of Light leaves a lot of darkness.

For 12 years, the Republicans have talked about choices without really believing in them. The President says he wants to charge even if it bankrupts the public schools, but he's more than willing to make it a crime for a woman to exercise her right to choose.

For 12 years, the Republicans have tried to divide us, us in this crowd today, race against race. They want us to be angry at each other so we won't be mad at them. They want us to look at each other across a racial divide, fixated on one another so we cannot turn our heads and look to the White House and say why are all our incomes going down? What is happening to all of our jobs? Why are we all losing our future?

Well, here in the shadow of this great building, all of us, we know all about race baiting. They've used that old tool on us for decades now. And I want to tell you one thing. I understand this tactic, and I will not let them get away with it in 1992.

MALE NARRATOR:
"He speaks to the needs of common people. He's very believable. It's not just rhetoric..."
[Gayle Rogers - Vice Chair  Kentucky Democratic Party   11/24/91 Courier Journal]

"Clinton steals show at forum. (Arkansas) Democrat's ideas and presentation impress party leaders."
[Chicago Tribune 11/24/91]

"Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton jumped out of the pack...He outdistanced his rivals."
[The Washington Post 11/24/91  Dan Balz]

"He was aggressive, confident...all the things you'd want in a candidate for president."
[Jeff Neubauer - Chair Wisconsin Dem. Party   11/24/91 The Washington Post]

"...if I were George Bush, I'd be scared...(Bill Clinton) can win."
[Bob Slagle - Chair Texas Dem. Party  11/24/91 Courier Journal]

CLINTON: This campaign has got to be about ideas, not slogans. We don't need another president who doesn't know what he wants to do for America. I'm gonna tell you in very plain language what I intend to do as president. How can we meet the challenges we face? That's the test that all Democratic candidates must meet. The American people already know what we are against. Let's tell them what we're for.

[HEALTH CARE]
CLINTON: For many Americans, the rising cost of health care is the number one fear they face on a daily ...Opportunity for all means reforming the most expensive health care system in the world to control cost, improve quality, expand preventive and long term care, maintain the choice that consumers have, and cover everybody. We can do these things without breaking the taxpayers. But we do have to take on the big insurance companies and the health care bureaucracies and demand some real cost control in the American health care system.

I pledge to the American people that in the first year of a Clinton administration, I will present to the United States Congress and the people a plan to provide affordable health care for all Americans.

[EDUCATION]
Opportunity for all means world class skills and world class education, not just photo ops and empty rhetoric.

I know Americans worry about quality of education in this country and wants the best for their children. It's not enough just to put money in schools. We have to challenge our schools to produce, and insist on results.

I want to establish in this country a voluntary system of national service. In a Clinton administration we will put forth a domestic GI bill that will say to any middle class or low income person, we want you to go to college, we'll provide the money for you to go to college. It'll be the best money that taxpayers ever spent. But you've got to pay it back either as a small percentage of your income over time, or with two or three years of national service where we need it here at home, as teachers,as policemen as nurses, as family service workers.

MALE NARRATOR: Arkansas was rated by Time Magazine as one of the two states whose schools improved the most in the 80s. Thanks to Bill Clinton's leadership three times as many students take advanced math and computer science classes. Arkansas now leads the South and high school graduation rates and is a leader in education reform.

CLINTON: I pledge to you today that in a Clinton administration, the students and parents and teachers of this country will get a real education president.

[ECONOMIC GROWTH]
CLINTON: We've got to invest more money in the emerging technologies that create high paying good jobs. We have to convert our economy from a defense to a domestic engine of prosperity

MALE NARRATOR: In Arkansas, Bill Clinton has shown he knows what it takes to get an economy moving. While our national economy stalled, Arkansas created manufacturing jobs at 10 times the national rate. It enjoyed one of the lowest business failure rates in the country, led every state in the region in job growth in the last half of the 1980s, and has some of the lowest state and local taxes per capita in the country.

CLINTON: We've got to expand World Trade and write down barriers, but we've got to demand fair trade practices from our trading partners too. The American people don't want to run from the world they want to compete and win, and we need to make it possible for them to do that.

I honestly believe if we try to do all these things, we will still not solve the problems we face or take America stronger and more secure into the next century unless each and every one of us are prepared to follow the lead that President Kennedy laid down over 30 years ago and challenge every single American to take some personal responsibility for the future of this country.

We should expect people to move from welfare roles to work roles. We should give them the skills they need to succeed and then insist that they move into the workforce to become productive members of society.

But let's not forget who the most irresponsible people of all were in the 1980s. They were not the people on the bottom, they were not the people in the middle who were forgotten, they were the people at the top of the totem pole. You know it, as well as I do.

[CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY]
CLINTON: This is my message to our business community. As President I'll do everything I can to bmake it easier for your company to compete in the world with a better trained workforce, cooperation between labor and management, fair and strong trade policies, and incentives to invest here in America and our own economic growth. But if I do that, I expect the jet setters and the feather bedders of corporate America to know that if you sell your companies and your workers and your country down the river, you will be called on the carpet. That's what the President's bully pulpit is for.

[GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY]
CLINTON: This new covenant should begin in Washington. Congress raised its paid and guarded its perks while most Americans were working harder for less money. Two Republican presidents, elected on a promise of fiscal responsibility, advanced budget proposals that more than tripled our national debt. Congress went along with that too. Taxes were lowered on the wealthiest people whose incomes were rising and raised on middle class families as their incomes fell. There's a hole in our politics, where our sense of common purpose used to be.

But Democrats who want to change the government, who want the government to do more—and I'm one of them—we have a heavy responsibility to show that we're going to spend the taxpayers money wisely and with discipline.

[REINVENTING GOVERNMENT]
CLINTON: A Clinton administration won't spend your tax dollars on programs that don't solve problems and a government that doesn't work. I want to reinvent government, to make it more efficient and effective. I want to give citizens more choices in government services, and to empower those who need it to make those good choices. I want to lead the way because that's what we tried to do in Arkansas. We balanced our budget every year. And we're improving services and treating our taxpayers more like our customers and our bosses because they are. And that's what we ought to do in America.

[RESTORING THE AMERICAN DREAM]
CLINTON: I want the American people to know that a Clinton administration will defend our national interests abroad, put our finest values into our social policy at home, and spend our tax dollars with discipline. We will put government back on the side of the working families of Americans who so often think that most of the help goes to those at the top of the ladder, some of it goes to those at the bottom, and nobody stands up for them.

This is not just a campaign for the presidency—it is a campaign for the future, for the forgotten, hard working people of America, for their children, for all of those who deserve a government that's on their side fighting for a better tomorrow. It's a campaign to make us strong at home and abroad. I ask you to join with us today, to give me your hands and your hearts, to give me your prayers and your help.

I believe that together we can make America great again, and with your help, your heart, your devotion and your efforts we can build a community of hope that will inspire the world.

 God bless you and thank you very much.

MALE NARRATOR: This is not just an election; it's a crusade for the future—a crusade to restore the forgotten middle class, a crusade for the soul of America.  But we need your help, your energy, your active involvement, and your financial support.  Join the Clinton crusade for the future, the crusade to restore the American Dream.  Contact the Clinton for President campaign.  Together we can build a brighter future for America.