On Friday, November 14, during a symposium on the Clinton Administration at the 10th anniversary of the founding of his impressive Presidential Library in Little Rock, President Clinton spoke for about 90 minutes about the lessons of politics, life and his Administration. Below are 12 gems from his talk. Secretary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton gave a great presentation on No Ceilings, about empowering women. Kevin Spacey, The Jonas Brothers, Kool and the Gang, and others entertained. 1) “There are no permanent victories or defeats in politics.” 2) “There are no permanent fixes in politics.” Context: his agreement with the Russian government regarding security for Ukraine. 3) Paraphrasing: Americans think of themselves as the most open-minded people in the world but the only exception is that we just can’t abide being around people we disagree with. 4) At the White House his process for allowing the best ideas to flow upward was an environment in which equal opinions could be voiced in a fair process. The choices were then narrowed until a decision was made. 5) Dislikes the concept of a “lame-duck” president. If you lay out an agenda your administration will work hard to achieve it and you’ll get a lot done. 6) Used the State of the Union to lay out an agenda for his next year in office, not just describe broad themes. He wanted White House staff never to be able to say they didn’t know in which direction to move. Suggests that President Obama do the same -- set out his agenda and plan for America. 7) Government policy-making is very, very important…it really matters to millions of people. 8) You can’t balance the budget by cutting government spending at the same time that the interest rate is below the rate of inflation. It just sends the economy into a downward spiral. Government stimulus is needed at such times. 9) Turning Point Moment: Telling the Republican leadership during his first term that he was prepared to allow his popularity rating to drop to five percent rather than succumb to eliminating the Department of Education, EPA and other Federal programs. As an offside, he mentioned that Vice President Gore told him that he should have told the Republicans that he was prepared to go to zero! “Al Gore was funnier than people gave him credit for.” 10) One should judge an administration not by whether avoided making any mistakes but by how quickly they fixed the mistake. (Context: The launch of HealthCare.gov was bad, but it was quickly fixed.) 11) Give people the tools to empower their lives. 12) The primary goals of America’s political leaders should be to make people better off than when they started and to help people come together to do it. It’s important to help America grow together, not apart.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 03:28:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015