# "I feel your pain"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-your-pain/123103>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 9, 2002, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-your-pain/123103 "2002-08-09T04:58:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-your-pain/123103/1 "2002-08-09T04:58:06Z")

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Did Bill Clinton ever REALLY SAY the words, “I feel your pain”? If so, when and in what context?

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**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-your-pain/123103/2 "2002-08-09T05:29:16Z")

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Google, “clinton i feel your pain”.  
[http://www.actupny.org/campaign96/rafsky-clinton.html](http://www.actupny.org/campaign96/rafsky-clinton.html)

> [@](#):
>
> April 2, 1992
> 
> ACT UP member Bob Rafsky confronts candidate Bill Clinton at a New York City fundraiser. Rafsky (quoting from Vito Russo): “We’re not dying of AIDS as much as we are dying of 11 years of government neglect.”
> 
> Clinton replies: “I feel your pain.”

Is there money riding on this?

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**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2002, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-your-pain/123103/3 "2002-08-10T05:47:29Z")

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I HAD googoled and found this link, but found it unsatisfactory. The link to the streaming video doesn’t work, so I can’t determine anything more about the exchange than what is quoted on the web page.

If this IS the source for “I feel your pain”, this is astonishing. Most presidential tag lines, like Reagan’s “There you go again” or Nixon’s “(I) am not a crook”, were delivered during debates or nationally televised speeches. This event is described as a “fundraiser” which I presume was not even televised. How did these four words, delivered in the heat of a spontaneous confrontation and not heavily reported outside of New York, become the basis of all latter-day Clinton impersonations?

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**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2002, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-your-pain/123103/4 "2002-08-10T08:26:05Z")

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Democrats liked it because they thought it made their man look empathic, caring and thoughtful.

Republicans liked it because they though it made the other guy’s man look like a touchy-feely hippie leftover.

In any event, short memorable phrases always outlive longer verbiage. Can anyone recite from memory the major points of Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union address?

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**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2002, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-your-pain/123103/5 "2002-08-10T09:46:04Z")

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Jimmy Carter said it first in his famous “malaise” speech (in which he never said “malaise”, but alluded to it as a “crisis of confidence”).

> [@](#):
>
> I promised you a President who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you.

You can [watch the speech](http://www.americanpresidents.org/ram/amp120399_i.ram) on RealPlayer. You can also read the [full transcript](http://www.tamu.edu/scom/pres/speeches/jccrisis.html).