    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [November 2, 1994]
    [Pages 1964-1966]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1964]]

    Remarks at a Rally for Democratic Candidates in Providence, Rhode Island
    November 2, 1994

        Thank you very much. Thank you for this wonderful welcome, and thank
    you for being about twice as large a crowd as we thought we'd have and
    for being so good-humored about us losing the sound. I want to thank,
    first of all, the bands from Cranston East and Cranston West High
    School. Let's give them a hand. [Applause] You know, folks, when I ran
    for President, my slogan was ``Don't stop thinking about tomorrow.'' And
    there are a couple of people here with signs that say that today. But
    one of them is right down here with a group of people who are tomorrow,
    from the Maryville Elementary School. Welcome; glad to see you. I am
    delighted to be here today with my good friend Senator Claiborne Pell
    who just came back with me on our mission of peace to the Middle East.
    And I thank him for his leadership for Rhode Island and for America.
        I am delighted to be here and to be introduced by Myrth York. And I
    want you to help her win this election next week. I read in the papers
    that she is an underdog. Well, I was an underdog--wait a minute, that's
    not a bad thing. I was an underdog when I started running for President.
    Nobody but my mother thought I could win. And then I was underdog two
    more times. I got up; I went down; I got up; I went down. The only
    election that matters is the one that the voters in Rhode Island are
    going to have next Tuesday.
        The thing that impresses me about Myrth York is that she understands
    that the first job of Governor is to prepare the State for tomorrow's
    economy, to have Rhode Island moving strongly into the future--
    [applause]--commends her, and I want you to elect her on Tuesday.
        I also want to say a few words about the others who are here. Linda
    Kushner sponsored and supported the Rhode Island family and medical
    leave act. I believe in that sort of policy. We need more of that in the
    Congress, not less. I want to say a special word of support for my
    friend, representative, soon to be Congressman, Patrick Kennedy. He has
    done in the legislature here what we need more of in Congress. He's been
    willing to stand up to vested interests and to stand up for the people
    of Rhode Island. I want you to help him be elected to the Congress on
    Tuesday. And you're going to do it, aren't you? Now I just want to say a
    simple but heartfelt thank you to Jack Reed. Jack Reed was there for us
    on the crime bill, on the Brady bill, on the family and medical leave
    bill, on helping to provide more affordable, easier to repay college
    loans to a whole new generation of American students. Jack Reed was
    there, and you ought to be there for him. I also want to thank all these
    other fine Democrats for being here with me, your State chair, Guy
    DeFault, who has such a good voice he could almost speak without the
    microphone. Your Lieutenant Governor, Bob Weygand, Jim Langevin, Sara
    Quinn, and Richard James. I want you to stand with all of them on
    Tuesday.
        I love Rhode Island. I love to come here. Today I was told that
    today I was the first President since Andrew Jackson to go to Pawtucket.
    And I said, that was good because Andy Jackson and I cared as much about
    ordinary Americans as anybody who ever had our jobs. I was then told I
    was the first President in anybody's memory to come to Rhode Island
    twice in the same year. I'd love to come here every month. I love it
    here. I mean, look around. This is America, the Italians, the Irish, the
    French, the Portuguese, the African-Americans, the Haitian-Americans,
    the Hispanics. You name it; you got it. America's future here in Rhode
    Island, people working hard.
        My fellow Americans, 21 months ago, with the help of the voters in
    Rhode Island, the American people hired me to be the President on a
    commitment to change the direction of the country, to get the economy
    going again, to empower ordinary Americans to compete in this economy,
    to make Government work for ordinary people again and not just organized
    interests, to make the world a more prosperous and a safer place for
    Americans to live and for these children to grow up.
        We had this slogan, ``Don't stop thinking about tomorrow,'' because
    we had always believed that. And yet we had been through years in which
    people only did what was easiest today, in which we had leaders who
    talked tough but acted soft and did not tell us the truth and did not
    challenge us to do what we have to

    [[Page 1965]]

    do in order to get this country into the 21st century, so that these
    children will have a great future and so that our best days are before
    us. That was my commitment 21 months ago. And I have to tell you, this
    country still has great challenges, but we are in better shape today
    than we were 21 months ago.
        We have more jobs, a lower deficit, a smaller Federal Government,
    less regulation. We've corrected abuses like the $500 hammers and the
    $50 ash trays. We are giving you a Government that gives you your
    money's worth. We have done things for ordinary people. The tax system
    is fairer; 15 million working families, including thousands and
    thousands in this State, got their taxes reduced because they worked
    full-time, they have children in the home, they're just barely above the
    poverty line. And we do not believe, in our administration, that people
    who work hard and are trying to be good family people should be pushed
    into poverty by the tax system. We have done more on that than anybody
    has in 20 years.
        The family and medical leave law protects families so that if there
    is a baby born or a sick parent, you can take some time off to deal with
    your family problems without losing your job. That's an important thing
    that we have done.
        We're going to immunize all the children in this country under the
    age of 2 by 1996. We are expanding Head Start. We are establishing
    apprenticeship programs for young people who get out of high school, who
    don't go on to college but do want good jobs with growing wages and a
    better future. And we have dramatically, and I mean dramatically,
    changed the college loan program so that young people can borrow money
    to go to college at a lower cost and better repayment terms.
        And the world is changing. The world is changing. There is more
    trade but a lower threat of nuclear problems. We continue to work with
    the Russians. We have made an agreement with the North Koreans not to
    become a nuclear state. We are expanding trade and job opportunities all
    around the world. We are promoting peace in a peaceful but strong manner
    from Haiti to Northern Ireland to the Middle East to the Persian Gulf.
        This country is moving. We are moving. And the message must be to
    the voters of Rhode Island and America in the next week, we are moving
    in the right direction. In 21 months, a good start has been made. Have
    30 years of social problems been corrected? Have 20 years of economic
    stagnation been totally reversed? Have 12 years of trickle-down
    economics been totally overcome? No. But in 21 months we've made an
    awfully good beginning. Let's keep going.
        I thought to myself over and over and over again, what could have
    possessed our opponents to come out with this contract on America? What
    could have possessed the opponents of Congressman Reed and
    Representative Kennedy to sign it? It is a trillion dollars' worth of
    promises. Oh, it sounds so good. Here we are on the eve of the election,
    and one more time, they're like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. You remember
    what happened to the people that followed him? [Laughter] ``We'll give
    you a tax cut. We'll increase defense. We'll increase Star Wars. We'll
    balance the budget. And we'll tell you all about how we'll do it after
    the election.''
        So we're telling you how they have to do it before the election, and
    they're all upset about it. They wish we wouldn't tell you. But when you
    promise people a trillion dollars and you act like it's free, it sounds
    like a good time. But it's not free. To keep their promises, they would
    have to cut everything else that you depend upon by 20 percent across
    the board: Social Security $2,000 a person a year, Medicare, veterans
    programs, programs for farmers in the Heartland of America, everything.
    If they say they don't want to cut Social Security, then they have to
    cut everything else 30 percent across the board, devastating the
    Medicare program of this country. It is wrong. And if it is just a cheap
    election year promise, it is even more wrong, because that means they
    are going to explode the deficit, ship our jobs overseas again, and
    compromise the future of these children who are here. We have to say no
    to this. We're doing fine. We're going forward. We're not going to turn
    back.
        It was bad enough when they were just saying no. When they tried to
    say no to the crime bill, no to deficit reduction, no to the college
    loans, no to family leave, no to the Brady bill, bad enough when they
    killed campaign finance reform, lobby reform, environmental legislation.
    Shoot, this crime bill, every law enforcement group in America was for
    it. I've got this watch on today that I got from the Rhode Island Police
    Chiefs Association when I signed the crime bill. But they were against
    it for political rea-

    [[Page 1966]]

    sons, because they didn't want the Democrats to be perceived as being
    tough on crime. Never mind what really counted was not who got credit
    for the crime bill but whether the murder rate was going down, whether
    the rape rate and the violence rate was going down, whether we were
    saving more kids before they become criminals, whether elderly people
    felt safer in their homes and kids felt safer in their schools. That's
    all that matters.
        If they would work with us, everybody could have credit. There's
    more than enough credit to go around. You ought to be in the driver's
    seat in this country, not a bunch of politicians in Washington trying to
    cause failure to make you mad, to hope you'll do the wrong thing. And
    that's their program. You've got to do the right thing. You've got to
    turn the lights on in America. You've got to say we're going in the
    right direction.
        Let me say this. You know, I ought to quit, but I'm having a good
    time. I was asked the other day, and I got to thinking about it--
    somebody said the other day, said, ``Did any job you ever had prepare
    you for being President?'' And I said, well, I was a Governor a long
    time, but it really wasn't the same. For one reason, you can stay in
    touch with the people better. It was much more difficult for folks to
    get in the way of me and my constituents when I was the Governor of a
    small State. So I thought of all the other jobs I've had. And the one
    that my job is most like now is one I never made a penny doing, was when
    I worked with civic clubs on car washes--[laughter]--because I liked to
    clean the windows off. That's what we've got to do in America today. You
    know, if you drive your car and there's a lot of stuff on the
    windshield, you can think it's dark outside when the Sun's shining. You
    could think there are obstacles there when the way is clear. And then
    there could be a huge obstacle out there and you wouldn't be able to see
    it, and you'd run smack-dab into it. That's what they've done. They've
    put a lot of dirt on America's windshield. We've got to clean it off
    between now and Tuesday. Will you help? Will you do your part? Will you
    go forward?
        Folks, this is an election between hope and fear, between unity and
    disunity but, more than anything else, between going forward and turning
    back. As I told the people over in Pawtucket at the Portuguese Social
    Club today, think about it like this: Every one of you is in the
    driver's seat. And on election day, just imagine that you have a remote
    control in your hand and what's in the movie screen or television screen
    is a movie about America's future. And you've got the remote control in
    your hand. You can push forward, you can push fast forward, or you can
    push reverse. Push forward, go on and push fast forward if you want to,
    but say no to reverse, no, we're going forward. We're doing better;
    we're going to do better still. We're going forward, forward, forward!
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 6:56 p.m. at the Rhode Island Convention
    Center. In his remarks, he referred to James Langevin, candidate for
    secretary of state; Sara Quinn, candidate for attorney general; and
    Richard James, candidate for general treasurer. A tape was not available
    for verification of the content of these remarks.