THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release December 11, 1996

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP COUNCIL

Sheraton Washington Hotel Washington, D. C.

12:50 P. M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. The last person clapping is my first new ambassador in the new term. (Laughter.)

Thank you, Bernard Schwartz, for that wonderful introduction and for your life of private and public achievement. I was hearing you say all those terrific things and I thought to myself, I'm glad you did what you did, but I'd like you even better if you owned a newspaper. (Laughter.)

I want to thank my longtime friend, Senator Lieberman, and Governor Romer for their work for the DLC. And I see my predecessors as chairs out there -- Senator Chuck Robb, and Congressman Dave McCurdy. I thank them for the work they did at the DLC.

I brought a number of people from the administration here who were early DLC members, including Mack McLarty, who started with me back in '85; Bruce Reed and Linda Moore and Elaine Kamarck and Don Baer, my communications director. I'd also like to say a public word of thanks to Mark Penn, who did the research that all of you I think have been given, for the fine job that he and his partner, Doug Schoen, did in our campaign.





You know, I went jogging with Al From this morning.
(Laughter.) And the original theme of my speech was the era of big government is over. The new speech will be the era of big Al is over.
(Laughter and applause.) He's lost 75 pounds in 15 months. If that's not enough to make you optimistic about America, I don't know what is.
(Laughter.)

I want to thank all the members of Congress and the newly-elected members of Congress who are here. I'm hesitant to mention any names because I can't see everyone who is here, but I know that Allen Boyd and Cal Dooley and Sandy Levin and Karen McCarthy and Bill Luther and Jim Moran, Tim Romer, Debbie Stabenow and Ellen Touscher are