[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
[June 28, 1993]
[Pages 942-943]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Democratic National Committee Presidential Gala
June 28, 1993

    Thank you very much. Thank you so much. First, let me say a special 
word of thanks to Scott Pastrick for this wonderful dinner and all those 
who worked on it, to Roy Furman for agreeing to take on this enormous 
responsibility in the Democratic Party. I don't think the first time he 
came to my attention or, rather, I came to his--he hosted me in his 
office--if he had known then that he'd wind up on this stage tonight, 
I'm not sure he would have done it. And I thank him. Like so many 
others, he came into the leadership of this party because of the 
campaign of 1992.
    I thank my dear friend David Wilhelm for his leadership and all of 
those who work in the vineyards of the Democratic Party. I thank David 
especially for what he said tonight. Many of the beneficiaries of the 
efforts we make today are people who may not even understand entirely 
what we're doing, and they don't have an organized force in the 
Congress.
    I thank the leadership of Congress. Let me say without hesitation 
that I have literally been awestruck at the demonstration of courage 
repeatedly by the leadership and by many of the freshmen and by many in 
between in our party in the United States Congress. And you ought to 
give them a hand tonight. [Applause]
    You heard that the Vice President, of course, broke the tie the 
other night in the Senate on the economic program. What you ought to 
know is that I was furiously working the phones, and a couple of 
Senators--Senator Murray from Washington was not well, and so we thought 
we had enough votes to pass the bill, and so she stayed home in bed. And 
two of the people we thought would vote for it said, ``Well, I won't let 
it die, Mr. President, but if the Vice President can break a tie, that's 
okay with me.'' So, we were there at the end. And right before the vote 
came down to the end with the time running off, the Vice President sent 
a note to Senator Mitchell, our Democratic leader, and he said, 
``George, I'm wavering.'' [Laughter] But conviction overcame him at the 
end, and so here we are tonight with a big crowd instead of an empty 
house.
    Let me say to all of you that a lot of speeches have already been 
made tonight, and the entertainment was marvelous: Little Texas and 
Whitney Houston and my good friend Kenny G, who let me play with him in 
the campaign. That was the biggest thrill I got in the whole election. I 
tell you, I always liked Kenny G because I was running third in the 
polls when he agreed to play with me in the campaign.
    This has been a great night for us and a great night for our party. 
But I want to remind you that we are engaged on a great struggle to 
change this country. A year and 8 months ago I entered the race for 
President when no one thought the incumbent could be defeated and few 
thought I could be nominated. And I didn't have any idea how it would 
come out. I just knew that I had a couple of simple convictions. I felt 
very strongly then that we were not doing what it takes to compete and 
win in a global economy. I felt very strongly then that we were not 
facing up to the honest problems we have at home. I felt very strongly 
that

[[Page 943]]

too many people in public life were telling people what they wanted to 
hear today instead of thinking about how we ought to live tomorrow.
    Those things drove me into the race, and they produced in the end, 
thanks to all of you, a remarkable change in the course of American 
life. But the details are always more difficult than the rhetoric. 
Governor Cuomo used to say frequently that we campaign in poetry, but we 
must govern in prose. And as my daughter likes to remind me of that 
great slogan the kids are all saying today, denial is not just a river 
in Egypt. So, when you move from rhetoric to reality, sometimes the 
going gets tough. I couldn't believe it, we have been ranted and raved 
against, this administration, as you know; it's all ``tax and spend.'' 
But we've cut more spending than any administration in history and more 
than the ones before us. And that's a fact.
    And they say, ``Well, only the Democrats are voting for this 
program.'' But let me tell you, look at the alternatives. In the House 
of Representatives there was a Republican alternative with no taxes 
which slashed the middle class, slashed the working poor, slashed the 
elderly just above the poverty line, and more Republicans voted against 
it than Democrats voted against our program. In the Senate there was a 
Republican program, 4 months late, which took $100 billion less off the 
deficit and was tougher on the middle class and the poor. And in the 
finance committee, the other party that goes around saying, ``It's 
spending, stupid,'' you know that great slogan of theirs, guess how many 
spending cut amendments were offered by the Republicans in the Senate 
Finance Committee? Zero. Not one.
    I say that because it is up to every one of you to go home and tell 
the people of this country the truth. This is not going to be easy, but 
it is working. You heard the Vice President; you heard David Wilhelm 
talk tonight. If anybody had told you on election night in November that 
by the middle of June unemployment would be below 7 percent, we'd have 
755,000 new jobs, a 20-year low in mortgage rates, a 6-year high in 
housing sales, a 9-year high in construction employment, the family 
leave bill, the motor voter bill, the Biodiversity Treaty, a new policy 
on choice, the most diverse administration in history, an appointment 
schedule--contrary to what you may have heard--ahead of the last two 
administrations, you would have felt pretty good about that on election 
night. And you ought to feel pretty good about it tonight, because this 
country is on the move.
    But never forget this. That sounds good, and compared to the last 
two administrations it may be, but we've just been here 5 months, and 
the changes we are trying to make are not in place. We still have to do 
the economic program and health care and national service and welfare 
reform. We still have to pass a program that says to people who work 40 
hours a week and have children in their homes, you're not in poverty 
anymore. We still have a lot of work to do. And the things we're doing 
have still not affected most Americans. We still don't have a serious 
program for defense conversion, but we're working on that. We've got an 
airline industry in trouble we're trying to help resuscitate and move 
forward. We've got all kinds of jobs in this country we have still got 
to create. We have problems in this country that Government has 
overlooked for so long, we pretend they're not even there. People say to 
me, ``I am so glad that the Federal Government could help to break up 
the terrorist ring in New York,'' or that once again we stood up for our 
values last weekend. But never forget, in this the Capital City of this 
country 24 people were killed last week. We have got a lot of work to 
do, my fellow Americans.
    And I'll tell you something. It may not always be easy, and 
sometimes it may be ragged, but you've got an administration in this 
town that gets up and goes to work every day and thinks about the 
problems and the promise of the average people of this country. And we 
will continue to do it as long as you keep us here.
    Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:15 p.m. at the Washington Convention 
Center. In his remarks, he referred to Scott Pastrick, Presidential gala 
dinner chairman; and Democratic National Committee officers Roy Furman, 
national finance chairman, and David Wilhelm, chairman.