Do AI native files in Indesign cause large PDF exports?

Hello all:
I am a novice at InDesign as well as exporting to PDF, but I have a 45 page document I want to save for web viewing only.... it's my design portfolio.  There are a lot of AI graphics I have placed in this document (about 20 AI files) and when I export to PDF from InDesign with the smallest file size setttings, I can get it down to about 10 mb. I also have a ton of jpegs in there, but they are all 72 dpi resolution, to cut down on the size of the PDF.
So my question is: can i get the PDF file size down more if I take those AI files and save them as jpegs and re-place them in my indesign document again as jpegs versus AI files?  Do native AI files bloat an InDesign document?
Thanks everyone!

Hello Rik and Mike:
Really, Rik?  I always thought vectors were large sized. Not sure where I got that from. So when vectors are placed into InDesign, they are small to begin with? 
Mike, I did use Optimizer in Acrobat but I am not sure which settings are the best (for smaller pdf's) to use for vectors and jpegs other than setting both grayscale and color to 72dpi and quality "low" and I have every box checked in "discard objects" and "clean up" too.
I was able to get it down to 4 mbs (i'd like 3mb) with both Optimizer and Save as > Reduced file size in Acrobat. I was just asking about vectors because I wanted to see if there was something I could do about them to further reduce my pdf file size.
thanks!

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