【正文】 two great dominant strands of political thought。 and progressivism, which at its very best breaks down barriers that are no longer needed or should never have been erected in the first place. 　　It seemed to me that in 1992 we needed to do both to prepare America for the 21st century to be more conservative in things like erasing the deficit and paying down the debt, and preventing crime and punishing criminals, and protecting and supporting families, and enforcing things like child support laws, and reforming the military to meet the new challenges of the 21st century. And we needed to be more progressive in creating good jobs, reducing poverty, increasing the quality of public education, opening the doors of college to all, increasing access to health care, investing more in science and technology, and building new alliances with our former adversaries, and working for peace across the world and peace in America, across all the lines that divide us. 　　Now when I proposed to do both, we said that all of them were consistent with the great American values of opportunity, responsibility and munity. We labeled the approach New Democrat. It then became known as the Third Way. It was as it was embraced by progressive parties across the world. But I like the slogan we had way back in 1992, putting people first, because in the end, I always kept score by a simple measure: Were ordinary people better off when I stopped than when I started? 　　I grew up in the pretelevision age, in a family of uneducated but smart, hardworking, caring storytellers. They taught me that everyone has a story. And that made politics intensely personal to me. It was about giving people better stories. Thats why I asked those six people to talk here today. When I think of the Family Leave Law, I think of that good man who brought his dying daughter to see me in the White House on a Sunday morning, and who grabbed me as I walked away and said, The time I got to take off from work was the most important time in my life. 　　I think of people like that fine woman who worked herself out of welfare and now runs her own business. I remember the first woman I ever talked to who went from welfare to work. I said, Whats the best thing about it? She said, When my boy goes to school and they say, What does your mama do for a living, he can give an answer. Those are the things that make politics real to me, at home and around the world. 　　The record is all in there what we did at home, what we did abroad. I thank Bono for singing about Northern Ireland and President Bush for mentioning the Balkans. There were many other places we tried to help. 　　But the record is there. Even where we fell short, we pushed forward. And what I want to say is, if you think of the biggest disappointment around the world to me, I tried so hard for peace in the Middle East. I thank Shimon Peres and the children of Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak for being here today, and the current foreign mini