THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release April 24, 2000
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT,
THE VICE PRESIDENT, THE FIRST LADY AND MRS. GORE
AT DNC DINNER
Imperial Ballroom
New York Sheraton Hotel
New York, New York
8:53 P.M. EDT
MRS. GORE: Thank you, all. Hello, everybody. Please be seated.
I want to thank you for that very warm welcome, Mayor Rendell, and for
your very spirited and dedicated and strong leadership that's so
effective for our Party. I know all of us appreciate that, the time and
the commitment that you give to us.
And what a great night for the Democratic Party. What a great
night. It's fantastic. (Applause.) I am proud to be sharing the
stage, too, with one of our Party's greatest Presidents ever and two of
its very finest candidates. What a pleasure for me. It's fantastic.
(Applause.)
I also see so many friends in the room, and I want to thank each
and every one of you for being such very good friends to Al and to me.
And I think all of us here recognize that this election is going to be
very tough and it's going to be very important in our nation's history.
And it's going to determine the kind of nation that we are going to
leave to our children and to our grandchildren.
And I know that you would agree with me that it's one of the great
reasons why it's important for us to remind our neighbors and friends
and other people who are interested that politics is personal, and that
it really does matter who we all elect to the State House and to the
White House, and it's going to make a very real difference in each of
our houses.
And I think that's a message that all of us are very determined to
take to other people, and to continue to open the doors in the
Democratic Party to all those who share that vision and those values.
And we have to remind people that it is the Democratic Party, truly,
that is the party of the people, that makes the government work for the
people. That's the value, the core value of our party and that's a key
distinction, and I know it's one that we're all very proud of.
And now it is my great pleasure to introduce to you a woman who
embodies all the very best values in the Democratic Party. We know her
as someone who works absolutely tirelessly to open the doors of
opportunity to women here in America and, in fact, all around the world.
And she knows how to turn her rock-solid values into a commitment that
can serve people in their everyday lives. And she knows, as well, how
to achieve results.
She is a very dedicated and a very determined leader, and I am
proud to welcome her as a close, personal friend and someone who I know
that all of you are proud of as our great First Lady and a wonderful
candidate for the Senate.
Ladies and gentlemen, my friend, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
(Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Well, thank you all. And thank you, Tipper. I'm
delighted that all four of us -- Tipper and Bill and Al and I -- could
be here to be part of this very successful event for the DNC in the
Empire State, where we have so many people who have demonstrated their
commitment to the Democratic Party, and to its principles. And I'm
delighted to be here to thank all of you for your support over the last
seven, eight years now, and thank you for your continuing commitment and
support.
You know, I know Tipper so well, and am so proud of her, and I can
only echo what Ed Rendell said. And that is that she's going to be a
superb person in the White House to carry on so many of the important
issues that she has championed her entire life. From homelessness --
(applause) -- from her advocacy on behalf of the homeless, the children,
to those with mental illness, who deserve to be treated the same as a
person with any kind of illness, and she sends a brave and courageous
voice for that position. (Applause.)
I want to thank Ed for his leadership of the party. He's done a
fabulous job. (Applause.) And he's one of my favorite mayors, and I'm
so grateful for the leadership that he has demonstrated in the position
that he formerly held.
And I want to thank Tony Bennett for coming and entertaining us as
well this evening. (Applause.)
This is a very special night for all of us, because Bill and I have
been a little bit nostalgic today. We did the last Easter Egg Roll on
the White House Lawn, and that's the eighth and last one for us. And we
spent some time sort of thinking about everything that has happened
since 1992. And one of the greatest gifts that we've had is the
friendship and relationship with Al and Tipper Gore.
And it was a relationship that began when Bill asked Al to join the
ticket and the four of us first met together. And I can remember some
of those early times when we were getting to know each other, on a bus
trip that took us throughout so many of the states that we were
campaigning in with such joy and excitement about the future.
And I think all of us made those speeches in 1992, standing on
flatbed trucks and in the doorway of a bus or in front of a building
somewhere, in a field with a farmer. And we kept saying -- and Bill and
Al said over and over again, we can turn this country around, we can
demonstrate what it means to lead again; America can assume its position
of prominence in the economy and the political and military leadership
of the world, we just have to make some tough choices.
Many of you took that position that Bill and Al embodied, which was
really the new Democratic Party, you took it on faith. You knew that we
had to make some serious changes. You had seen the deficits building,
you had seen how they squeezed out private capital, you saw our social
conditions deteriorating. And you said, no, we're going to make a
change. And New York was such a great, supportive state for the
policies that the Clinton-Gore administration proposed.
Now, we can look back and say that that investment you made in 1992
-- and then you even upped your investment in 1996, because New York
gave the greatest margin of victory to the Clinton-Gore ticket. That
investment was one of the best investments that New York and New Yorkers
and America has ever made. Because we are today -- (applause) -- we are
today a stronger and better country than we were in 1992 -- (applause)
--and I know that all of us in this room recognize it would not have
been possible without the leadership and the tough decisions that were
made from the very top by the President and the Vice President. I'm
very proud of the record of this administration; and the results speak
for themselves.
And many of you have been not only stalwart supporters, but you've
been missionaries, in effect, talking to friends and neighbors and
colleagues about what it now means to be a Democrat -- a Democrat who
believes in balanced budgets, a Democrat who believes in using the
surplus to pay down the national debt, a Democrat who believes in
providing the tools that are needed to mayors and governors and others
to bring down the crime and welfare rates. A Democrat who understands
that we have to remain committed to public education, that we have to
continue to work for the day when every child has access to a
first-class public education in this state and throughout our country.
(Applause.)
You know how important it is that we continue to work toward the
day when we do provide quality, affordable health care to every New
Yorker and every American. (Applause.) You know what the positive
agenda of this Democratic administration has been. You have supported
it. You have spoken out for it. You have contributed to the DNC and to
the Democratic campaign, so that this message could get out and the work
could be done.
Because now we no longer have to ask you to take it on faith.
You've seen the evidence, you know what the results of these kinds of
policies are, and how critical it is that we elect Democrats -- starting
with Al Gore, but going right through the House and the Senate. If we
are able to take back the House and the Senate, we can continue the
policies that have worked so well for America. (Applause.)
Now, with so many Democratic New Yorkers in the House, I just have
to say one special word about how important it is that we elect a
Democrat to succeed Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the United States Senate.
(Applause.) And just remember these three brief reasons why it's
important we do that.
Number one, we do not need any more Republicans in the United
States Senate, we have too many as it is. (Applause.) They have stood
in the way of the progress that has been made and we have to continue to
stand up to them and their agenda, that would be so counterproductive
and send us in a u-turn back to the 1980s, with exploding deficits and
disinvestment.
Number two, there are very big differences between Republicans and
Democrats in this state and elsewhere. If we want to continue the
fiscal policies that have worked, we need a Democrat in the Senate. If
we want to support public education, we need a Democrat in the Senate.
If we want to guarantee a woman's right to choose, we need a Democrat in
the Senate. (Applause.)
And you all know that in order to get anything done in the Senate,
it takes teamwork. It takes people who are willing to work together to
get something accomplished for their state and the people they
represent. And if you go to the Senate and you disagree with a fellow
senator -- you can ask the Vice President, he was there working so hard
and effectively for all those years -- you can't sue or fire your
colleague, you have to get along with them and keep working with them to
get things done for the people you represent. (Applause.)
So there are many reasons why we should celebrate tonight. But we
cannot rest until we make sure that we put Al Gore in the White House,
we do everything we can to put Democrats in the majority in the House
and in the Senate.
Now, none of this would be possible this evening, we could not have
raised the money that's been raised, the report that Ed gave about how
well we're doing, if this administration had not kept faith with you,
had not demonstrated how worthy your investment in Bill Clinton and Al
Gore was.
And none of that would have been possible if we hadn't elected
someone to be President who understood where the country needed to go,
who had the commitment to making the tough political decisions that
would really make it possible for us to be enjoying and celebrating this
moment, and I am very proud that this administration has such a record
of accomplishment.
And it's my great honor, and personal privilege, to introduce the
person who really has made it all possible, the President of the United
States, Bill Clinton. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very
much. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. I think she's
about to get the hang of it, don't you? (Laughter.) Wow.
The Vice President, Tipper, Hillary, Chairman Rendell, ladies and
gentlemen. I would like to begin with a heart full of gratitude by
saying some thank you's. I thank Ed Rendell and Joe Andrew and all the
people at the Democratic Party for the work they have done. (Applause.)
I thank all of you at these tables who helped to chair this event
and did the work so that we could all be here tonight. I want to thank
Jon Stewart for making us laugh. (Applause.) I wish he would move to
Washington -- if we laughed a little more there, we might get twice as
much done. (Laughter.)
I want to thank my dear friend, Tony Bennett, for performing again
so beautifully. (Applause.) You know, people always marvel -- Tony's a
year or two older than I am, and people always marvel at how great an
artist he is. And I was telling people earlier tonight, the thing that
is so amazing is that he still has perfect pitch. I lost my perfect
pitch 10 years ago. And he has perfect pitch in more ways that one.
I'm glad he's here.
I thank the people of New York, the Democratic Party of New York
and my special supporters in this room who have been with me and Al and
Hillary and Tipper all these years. I want to thank those of you who
are helping Hillary in this Senate campaign. I have no doubt of one
thing -- that if you elect her, she will be a worthy successor to Robert
Kennedy and Pat Moynihan, and will make a terrific difference to the
people of this state and this nation. And after I heard her speaking, I
have no doubt she's going to win if you stay with her, so I feel good
about that. Thank you. (Applause.)
I want to thank Tipper Gore for eight marvelous years. I was
looking at her tonight, thinking to myself -- I've watched her raise her
children, I've watched her deal with sick members of her family, I've
watched her deal with all kinds of pressures and keep laughing. The
thing I appreciate most about her is that she believes that people who
are fragile and people who are broken -- whether they are homeless or
suffering from mental illness -- are part of our common humanity and
still have something to live for, still have something to give, and
ought to be given a better chance. And our country would be a better
place if more people felt the way she did. I hope that more people
will. (Applause.)
Let me say also that I am profoundly grateful tonight for the
chance you gave me to serve. We were talking around our table tonight
about one of the chances that I've had as President is to learn a lot
about the presidencies of people you don't know much about. I thought I
knew a lot about American history when I became President, but I've
spent a lot of time studying. Periods of time when most Americans are
not -- that most Americans aren't too conversive with. The presidency
of Franklin Pierce or Rutherford Hayes. And I tried to do it so that I
could see the whole history of this country in a seamless web.
One of the things that strikes me as strange is that some people
who have been in this position -- even people I very much admire -- talk
about what a terrible burden it is, and how the White House is the crown
jewel of the federal penal system, and how they can't wait to get out of
there, and what a terrible pain it is. Frankly, most of those guys
didn't have a tougher time than I've had there -- (laughter and
applause) -- and I don't know what in the heck they're talking about.
(Laughter.)
One of my friends from home called me a couple of years ago when
things weren't going so well for me and he said, just remember, Bill, a
couple of runs of bad luck and you'd be home doing $25 divorces and
deeds. Don't feel sorry for yourself; you asked for this job. And
that's the way I feel.
Every day has been a joy and an opportunity and still is, and I
thank you for it. But I want you to know, sometimes people say, well,
what keeps you going. And tonight we were sitting around our table, and
I looked at Bob Rosen, and I said, isn't this the place where we had
that fundraiser in February of '92, right before the New Hampshire
primaries, when I was dropping like a rock in the polls and everybody
said I was deader than a doornail? He said yes, this is it.
So I started telling people around the table, I said, you know, I
met a guy here that night walking through the kitchen. This is a true
story. I said, I met a guy there that night walking through the
kitchen. He was working here. And he came up to me and he said,
governor, governor, he said, my boy is in school. He's in the 5th
grade. He studies this election and he studies the candidates and the
issues, and he says I should vote for you. And he said, but I want to
ask you a question first: If I do what my boy wants and I vote for you,
I want you to help me. He said, you see, I came here as an immigrant,
and in my home country I was very poor and here I have more money and a
better job. But in my home country, I was free.
He said, here, my boy, he can't go across the street to the park
and play unless I go with him because he'll be in danger. He can't walk
down the street to school by himself because he could get hurt. So he
said, if I do what my boy wants and I vote for you, will you make my boy
free?
And as I was telling this story, that man, Dimitri Theopoulos,
(phonetic), came up to me and embraced me tonight. He doesn't even work
here anymore, but he came here tonight to work this banquet, and I want
to thank him. His son is now a student at St. John's University in New
York City, and he is doing well. (Applause.)
Now, what's the point of all this? When Al Gore and I came to
Washington, it was to help people like Dimitri and his son -- people who
serve these banquets, but can't afford the price of the tickets. People
who need the minimum wage and access to health care, whose kids ought to
be able to go to college and ought to be able to get a good education on
the way. People who maybe have been homeless at some point in their
lives or stuck on welfare and want jobs. And after seven years and a
few months, over 21 million of them have jobs that didn't eight years
ago. (Applause.)
Over 21 million have taken advantage of family and medical leave.
Over 5 million have taken advantage of the HOPE Scholarship to go on to
college. There are 500,000 people who couldn't get handguns because of
the Brady Bill. (Applause.) And gun crime in this country, down 35
percent since 1993; the homicide rate at a 31--year low; 2 million kids
out of poverty; more than 2 million kids with health insurance; students
borrowing money through our new loan program, saving $8 billion, to help
them go on and go to college. (Applause.) Real stories of real lives
of real people. That's what this is all about.
I never, ever, for all the wonderful joy and love of the presidency
and my love of politics -- and Lord knows, I have loved it -- I always
thought that it was wrong to seek power without purpose. That in the
end, it was a hollow victory to have it and to exercise it to hurt other
people with the painful disappointment in life, they never give you what
you want. The only thing that really matters is knowing that people who
otherwise wouldn't have done as well have a little better chance because
of your endeavors.
And what I want you to know tonight, as I bring the Vice President
up here, is that we have worked very hard to turn this country around
and to get it going in the right direction. But the theme song of this
election year ought to be the first song Tony Bennett sang, "The Best Is
Yet To Come." Because we are now in a position to take on the big
challenges of this country that would have been unthinkable eight years
ago. We can get this country out of debt for the first time since 1835,
and give a generation of Americans a chance at a strong economy. We can
deal with the challenges of the aging of America, the children of
America and all the things that -- I'll leave it to Al to talk about.
But we've got a chance to do that. But you have to understand that
this election is every bit as important, if not more important, than the
ones in '92 and '96. I want you to know a couple of things about Al
Gore that he wouldn't say, himself. And I'm amazed that so many
Americans, even a lot of our supporters, don't know.
First of all, as you might have noticed, we've had to make a few
tough decisions over the last eight years. He was at the fore of the
process that produced every difficult decision we ever made, every
controversial one, every one that could have wrecked both our careers
and kept him from being here tonight as the nominee of our party.
He wanted us to take that tough stand against the deficit in 1993
that required him to break the tie in the United States Senate. He
wanted us to become the first administration in history to seriously
take on in a systematic way the problems of gun violence in this
country, and to try to have systematic, sensible measures to protect our
children from its dangers.
He wanted to be the first administration in history that took on
big tobacco to try to give our children their lives back. He was out
there with me on Kosovo, on Bosnia, on Haiti, on all the tough,
controversial foreign policy issues, when all the experts in Washington
were saying these were little places unworthy of America's great
interests, and besides there was lots of downside and no upside, who
cares if a lot of innocent people are just dying like flies.
He was there every time, in private, getting no credit, when a
difficult decision had to be made. And the presidency is defined, and
the country goes forward based on the hard decisions. The easy ones
anybody can make.
The second thing I want you to know is that he has had more
responsibility than any person who ever held this job. And he has
performed in an absolutely stunning manner. And I just want to run
through -- yes, you can clap for that. (Applause.).
I want to give you a few examples. He led our effort to give
America a genuinely competitive and humane telecommunications policy,
which meant -- what did that mean? You look at all the companies in New
York state alone that did not even exist in 1996, when we signed the
Telecommunications Act. Hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Plus we got
the e-rate to guarantee that our schools -- our poorest schools -- and
libraries and hospitals would be able to access the Internet.
He led our efforts to hook all of our schools and classrooms up to
the Internet. When we started in 1994, under Al's leadership, 3 percent
of the classrooms in America were hooked up to the Internet. Today, 65
percent are; 11 percent of the schools. Today, 95 percent of the
schools in this country have an Internet connection. (Applause.)
He led our efforts to bring economic opportunity to people and
places left behind, in the empowerment zones and the enterprise
communities. He led our efforts in the environment, which it seems like
our partnership for the next generation of vehicles with Detroit, with
the auto makers and the auto companies, the auto workers and the auto
companies. Now you'll be able to buy cars -- decent size cars, actually
getting 70-80 miles a gallon in the next year or two.
He had a big part of our foreign policy when it came to arms
control, or dealing with Russia or South Africa or the Middle East. He
led our efforts to reinvent the federal government which meant, as I
think all of you, even our adversaries would admit, we have been
slightly more active than previous presidents in the last several years,
and we did it while shrinking the government to its smallest size in 40
years -- all because of Al Gore's leadership. (Applause.)
But what I want you to know is more important than all that. I had
lunch with this guy once a week, before he got something better to do
here a few months ago. (Laughter.) From the day I took office until
the onset of the presidential campaign. I probably know more about him
than anybody but Tipper. I know what he likes and what he can't stand.
I know what he loves. I know when he's having a bad day and how he
deals with it. And, by the way, he knows the same about me.
And all I can tell you is, I feel absolutely comfortable putting
the future of my daughter and the grandchildren I hope she will give us
in his hands. (Applause.) He is the most accomplished and effective
Vice President in the history of the country. That is not a matter of
dispute, that's a statement of fact. He is the most well-qualified
candidate we have had in my lifetime. I wish I'd had half his
experience coming into office in '93 that he will bring in, in 2001.
But the most important thing of all is, he understands the future
and he knows how to take us there. There are big challenges out there.
We have not done all this work to turn this country around, to fritter
away the chance of a lifetime, to deal with the big issues -- and there
are huge differences between our parties and our candidates that will
have dramatic, immediate, practical impact on the lives of the American
people -- not just those of us who came here tonight, but keep in mind,
those of us who served us here tonight.
So for all my gratitude to all of you, for all my gratitude to the
American people for the chance to serve in a job I love, the most
important thing is always, for our country, what are we going to do
today and tomorrow. All I have done for seven years and three months
was to try to get the country I love in the position to build the future
of our dreams for our children. Now, it's up to you to decide whether
we do that.
And believe me, for the rest of the lives of everybody in this
audience, I will be very surprised if you ever get a chance to vote for
anyone for president again who has done so much, who is such a fine
human being and who so clearly understands the future that is unfolding
at such a rapid pace. We owe it -- we owe it to ourselves, to the
labors of the last eight years and, more importantly, we owe it to our
children and the dreams we have for them, to make sure that the next
President of the United States is Al Gore. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)
Well, it's great to be here and I just told the President, I told
him, I said, I thought you were a little stingy with those comments.
You could have laid it on a little thicker than that and it would have
been fine with me. (Laughter.)
Seriously, thank you so much. I believe that's, by far, the most
generous introduction I've ever had and I appreciate it very much. And
to all of you, we've all thanked you, but I want to tell you how much it
means to all of us for you to be here and be so generous in your support
of the Democratic Party.
And you have just heard from President Bill Clinton an example of
why we're all together and why we're all here. He has demonstrated for
eight years now the capacity to bring all of us together in support of a
vision of America's future that can make us a better country.
You know the old saying from scripture where there is no vision,
then people shall perish. Well, the flip side of that must be, where
there is a clear and compelling vision, people shall prosper. And Bill
Clinton came to New York in '92 and came to the White House in January
of '93 with a vision of how we could bring our country together, and end
the economic struggle that had held America back and unleashed instead
the great potential that our country has been demonstrating these last
seven and a half years.
He had a vision of how we could take a new approach to solving
social problems, not with the heavy hand of government regulation as the
instrument of first choice, not with the abandonment that the private
sector with good wishes and little else, but rather an artful
combination of public-private partnership and skillful policies that
really hit the bulls-eye of the target -- whether it was welfare reform
or expanding health care for children or community policing, or the
AmeriCorps program. You know, there are more young people -- and
others, but mostly young people -- all across America in the AmeriCorps
Program right now than were ever in the Peace Corps at the height of the
Peace Corps. And they are so enthusiastic, and so committed to making
their communities and their country a better place. That's just one
tiny example.
And, of course, the example that's cited most is the fact that the
economic performance under President Bill Clinton has been so stunning
that we've all run out of adjectives to describe it. "Great" is the
least of them. Because we went -- as everybody here knows -- from the
biggest deficit to the biggest surpluses; from a triple-dip recession to
a tripling of the stock market; from high unemployment and the worst
time for those without jobs since the Great Depression to 21 million new
jobs, along with low inflation; and officially now, as of two months
ago, the longest economic recovery, and the strongest economy in the
entire history of the United States of America.
President Bill Clinton has made all of these things possible. His
legacy will endure. (Applause.) I want to thank him for the
opportunity that I've had to get to know so many of you. And Tipper and
I have gotten to know some of you over the years extremely well, and all
around this room. We count you as friends, and I'm very, very grateful.
You know, every time we come to New York now, we are thrilled by
the prospect of this election to fill Pat Moynihan's seat. And I want
to just say a few words here about what Hillary Clinton has done, not
only as First Lady, but as many people are finding out as they learn
more about her personal story, for the last 30 years in her own right,
she has been working to lift up children and families, she's been
fighting for improvements in education and in health care.
From her early days, when she was identified by one and all as a
student, as one of the brightest and best, and then given challenging
assignments early on just out of Yale Law School, to her designation in
her own right as one of the 100 top attorneys in the United States of
America. And, of course, as First Lady, making us proud all across this
country and around the world. And now, as a compelling candidate for
the United States Senate, articulating a vision of how New York can be
well-served and how our country can be even better.
This is not even close in terms of the merits. And I want all of
you to make sure it's not even close in terms of the vote. Let's elect
Hillary Clinton as the next Senator from New York. (Applause.)
Tipper and I have counted these two as good friends for eight years
now, and I appreciate not only what you said about me, but what you said
about Tipper. And it's true that she has demonstrated that compassion
and knowledge of the subject that she has taken on, and she has been a
great teacher to me. And, incidentally, next month, we will celebrate
our 30th wedding anniversary, and we're looking forward to that.
(Applause.)
Our son-in-law, Drew Schiff, is here and Karenna's at law school
tonight, finishing up -- oh, did she make it? Well, Karenna
Gore-Schiff, our daughter. And Karenna and Drew made us grandparents
for the first time 10 months ago, and it is great to have a New Yorker
as a grandson. (Applause.) And having just come from there earlier, I
can tell you that he is the cutest little boy you have ever seen in your
life. (Laughter.) He is 10 months old and quite precocious. He is
obviously extremely intelligent, very handsome. He has it all.
(Laughter.)
Anyway, let me say just a few words about where we go from here.
First of all, I do want to say this, that we're here at a fundraiser,
and I'm very grateful for all of you being here at this fundraiser. I
want to remind you that one of the things I'd like to accomplish if our
party is successful in these elections, is to change the way we go about
financing elections. (Applause.) I'd like to see meaningful campaign
finance reform -- there's a ground swell of support in the room, I can
tell. I believe in public financing. And I have challenged the other
party to do away with the 30-second and 60-second ads and, instead, just
debate twice a week, every week, on a different issue each time. Do
away with the soft money, and endow our democracy. (Applause.)
Now, all the issues have been discussed here tonight, and I'll be
very brief. I just want to give you a few more things to think about.
The outcome of these elections will determine not only the presidency
and the House and the Senate -- and, incidentally, I believe that we are
going to win a majority in the House, and we can win control of the
Senate also. (Applause.) If you win this race for Hillary, I really
think that we have an excellent chance and a lot of momentum to win the
Senate.
But in addition to all of that, the Supreme Court is also at stake,
and I want you to consider that. (Applause.) There are a lot of cases
that are being decided in this term five to four, and four to five,
depending on your point of view. And cases involving a woman's right to
choose are pending. (Applause.) Cases involving civil rights and
affirmative action. Cases involving really the heart of who we are as a
people.
And according to our Constitution, the principal connection between
your political will and the way our court interprets the Constitution is
how you vote for President and how you vote for Senate, because they do
the confirming or rejecting. And the next President is probably going
to appoint three Justices of the Supreme Court, maybe more. What that
means is that the way the Court interprets our founding charter for the
next 30 to 40 years will be determined by what happens this November in
the election.
So if you believe in a woman's right to choose, if you believe in
civil rights, if you want to see further progress in protecting our
freedoms and expanding the circle of human dignity, please remember
that. This is as important, if not the most important, election we've
ever had in this country. (Applause.)
I support a woman's right to choose, and I am unyielding in my
support of a woman's right to choose. (Applause.) Hillary Clinton
supports a woman's right to choose. (Applause.)
Let me give you something else to think about, that doesn't often
come up in the discussion of politics: foreign policy. You know, I've
said that if I am entrusted with the presidency, the first document that
I will send to the Senate is to resubmit the nuclear comprehensive test
ban, with your demand that they ratify it this time. (Applause.)
Now, the leader of the other party, Governor Bush, is opposed to
ratifying the test ban treaty. Now, let me just spend a moment on that.
President Clinton just came back from a very successful effort to try to
defuse the tensions a little bit on the Indian subcontinent. There's no
doubt that as this new century begins, one of the most dangerous threats
we're going to have to deal with is the threat of weapons of mass
destruction around the world and the delivery systems that can threaten
us.
Our military experts and leaders have told us we don't need to test
nuclear weapons anymore. We've tested them for 50 years, and we don't
need to any more. Countries like Iran and Iraq, if they get to that
point, will need to. Libya -- you could name off the list -- North
Korea -- if we can put in place a worldwide ban supported by the common
opinions and wishes of all humankind, that is a strategic asset for us
to use in trying to protect our children and grandchildren.
The Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs for the past four administrations,
Democratic and Republican, have said, by all means, we need this. Why
would the other party vote it down on a party line vote and then
Governor Bush, as the leader of the party, say no, opposed to ratifying
it?
I believe in a strong national defense. I also believe in strong
diplomacy. I believe that we have the wisdom and the national strength
to pursue a bright future for our people, not only with weapons, but
with our values and with our arguments in favor of the future that we
want to create for all of the people in the world. I ask for your
support for those values and for that effort. (Applause.)
A couple of days ago, we recognized the 30th anniversary of Earth
Day. One of the big issues there that didn't get talked about, the same
as these others, is whether or not we are going to move forward in a
meaningful way to deal with the most serious global environmental
challenge we have -- global warming; and whether in doing so we're going
to protect the water that New Yorkers drink and the air that children
breathe here and in the rest of the country.
You know that I'm committed to protecting the environment.
(Applause.) I hope you know I'm committed to doing it in a way that
also grows our economy. We have demonstrated in this administration
that we can do both -- the economy and the environment go together.
The other party and its leader have called the treaty that we
negotiated at great effort unwise and extreme, and they are opposed to
doing anything about it. I think they're wrong about that, as I think
they're wrong about most of the big questions that we face, including
the economy.
I'm going to be talking tomorrow morning, at the Association For A
Better New York, about economic policy. But all of the good things that
I described as flowing from the vision of Bill Clinton and the work that
we have done in this administration are instantly at risk if the other
party is put in charge of economic policy.
We have seen them advocate a $2-trillion tax scheme that would
squander the entire budget deficit and then a trillion dollars besides,
as if it doesn't matter. How arrogant to think that we Americans cannot
add and subtract. We had the politics of irresponsibility one time
before, and our debt was quadrupled and interest rates rose, and the
economy went in the tank.
We had the politics of illusion and the pretense that the
arithmetic really didn't matter that much. And what we have tried to
bring instead is an insistence on a commitment to realism, a solid
assumption, hard choices, lay them out there, and make them in the best
way you can. Balance the budget -- not just because that's a slogan,
but because we have learned in our country that deficits which used to
be thought capable of stimulating economic growth might not do that if
it leads the Federal Reserve Board to constrict the money supply and
choke off credit.
What we've learned, in other words, is that you have to keep your
eye on the ball. The confidence that people have in our economy, the
confidence the markets have that we're capable of governing ourselves
well, that we're not going to just let everything go into endless red
ink, but that we are going to insist on the tough choices. If we
continue doing that, then we can keep interest rates low, we can keep
investing in the future, we can keep opening up new markets, and we can
keep the economy growing strongly. The other side would put all that at
risk -- including the investments in our future that are needed.
I've said that, in my opinion, the single most important investment
we need to make in our future is to bring revolutionary improvement to
our public schools and start treating our teachers like the
professionals that they are -- reward them adequately, set higher
standards, have accountability, measure performance. (Applause.)
Let me tell you, approximately once a week, I've been having school
days. I was talking to Alan and Susan Patrickov (phonetic) in some
depth about it earlier, where I go to the home of a public school
teacher and spend the night with the family and then the next morning
have breakfast with them and go to school at 7:00 a.m., 7:30 a.m.. And
I'm there when the children arrive, and I stay there all day. And while
I'm there, I meet with the teachers and the principals and the students
and the parents and the bus drivers and the janitors and the cafeteria
workers and the school safety and security folks, and the school nurse.
I'm there when the children leave at the end of the day, once a week.
What I'm learning is, of course, that we have an awful lot of great
teachers that work their hearts out, great principals who don't have the
resources they need, teachers who regularly agree to work for $10,000,
$15,000, $20,000 a year less than they could make in another profession
where they could easily find a job. I spent the night with a family in
Michigan where the teacher was a 30-year veteran with a master's degree,
recognized as one of the very best you can find anywhere. Her
19-year-old son just got a job in Fort Lauderdale, Florida as a web page
designer and is making almost twice as much as she makes after 30 years
as a teacher.
That's great, but it's for him. But it's not great that we don't
recognize the importance of investing in our future in that way. And
what would the other side do? They don't really have accountability in
their proposal. What they do have is vouchers. Again, an illusion,
just like the economic plan. You ask people, what is a voucher? Oh,
that pays the tuition for a private school. Wrong. It pays a tiny
downpayment toward tuition for a private school. It's a fraud. It
doesn't do what it is advertised to do. (Applause.)
And just today, at an earlier group, I was commenting briefly on
the news of yet another incident involving young people and guns -- this
time at the National Zoo. We don't know all the facts, but we know that
two groups of young people got into a fight at the zoo, which turned
into a gunfight. And a 12-year-old is gravely injured; two others
seriously injured. And it goes on.
What does it say? We've already this year had a six-year-old 1st
grader killed by a classmate with a gun. A five-year-old firing a gun
at the playground near Seattle. And the other party is hosting a dinner
like this one that's co-chaired by the National Rifle Association, and
they are opposing meaningful gun control legislation.
The leader of the other party, Governor Bush, just overturned in
his state a 125-year-old ban on concealed weapons. And then when the
NRA complained, he went back for another bill to make sure that you
could take concealed weapons into churches and synagogues. It's a
different vision of our future. It's a different way of looking at
America. (Applause.)
And finally, why are they opposed to hate crimes legislation?
(Applause.) And why are they opposed to affirmative action?
(Applause.) Why did Governor Bush find it impossible to reach the moral
conclusion that a century and a half after the Civil War, it really is
not right for the confederate flag to be flying over government
buildings and sending a signal of hate to so many of our citizens?
(Applause.)
It's a different vision of our future. And we have to choose.
He's for state's rights on the confederate flag, and incidentally, on
the minimum wage also. He thinks that states ought to be able to opt
out of the minimum wage. What would that do to New York?
So whether it is the Supreme Court and the future of our liberties,
or foreign policy and the future security of our nation, or
environmental policy and the future of the Earth, itself. Whether it's
our ability to equip our children with the skills they need to live
fulfilling lives and prosper in the 21st century with education and job
training. Whether it's the establishment of safety in our schools and
on our sidewalks and in our neighborhoods by dealing with the flood of
guns that are in the hands of the wrong people. Whether it's bringing
our people together through enforcement of the civil rights law and
moral leadership to establish respect and tolerance, tolerance for
diversity and respect for difference, and then transcend to embrace what
we have in common: the American Spirit. Or whether it's the bread and
butter decision of whether we're going to keep our prosperity going or
sacrifice it on an ideological altar of supply-side nonsense. Whatever
the question, the choice between the two parties is clear.
And in closing, if that were all that mattered -- the issues -- we
would win this hands down. Hillary would win the Senate race hands
down. We'd win the House and Senate and the White House hands down --
(applause) -- because the American people agree with us on the issues.
But the final thing I want you to remember is, there's a second
factor that determines the outcome of elections. And sometimes it's
even more important than whether you agree or disagree on the issues.
And you could call it intensity, you could call it commitment, you could
call it determination. But whatever you call it, what it comes down to
is how strongly you feel that our country has to make the right choice
in this election. How deeply do you care about the way we make the
policies that will affect all our lives in the future?
The other side may be wrong in our way of thinking on all these
issues, but they are passionately committed. Just look at what they're
doing with all the money that's flowing into this state, for example --
from people that don't know either one of the candidates here. Because
they are committed to their way of thinking, to that different vision
that they have of our future.
Because of your presence here and because of what I've been hearing
from you, and what I feel from all of you in this room, I have no doubt
that the real answer is that you feel stronger than they do, and because
of that we're going to win this election in November, and I thank you
for being here and for making that possible. (Applause.)
God bless you and thank you. (Applause.)
END 9:55 P.M. EDT
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release April 24, 2000
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT,
THE VICE PRESIDENT, THE FIRST LADY AND MRS. GORE
AT DNC DINNER
Imperial Ballroom
New York Sheraton Hotel
New York, New York
8:53 P.M. EDT
MRS. GORE: Thank you, all. Hello, everybody. Please be seated.
I want to thank you for that very warm welcome, Mayor Rendell, and for
your very spirited and dedicated and strong leadership that's so
effective for our Party. I know all of us appreciate that, the time and
the commitment that you give to us.
And what a great night for the Democratic Party. What a great
night. It's fantastic. (Applause.) I am proud to be sharing the
stage, too, with one of our Party's greatest Presidents ever and two of
its very finest candidates. What a pleasure for me. It's fantastic.
(Applause.)
I also see so many friends in the room, and I want to thank each
and every one of you for being such very good friends to Al and to me.
And I think all of us here recognize that this election is going to be
very tough and it's going to be very important in our nation's history.
And it's going to determine the kind of nation that we are going to
leave to our children and to our grandchildren.
And I know that you would agree with me that it's one of the great
reasons why it's important for us to remind our neighbors and friends
and other people who are interested that politics is personal, and that
it really does matter who we all elect to the State House and to the
White House, and it's going to make a very real difference in each of
our houses.
And I think that's a message that all of us are very determined to
take to other people, and to continue to open the doors in the
Democratic Party to all those who share that vision and those values.
And we have to remind people that it is the Democratic Party, truly,
that is the party of the people, that makes the government work for the
people. That's the value, the core value of our party and that's a key
distinction, and I know it's one that we're all very proud of.
And now it is my great pleasure to introduce to you a woman who
embodies all the very best values in the Democratic Party. We know her
as someone who works absolutely tirelessly to open the doors of
opportunity to women here in America and, in fact, all around the world.
And she knows how to turn her rock-solid values into a commitment that
can serve people in their everyday lives. And she knows, as well, how
to achieve results.
She is a very dedicated and a very determined leader, and I am
proud to welcome her as a close, personal friend and someone who I know
that all of you are proud of as our great First Lady and a wonderful
candidate for the Senate.
Ladies and gentlemen, my friend, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
(Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Well, thank you all. And thank you, Tipper. I'm
delighted that all four of us -- Tipper and Bill and Al and I -- could
be here to be part of this very successful event for the DNC in the
Empire State, where we have so many people who have demonstrated their
commitment to the Democratic Party, and to its principles. And I'm
delighted to be here to thank all of you for your support over the last
seven, eight years now, and thank you for your continuing commitment and
support.
You know, I know Tipper so well, and am so proud of her, and I can
only echo what Ed Rendell said. And that is that she's going to be a
superb person in the White House to carry on so many of the important
issues that she has championed her entire life. From homelessness --
(applause) -- from her advocacy on behalf of the homeless, the children,
to those with mental illness, who deserve to be treated the same as a
person with any kind of illness, and she sends a brave and courageous
voice for that position. (Applause.)
I want to thank Ed for his leadership of the party. He's done a
fabulous job. (Applause.) And he's one of my favorite mayors, and I'm
so grateful for the leadership that he has demonstrated in the position
that he formerly held.
And I want to thank Tony Bennett for coming and entertaining us as
well this evening. (Applause.)
This is a very special night for all of us, because Bill and I have
been a little bit nostalgic today. We did the last Easter Egg Roll on
the White House Lawn, and that's the eighth and last one for us. And we
spent some time sort of thinking about everything that has happened
since 1992. And one of the greatest gifts that we've had is the
friendship and relationship with Al and Tipper Gore.
And it was a relationship that began when Bill asked Al to join the
ticket and the four of us first met together. And I can remember some
of those early times when we were getting to know each other, on a bus
trip that took us throughout so many of the states that we were
campaigning in with such joy and excitement about the future.
And I think all of us made those speeches in 1992, standing on
flatbed trucks and in the doorway of a bus or in front of a building
somewhere, in a field with a farmer. And we kept saying -- and Bill and
Al said over and over again, we can turn this country around, we can
demonstrate what it means to lead again; America can assume its position
of prominence in the economy and the political and military leadership
of the world, we just have to make some tough choices.
Many of you took that position that Bill and Al embodied, which was
really the new Democratic Party, you took it on faith. You knew that we
had to make some serious changes. You had seen the deficits building,
you had seen how they squeezed out private capital, you saw our social
conditions deteriorating. And you said, no, we're going to make a
change. And New York was such a great, supportive state for the
policies that the Clinton-Gore administration proposed.
Now, we can look back and say that that investment you made in 1992
-- and then you even upped your investment in 1996, because New York
gave the greatest margin of victory to the Clinton-Gore ticket. That
investment was one of the best investments that New York and New Yorkers
and America has ever made. Because we are today -- (applause) -- we are
today a stronger and better country than we were in 1992 -- (applause)
--and I know that all of us in this room recognize it would not have
been possible without the leadership and the tough decisions that were
made from the very top by the President and the Vice President. I'm
very proud of the record of this administration; and the results speak
for themselves.
And many of you have been not only stalwart supporters, but you've
been missionaries, in effect, talking to friends and neighbors and
colleagues about what it now means to be a Democrat -- a Democrat who
believes in balanced budgets, a Democrat who believes in using the
surplus to pay down the national debt, a Democrat who believes in
providing the tools that are needed to mayors and governors and others
to bring down the crime and welfare rates. A Democrat who understands
that we have to remain committed to public education, that we have to
continue to work for the day when every child has access to a
first-class public education in this state and throughout our country.
(Applause.)
You know how important it is that we continue to work toward the
day when we do provide quality, affordable health care to every New
Yorker and every American. (Applause.) You know what the positive
agenda of this Democratic administration has been. You have supported
it. You have spoken out for it. You have contributed to the DNC and to
the Democratic campaign, so that this message could get out and the work
could be done.
Because now we no longer have to ask you to take it on faith.
You've seen the evidence, you know what the results of these kinds of
policies are, and how critical it is that we elect Democrats -- starting
with Al Gore, but going right through the House and the Senate. If we
are able to take back the House and the Senate, we can continue the
policies that have worked so well for America. (Applause.)
Now, with so many Democratic New Yorkers in the House, I just have
to say one special word about how important it is that we elect a
Democrat to succeed Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the United States Senate.
(Applause.) And just remember these three brief reasons why it's
important we do that.
Number one, we do not need any more Republicans in the United
States Senate, we have too many as it is. (Applause.) They have stood
in the way of the progress that has been made and we have to continue to
stand up to them and their agenda, that would be so counterproductive
and send us in a u-turn back to the 1980s, with exploding deficits and
disinvestment.
Number two, there are very big differences between Republicans and
Democrats in this state and elsewhere. If we want to continue the
fiscal policies that have worked, we need a Democrat in the Senate. If
we want to support public education, we need a Democrat in the Senate.
If we want to guarantee a woman's right to choose, we need a Democrat in
the Senate. (Applause.)
And you all know that in order to get anything done in the Senate,
it takes teamwork. It takes people who are willing to work together to
get something accomplished for their state and the people they
represent. And if you go to the Senate and you disagree with a fellow
senator -- you can ask the Vice President, he was there working so hard
and effectively for all those years -- you can't sue or fire your
colleague, you have to get along with them and keep working with them to
get things done for the people you represent. (Applause.)
So there are many reasons why we should celebrate tonight. But we
cannot rest until we make sure that we put Al Gore in the White House,
we do everything we can to put Democrats in the majority in the House
and in the Senate.
Now, none of this would be possible this evening, we could not have
raised the money that's been raised, the report that Ed gave about how
well we're doing, if this administration had not kept faith with you,
had not demonstrated how worthy your investment in Bill Clinton and Al
Gore was.
And none of that would have been possible if we hadn't elected
someone to be President who understood where the country needed to go,
who had the commitment to making the tough political decisions that
would really make it possible for us to be enjoying and celebrating this
moment, and I am very proud that this administration has such a record
of accomplishment.
And it's my great honor, and personal privilege, to introduce the
person who really has made it all possible, the President of the United
States, Bill Clinton. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very
much. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. I think she's
about to get the hang of it, don't you? (Laughter.) Wow.
The Vice President, Tipper, Hillary, Chairman Rendell, ladies and
gentlemen. I would like to begin with a heart full of gratitude by
saying some thank you's. I thank Ed Rendell and Joe Andrew and all the
people at the Democratic Party for the work they have done. (Applause.)
I thank all of you at these tables who helped to chair this event
and did the work so that we could all be here tonight. I want to thank
Jon Stewart for making us laugh. (Applause.) I wish he would move to
Washington -- if we laughed a little more there, we might get twice as
much done. (Laughter.)
I want to thank my dear friend, Tony Bennett, for performing again
so beautifully. (Applause.) You know, people always marvel -- Tony's a
year or two older than I am, and people always marvel at how great an
artist he is. And I was telling people earlier tonight, the thing that
is so amazing is that he still has perfect pitch. I lost my perfect
pitch 10 years ago. And he has perfect pitch in more ways that one.
I'm glad he's here.
I thank the people of New York, the Democratic Party of New York
and my special supporters in this room who have been with me and Al and
Hillary and Tipper all these years. I want to thank those of you who
are helping Hillary in this Senate campaign. I have no doubt of one
thing -- that if you elect her, she will be a worthy successor to Robert
Kennedy and Pat Moynihan, and will make a terrific difference to the
people of this state and this nation. And after I heard her speaking, I
have no doubt she's going to win if you stay with her, so I feel good
about that. Thank you. (Applause.)
I want to thank Tipper Gore for eight marvelous years. I was
looking at her tonight, thinking to myself -- I've watched her raise her
children, I've watched her deal with sick members of her family, I've
watched her deal with all kinds of pressures and keep laughing. The
thing I appreciate most about her is that she believes that people who
are fragile and people who are broken -- whether they are homeless or
suffering from mental illness -- are part of our common humanity and
still have something to live for, still have something to give, and
ought to be given a better chance. And our country would be a better
place if more people felt the way she did. I hope that more people
will. (Applause.)
Let me say also that I am profoundly grateful tonight for the
chance you gave me to serve. We were talking around our table tonight
about one of the chances that I've had as President is to learn a lot
about the presidencies of people you don't know much about. I thought I
knew a lot about American history when I became President, but I've
spent a lot of time studying. Periods of time when most Americans are
not -- that most Americans aren't too conversive with. The presidency
of Franklin Pierce or Rutherford Hayes. And I tried to do it so that I
could see the whole history of this country in a seamless web.
One of the things that strikes me as strange is that some people
who have been in this position -- even people I very much admire -- talk
about what a terrible burden it is, and how the White House is the crown
jewel of the federal penal system, and how they can't wait to get out of
there, and what a terrible pain it is. Frankly, most of those guys
didn't have a tougher time than I've had there -- (laughter and
applause) -- and I don't know what in the heck they're talking about.
(Laughter.)
One of my friends from home called me a couple of years ago when
things weren't going so well for me and he said, just remember, Bill, a
couple of runs of bad luck and you'd be home doing $25 divorces and
deeds. Don't feel sorry for yourself; you asked for this job. And
that's the way I feel.
Every day has been a joy and an opportunity and still is, and I
thank you for it. But I want you to know, sometimes people say, well,
what keeps you going. And tonight we were sitting around our table, and
I looked at Bob Rosen, and I said, isn't this the place where we had
that fundraiser in February of '92, right before the New Hampshire
primaries, when I was dropping like a rock in the polls and everybody
said I was deader than a doornail? He said yes, this is it.
So I started telling people around the table, I said, you know, I
met a guy here that night walking through the kitchen. This is a true
story. I said, I met a guy there that night walking through the
kitchen. He was working here. And he came up to me and he said,
governor, governor, he said, my boy is in school. He's in the 5th
grade. He studies this election and he studies the candidates and the
issues, and he says I should vote for you. And he said, but I want to
ask you a question first: If I do what my boy wants and I vote for you,
I want you to help me. He said, you see, I came here as an immigrant,
and in my home country I was very poor and here I have more money and a
better job. But in my home country, I was free.
He said, here, my boy, he can't go across the street to the park
and play unless I go with him because he'll be in danger. He can't walk
down the street to school by himself because he could get hurt. So he
said, if I do what my boy wants and I vote for you, will you make my boy
free?
And as I was telling this story, that man, Dimitri Theopoulos,
(phonetic), came up to me and embraced me tonight. He doesn't even work
here anymore, but he came here tonight to work this banquet, and I want
to thank him. His son is now a student at St. John's University in New
York City, and he is doing well. (Applause.)
Now, what's the point of all this? When Al Gore and I came to
Washington, it was to help people like Dimitri and his son -- people who
serve these banquets, but can't afford the price of the tickets. People
who need the minimum wage and access to health care, whose kids ought to
be able to go to college and ought to be able to get a good education on
the way. People who maybe have been homeless at some point in their
lives or stuck on welfare and want jobs. And after seven years and a
few months, over 21 million of them have jobs that didn't eight years
ago. (Applause.)
Over 21 million have taken advantage of family and medical leave.
Over 5 million have taken advantage of the HOPE Scholarship to go on to
college. There are 500,000 people who couldn't get handguns because of
the Brady Bill. (Applause.) And gun crime in this country, down 35
percent since 1993; the homicide rate at a 31--year low; 2 million kids
out of poverty; more than 2 million kids with health insurance; students
borrowing money through our new loan program, saving $8 billion, to help
them go on and go to college. (Applause.) Real stories of real lives
of real people. That's what this is all about.
I never, ever, for all the wonderful joy and love of the presidency
and my love of politics -- and Lord knows, I have loved it -- I always
thought that it was wrong to seek power without purpose. That in the
end, it was a hollow victory to have it and to exercise it to hurt other
people with the painful disappointment in life, they never give you what
you want. The only thing that really matters is knowing that people who
otherwise wouldn't have done as well have a little better chance because
of your endeavors.
And what I want you to know tonight, as I bring the Vice President
up here, is that we have worked very hard to turn this country around
and to get it going in the right direction. But the theme song of this
election year ought to be the first song Tony Bennett sang, "The Best Is
Yet To Come." Because we are now in a position to take on the big
challenges of this country that would have been unthinkable eight years
ago. We can get this country out of debt for the first time since 1835,
and give a generation of Americans a chance at a strong economy. We can
deal with the challenges of the aging of America, the children of
America and all the things that -- I'll leave it to Al to talk about.
But we've got a chance to do that. But you have to understand that
this election is every bit as important, if not more important, than the
ones in '92 and '96. I want you to know a couple of things about Al
Gore that he wouldn't say, himself. And I'm amazed that so many
Americans, even a lot of our supporters, don't know.
First of all, as you might have noticed, we've had to make a few
tough decisions over the last eight years. He was at the fore of the
process that produced every difficult decision we ever made, every
controversial one, every one that could have wrecked both our careers
and kept him from being here tonight as the nominee of our party.
He wanted us to take that tough stand against the deficit in 1993
that required him to break the tie in the United States Senate. He
wanted us to become the first administration in history to seriously
take on in a systematic way the problems of gun violence in this
country, and to try to have systematic, sensible measures to protect our
children from its dangers.
He wanted to be the first administration in history that took on
big tobacco to try to give our children their lives back. He was out
there with me on Kosovo, on Bosnia, on Haiti, on all the tough,
controversial foreign policy issues, when all the experts in Washington
were saying these were little places unworthy of America's great
interests, and besides there was lots of downside and no upside, who
cares if a lot of innocent people are just dying like flies.
He was there every time, in private, getting no credit, when a
difficult decision had to be made. And the presidency is defined, and
the country goes forward based on the hard decisions. The easy ones
anybody can make.
The second thing I want you to know is that he has had more
responsibility than any person who ever held this job. And he has
performed in an absolutely stunning manner. And I just want to run
through -- yes, you can clap for that. (Applause.).
I want to give you a few examples. He led our effort to give
America a genuinely competitive and humane telecommunications policy,
which meant -- what did that mean? You look at all the companies in New
York state alone that did not even exist in 1996, when we signed the
Telecommunications Act. Hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Plus we got
the e-rate to guarantee that our schools -- our poorest schools -- and
libraries and hospitals would be able to access the Internet.
He led our efforts to hook all of our schools and classrooms up to
the Internet. When we started in 1994, under Al's leadership, 3 percent
of the classrooms in America were hooked up to the Internet. Today, 65
percent are; 11 percent of the schools. Today, 95 percent of the
schools in this country have an Internet connection. (Applause.)
He led our efforts to bring economic opportunity to people and
places left behind, in the empowerment zones and the enterprise
communities. He led our efforts in the environment, which it seems like
our partnership for the next generation of vehicles with Detroit, with
the auto makers and the auto companies, the auto workers and the auto
companies. Now you'll be able to buy cars -- decent size cars, actually
getting 70-80 miles a gallon in the next year or two.
He had a big part of our foreign policy when it came to arms
control, or dealing with Russia or South Africa or the Middle East. He
led our efforts to reinvent the federal government which meant, as I
think all of you, even our adversaries would admit, we have been
slightly more active than previous presidents in the last several years,
and we did it while shrinking the government to its smallest size in 40
years -- all because of Al Gore's leadership. (Applause.)
But what I want you to know is more important than all that. I had
lunch with this guy once a week, before he got something better to do
here a few months ago. (Laughter.) From the day I took office until
the onset of the presidential campaign. I probably know more about him
than anybody but Tipper. I know what he likes and what he can't stand.
I know what he loves. I know when he's having a bad day and how he
deals with it. And, by the way, he knows the same about me.
And all I can tell you is, I feel absolutely comfortable putting
the future of my daughter and the grandchildren I hope she will give us
in his hands. (Applause.) He is the most accomplished and effective
Vice President in the history of the country. That is not a matter of
dispute, that's a statement of fact. He is the most well-qualified
candidate we have had in my lifetime. I wish I'd had half his
experience coming into office in '93 that he will bring in, in 2001.
But the most important thing of all is, he understands the future
and he knows how to take us there. There are big challenges out there.
We have not done all this work to turn this country around, to fritter
away the chance of a lifetime, to deal with the big issues -- and there
are huge differences between our parties and our candidates that will
have dramatic, immediate, practical impact on the lives of the American
people -- not just those of us who came here tonight, but keep in mind,
those of us who served us here tonight.
So for all my gratitude to all of you, for all my gratitude to the
American people for the chance to serve in a job I love, the most
important thing is always, for our country, what are we going to do
today and tomorrow. All I have done for seven years and three months
was to try to get the country I love in the position to build the future
of our dreams for our children. Now, it's up to you to decide whether
we do that.
And believe me, for the rest of the lives of everybody in this
audience, I will be very surprised if you ever get a chance to vote for
anyone for president again who has done so much, who is such a fine
human being and who so clearly understands the future that is unfolding
at such a rapid pace. We owe it -- we owe it to ourselves, to the
labors of the last eight years and, more importantly, we owe it to our
children and the dreams we have for them, to make sure that the next
President of the United States is Al Gore. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)
Well, it's great to be here and I just told the President, I told
him, I said, I thought you were a little stingy with those comments.
You could have laid it on a little thicker than that and it would have
been fine with me. (Laughter.)
Seriously, thank you so much. I believe that's, by far, the most
generous introduction I've ever had and I appreciate it very much. And
to all of you, we've all thanked you, but I want to tell you how much it
means to all of us for you to be here and be so generous in your support
of the Democratic Party.
And you have just heard from President Bill Clinton an example of
why we're all together and why we're all here. He has demonstrated for
eight years now the capacity to bring all of us together in support of a
vision of America's future that can make us a better country.
You know the old saying from scripture where there is no vision,
then people shall perish. Well, the flip side of that must be, where
there is a clear and compelling vision, people shall prosper. And Bill
Clinton came to New York in '92 and came to the White House in January
of '93 with a vision of how we could bring our country together, and end
the economic struggle that had held America back and unleashed instead
the great potential that our country has been demonstrating these last
seven and a half years.
He had a vision of how we could take a new approach to solving
social problems, not with the heavy hand of government regulation as the
instrument of first choice, not with the abandonment that the private
sector with good wishes and little else, but rather an artful
combination of public-private partnership and skillful policies that
really hit the bulls-eye of the target -- whether it was welfare reform
or expanding health care for children or community policing, or the
AmeriCorps program. You know, there are more young people -- and
others, but mostly young people -- all across America in the AmeriCorps
Program right now than were ever in the Peace Corps at the height of the
Peace Corps. And they are so enthusiastic, and so committed to making
their communities and their country a better place. That's just one
tiny example.
And, of course, the example that's cited most is the fact that the
economic performance under President Bill Clinton has been so stunning
that we've all run out of adjectives to describe it. "Great" is the
least of them. Because we went -- as everybody here knows -- from the
biggest deficit to the biggest surpluses; from a triple-dip recession to
a tripling of the stock market; from high unemployment and the worst
time for those without jobs since the Great Depression to 21 million new
jobs, along with low inflation; and officially now, as of two months
ago, the longest economic recovery, and the strongest economy in the
entire history of the United States of America.
President Bill Clinton has made all of these things possible. His
legacy will endure. (Applause.) I want to thank him for the
opportunity that I've had to get to know so many of you. And Tipper and
I have gotten to know some of you over the years extremely well, and all
around this room. We count you as friends, and I'm very, very grateful.
You know, every time we come to New York now, we are thrilled by
the prospect of this election to fill Pat Moynihan's seat. And I want
to just say a few words here about what Hillary Clinton has done, not
only as First Lady, but as many people are finding out as they learn
more about her personal story, for the last 30 years in her own right,
she has been working to lift up children and families, she's been
fighting for improvements in education and in health care.
From her early days, when she was identified by one and all as a
student, as one of the brightest and best, and then given challenging
assignments early on just out of Yale Law School, to her designation in
her own right as one of the 100 top attorneys in the United States of
America. And, of course, as First Lady, making us proud all across this
country and around the world. And now, as a compelling candidate for
the United States Senate, articulating a vision of how New York can be
well-served and how our country can be even better.
This is not even close in terms of the merits. And I want all of
you to make sure it's not even close in terms of the vote. Let's elect
Hillary Clinton as the next Senator from New York. (Applause.)
Tipper and I have counted these two as good friends for eight years
now, and I appreciate not only what you said about me, but what you said
about Tipper. And it's true that she has demonstrated that compassion
and knowledge of the subject that she has taken on, and she has been a
great teacher to me. And, incidentally, next month, we will celebrate
our 30th wedding anniversary, and we're looking forward to that.
(Applause.)
Our son-in-law, Drew Schiff, is here and Karenna's at law school
tonight, finishing up -- oh, did she make it? Well, Karenna
Gore-Schiff, our daughter. And Karenna and Drew made us grandparents
for the first time 10 months ago, and it is great to have a New Yorker
as a grandson. (Applause.) And having just come from there earlier, I
can tell you that he is the cutest little boy you have ever seen in your
life. (Laughter.) He is 10 months old and quite precocious. He is
obviously extremely intelligent, very handsome. He has it all.
(Laughter.)
Anyway, let me say just a few words about where we go from here.
First of all, I do want to say this, that we're here at a fundraiser,
and I'm very grateful for all of you being here at this fundraiser. I
want to remind you that one of the things I'd like to accomplish if our
party is successful in these elections, is to change the way we go about
financing elections. (Applause.) I'd like to see meaningful campaign
finance reform -- there's a ground swell of support in the room, I can
tell. I believe in public financing. And I have challenged the other
party to do away with the 30-second and 60-second ads and, instead, just
debate twice a week, every week, on a different issue each time. Do
away with the soft money, and endow our democracy. (Applause.)
Now, all the issues have been discussed here tonight, and I'll be
very brief. I just want to give you a few more things to think about.
The outcome of these elections will determine not only the presidency
and the House and the Senate -- and, incidentally, I believe that we are
going to win a majority in the House, and we can win control of the
Senate also. (Applause.) If you win this race for Hillary, I really
think that we have an excellent chance and a lot of momentum to win the
Senate.
But in addition to all of that, the Supreme Court is also at stake,
and I want you to consider that. (Applause.) There are a lot of cases
that are being decided in this term five to four, and four to five,
depending on your point of view. And cases involving a woman's right to
choose are pending. (Applause.) Cases involving civil rights and
affirmative action. Cases involving really the heart of who we are as a
people.
And according to our Constitution, the principal connection between
your political will and the way our court interprets the Constitution is
how you vote for President and how you vote for Senate, because they do
the confirming or rejecting. And the next President is probably going
to appoint three Justices of the Supreme Court, maybe more. What that
means is that the way the Court interprets our founding charter for the
next 30 to 40 years will be determined by what happens this November in
the election.
So if you believe in a woman's right to choose, if you believe in
civil rights, if you want to see further progress in protecting our
freedoms and expanding the circle of human dignity, please remember
that. This is as important, if not the most important, election we've
ever had in this country. (Applause.)
I support a woman's right to choose, and I am unyielding in my
support of a woman's right to choose. (Applause.) Hillary Clinton
supports a woman's right to choose. (Applause.)
Let me give you something else to think about, that doesn't often
come up in the discussion of politics: foreign policy. You know, I've
said that if I am entrusted with the presidency, the first document that
I will send to the Senate is to resubmit the nuclear comprehensive test
ban, with your demand that they ratify it this time. (Applause.)
Now, the leader of the other party, Governor Bush, is opposed to
ratifying the test ban treaty. Now, let me just spend a moment on that.
President Clinton just came back from a very successful effort to try to
defuse the tensions a little bit on the Indian subcontinent. There's no
doubt that as this new century begins, one of the most dangerous threats
we're going to have to deal with is the threat of weapons of mass
destruction around the world and the delivery systems that can threaten
us.
Our military experts and leaders have told us we don't need to test
nuclear weapons anymore. We've tested them for 50 years, and we don't
need to any more. Countries like Iran and Iraq, if they get to that
point, will need to. Libya -- you could name off the list -- North
Korea -- if we can put in place a worldwide ban supported by the common
opinions and wishes of all humankind, that is a strategic asset for us
to use in trying to protect our children and grandchildren.
The Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs for the past four administrations,
Democratic and Republican, have said, by all means, we need this. Why
would the other party vote it down on a party line vote and then
Governor Bush, as the leader of the party, say no, opposed to ratifying
it?
I believe in a strong national defense. I also believe in strong
diplomacy. I believe that we have the wisdom and the national strength
to pursue a bright future for our people, not only with weapons, but
with our values and with our arguments in favor of the future that we
want to create for all of the people in the world. I ask for your
support for those values and for that effort. (Applause.)
A couple of days ago, we recognized the 30th anniversary of Earth
Day. One of the big issues there that didn't get talked about, the same
as these others, is whether or not we are going to move forward in a
meaningful way to deal with the most serious global environmental
challenge we have -- global warming; and whether in doing so we're going
to protect the water that New Yorkers drink and the air that children
breathe here and in the rest of the country.
You know that I'm committed to protecting the environment.
(Applause.) I hope you know I'm committed to doing it in a way that
also grows our economy. We have demonstrated in this administration
that we can do both -- the economy and the environment go together.
The other party and its leader have called the treaty that we
negotiated at great effort unwise and extreme, and they are opposed to
doing anything about it. I think they're wrong about that, as I think
they're wrong about most of the big questions that we face, including
the economy.
I'm going to be talking tomorrow morning, at the Association For A
Better New York, about economic policy. But all of the good things that
I described as flowing from the vision of Bill Clinton and the work that
we have done in this administration are instantly at risk if the other
party is put in charge of economic policy.
We have seen them advocate a $2-trillion tax scheme that would
squander the entire budget deficit and then a trillion dollars besides,
as if it doesn't matter. How arrogant to think that we Americans cannot
add and subtract. We had the politics of irresponsibility one time
before, and our debt was quadrupled and interest rates rose, and the
economy went in the tank.
We had the politics of illusion and the pretense that the
arithmetic really didn't matter that much. And what we have tried to
bring instead is an insistence on a commitment to realism, a solid
assumption, hard choices, lay them out there, and make them in the best
way you can. Balance the budget -- not just because that's a slogan,
but because we have learned in our country that deficits which used to
be thought capable of stimulating economic growth might not do that if
it leads the Federal Reserve Board to constrict the money supply and
choke off credit.
What we've learned, in other words, is that you have to keep your
eye on the ball. The confidence that people have in our economy, the
confidence the markets have that we're capable of governing ourselves
well, that we're not going to just let everything go into endless red
ink, but that we are going to insist on the tough choices. If we
continue doing that, then we can keep interest rates low, we can keep
investing in the future, we can keep opening up new markets, and we can
keep the economy growing strongly. The other side would put all that at
risk -- including the investments in our future that are needed.
I've said that, in my opinion, the single most important investment
we need to make in our future is to bring revolutionary improvement to
our public schools and start treating our teachers like the
professionals that they are -- reward them adequately, set higher
standards, have accountability, measure performance. (Applause.)
Let me tell you, approximately once a week, I've been having school
days. I was talking to Alan and Susan Patrickov (phonetic) in some
depth about it earlier, where I go to the home of a public school
teacher and spend the night with the family and then the next morning
have breakfast with them and go to school at 7:00 a.m., 7:30 a.m.. And
I'm there when the children arrive, and I stay there all day. And while
I'm there, I meet with the teachers and the principals and the students
and the parents and the bus drivers and the janitors and the cafeteria
workers and the school safety and security folks, and the school nurse.
I'm there when the children leave at the end of the day, once a week.
What I'm learning is, of course, that we have an awful lot of great
teachers that work their hearts out, great principals who don't have the
resources they need, teachers who regularly agree to work for $10,000,
$15,000, $20,000 a year less than they could make in another profession
where they could easily find a job. I spent the night with a family in
Michigan where the teacher was a 30-year veteran with a master's degree,
recognized as one of the very best you can find anywhere. Her
19-year-old son just got a job in Fort Lauderdale, Florida as a web page
designer and is making almost twice as much as she makes after 30 years
as a teacher.
That's great, but it's for him. But it's not great that we don't
recognize the importance of investing in our future in that way. And
what would the other side do? They don't really have accountability in
their proposal. What they do have is vouchers. Again, an illusion,
just like the economic plan. You ask people, what is a voucher? Oh,
that pays the tuition for a private school. Wrong. It pays a tiny
downpayment toward tuition for a private school. It's a fraud. It
doesn't do what it is advertised to do. (Applause.)
And just today, at an earlier group, I was commenting briefly on
the news of yet another incident involving young people and guns -- this
time at the National Zoo. We don't know all the facts, but we know that
two groups of young people got into a fight at the zoo, which turned
into a gunfight. And a 12-year-old is gravely injured; two others
seriously injured. And it goes on.
What does it say? We've already this year had a six-year-old 1st
grader killed by a classmate with a gun. A five-year-old firing a gun
at the playground near Seattle. And the other party is hosting a dinner
like this one that's co-chaired by the National Rifle Association, and
they are opposing meaningful gun control legislation.
The leader of the other party, Governor Bush, just overturned in
his state a 125-year-old ban on concealed weapons. And then when the
NRA complained, he went back for another bill to make sure that you
could take concealed weapons into churches and synagogues. It's a
different vision of our future. It's a different way of looking at
America. (Applause.)
And finally, why are they opposed to hate crimes legislation?
(Applause.) And why are they opposed to affirmative action?
(Applause.) Why did Governor Bush find it impossible to reach the moral
conclusion that a century and a half after the Civil War, it really is
not right for the confederate flag to be flying over government
buildings and sending a signal of hate to so many of our citizens?
(Applause.)
It's a different vision of our future. And we have to choose.
He's for state's rights on the confederate flag, and incidentally, on
the minimum wage also. He thinks that states ought to be able to opt
out of the minimum wage. What would that do to New York?
So whether it is the Supreme Court and the future of our liberties,
or foreign policy and the future security of our nation, or
environmental policy and the future of the Earth, itself. Whether it's
our ability to equip our children with the skills they need to live
fulfilling lives and prosper in the 21st century with education and job
training. Whether it's the establishment of safety in our schools and
on our sidewalks and in our neighborhoods by dealing with the flood of
guns that are in the hands of the wrong people. Whether it's bringing
our people together through enforcement of the civil rights law and
moral leadership to establish respect and tolerance, tolerance for
diversity and respect for difference, and then transcend to embrace what
we have in common: the American Spirit. Or whether it's the bread and
butter decision of whether we're going to keep our prosperity going or
sacrifice it on an ideological altar of supply-side nonsense. Whatever
the question, the choice between the two parties is clear.
And in closing, if that were all that mattered -- the issues -- we
would win this hands down. Hillary would win the Senate race hands
down. We'd win the House and Senate and the White House hands down --
(applause) -- because the American people agree with us on the issues.
But the final thing I want you to remember is, there's a second
factor that determines the outcome of elections. And sometimes it's
even more important than whether you agree or disagree on the issues.
And you could call it intensity, you could call it commitment, you could
call it determination. But whatever you call it, what it comes down to
is how strongly you feel that our country has to make the right choice
in this election. How deeply do you care about the way we make the
policies that will affect all our lives in the future?
The other side may be wrong in our way of thinking on all these
issues, but they are passionately committed. Just look at what they're
doing with all the money that's flowing into this state, for example --
from people that don't know either one of the candidates here. Because
they are committed to their way of thinking, to that different vision
that they have of our future.
Because of your presence here and because of what I've been hearing
from you, and what I feel from all of you in this room, I have no doubt
that the real answer is that you feel stronger than they do, and because
of that we're going to win this election in November, and I thank you
for being here and for making that possible. (Applause.)
God bless you and thank you. (Applause.)
END 9:55 P.M. EDT