Clinton Applauds the Home Team

On his last hurrah as president, Bill Clinton came back to see the home folks Wednesday--telling the Arkansas Legislature that he will leave the presidency “amazingly grateful that somehow, the mystery of this great democracy” propelled a young boy from Hope, Ark., to the White House.

“Everything that I have been able to do as president is in no small measure a result of the life I lived and the jobs I held in Arkansas,” he told a joint session of the Legislature in the House chamber.

The visit was Clinton’s last official trip as president, and he chose to return to the ornate chamber where--five times--he stood and took the oath of office as governor.

It was an emotional day of hugs and backslaps and handshakes for Clinton as he offered farewell remarks to his home state. Tonight, he will make a brief televised farewell speech to the nation.

Some of the legislators were old friends who got their start in politics working for Clinton. Others honed their skills campaigning against him, the president said jokingly.

Clinton noted with pride that 460 people from Arkansas had served in his administration. He brought with him on Air Force One a contingent of Arkansans--including Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater and several of his own high school classmates who now live in the Washington area.

The president’s remarks were a melange of national themes and the local effects of his administration’s policies. He recited with pride a list of statistics, including the 22 million jobs generated by the economic boom during his presidency and the lowest jobless rates in 30 years.

He also bragged about the money flowing to Arkansas in the federal budget: $38 million for seven water projects, $5 million in research funds for the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, $18 million for the Pine Bluff Arsenal.

Clinton spoke of unfinished national business, calling for more spending in education, expansion of Medicare and promotion of business investment in poor city neighborhoods and depressed rural areas.

But he kept returning to a key theme: pride in the people of Arkansas and appreciation of their support in sending him on his long political journey to its ultimate destination in Washington. He quoted from his own first gubernatorial inaugural address in 1979, saying: “The people of Arkansas have two emotions in great abundance--hope and pride. Without them, there is no such thing as quality of life. With them, there is nothing we cannot achieve.”

Later Wednesday, he offered more thanks to the people of Arkansas, this time at a boisterous rally of 400 people shivering in a chilly hangar at Little Rock Airport. He called on them to be proud of themselves and their state.

“I want you to be proud that we proved that national politics and national government and the direction of this nation is not the private province of some elite somewhere in some big distant place,” Clinton said.

Jumping from one topic to another in his remarks, Clinton joked about his future after leaving the White House on Saturday. “I’ve got a daughter about to graduate college and a wife going into the Senate. It seems to me that one of the things I’ll have to do is get a job,” Clinton said.

Eight years in Washington haven’t dampened his upbeat views of what government can accomplish, the president said. “I’ll leave that office more idealistic than I was the day I took the oath of office . . . because it worked out the way I thought it would based on what I learned and how I lived here.”

Clinton’s mood was playful throughout the day. Aboard Air Force One on the flight to Little Rock, he came back to chat with reporters, saying: “You got anybody you want to pardon? Everybody in America either wants somebody pardoned or a national monument.”