    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [October 3, 1994]
    [Pages 1683-1686]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for California Gubernatorial Candidate
    Kathleen Brown
    October 3, 1994

        The President. Thank you very much. Why don't we just vote right
    now? [Laughter] You do that for 30 more days, and you're in like Flint.
    That was terrific. Thank you, Kathleen. And thank you, Governor Bayh,
    for your leadership.
        You know, I really resent Evan Bayh. He's young and handsome,
    manages to avoid controversy and stay popular. And he's done a lot
    better as head of the Democratic Governors than I did when I was there.
    [Laughter]
        Gov. Evan Bayh. Well, that's because I have a great President
    helping out.
        The President. Not only that, but he's a wonderful tribute to our
    party, and he has a terrific future.
        I came here tonight to speak for Kathleen Brown. I want to thank the
    members of our administration who are here, the members of the Cabinet.
    Their presence here should tell you how important we think this race is.
        I was listening to Kathleen speak a moment ago, and I want to just
    tell you a few things from the heart about this. First of all, I
    declared for President 3 years ago today. At the time I was Governor; I
    had just been reelected to a fifth term, two 4-year terms, three 2-year
    terms. I was happy as a clam at home. I got into the race basically
    because I didn't want to see our victory in the cold war be squandered
    in the aftermath, because I didn't want to see America move to the 21st
    century not able to compete and win, and because I didn't like the fact
    that our country was coming apart when it ought to be coming together.

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        And when I began that race, most people thought I needed my head
    examined because the incumbent President was over 70 percent approval in
    the polls. My mother thought I could win; that's about it. [Laughter]
    That's about it.
        I say it to make two points. One, in the moment the polls are not as
    important as the public official, the candidate, and the conviction. And
    secondly, the choice that Kathleen Brown just posed to you is a choice
    we're going to have to be making over and over and over and over again,
    until we get out of what we got ourselves into over a very long period
    of time.
        And all along the way, at various times, the choice will be more
    difficult for people. But when I look at what her opponent's tried to do
    to her out in California and how he's tried to sort of define her, it's
    classic Republican politics. And they're very good at it. Let's not kid
    ourselves. They are very good at demonizing their opponents, at turning
    their opponents into aliens, and making people at the local Kiwanis Club
    think that they wouldn't share a piece of apple pie with their
    opponents. That's what they're good at. That's how they stay in.
        They always think that, given the contentious and divisive nature of
    the way people communicate and the way they are communicated to today,
    they can exalt blame over responsibility, they can exalt division over
    unity, they can exalt fear over hope. That's what they believe. Once in
    a while we prove them wrong, when we can communicate with discipline and
    conviction and persistence and when we are not ground down.
        I'd have come over here tonight just to hear her give that speech,
    because now she's got me in a better humor, too. [Laughter and applause]
    I'm telling you.
        So you heard it, and it's the same thing everywhere. I mean, I ran
    for President because we were in the midst of 30 years of social
    problems, 20 years of economic problems, and 12 years of the kind of
    stuff she's going through now, where the leadership of this country
    would always tell the American people what they thought they wanted to
    hear. They would talk tough and get the image that they are tough--
    Presidential, national message--and they would act weak. They would talk
    like our parent and then act like our child, telling us exactly what we
    wanted to hear as if it were tough medicine and then writing us a check
    and never worrying about who was going to pay the bill. Now, that is
    what has happened for 12 years. And always escaping responsibility by
    placing blame. Now, that is exactly what they have done. And that's what
    you see in California.
        I just want to say something personally to the people of California.
    I may not have an opportunity to say it out there. I've been to
    California about a dozen times since I've been President, would have
    been once more if it hadn't been for the events in Haiti that kept me
    away from going out there for Kathleen a few days ago. I love the place.
    It's a fascinating place. And everything that America has everywhere is
    also there.
        They have had two huge problems. One is, since they're the biggest
    State in the country economically, when we had a recession, they got hit
    harder with it. The second is that with about 12 percent of our
    population, they had 21 percent of our defense investments. So that when
    we cut defense in this country at the end of the cold war, starting back
    in '87--that's when defense peaked--it was absolutely predictable that
    it would have double the impact in California that it would have
    anywhere else because of the concentration and that the impact might be
    highly weighted in high-wage jobs. Therefore, turning it around takes a
    little more time because the hit was bigger there.
        And so I went all over California in that election trying to figure
    out what was going on in southern California, what was going on in
    northern California, what was going on for the farmers, what was going
    on in the inland empire, what was going on in San Diego--how were the
    border problems, the immigration problems going to be aggravated and
    exacerbated and people's sense of insecurity going to be reinforced by
    all these terrible economic problems. If you had 150 different racial
    and ethnic groups in Los Angeles County, that meant that it could be the
    beacon of the whole future for the United States, but how were they
    going to get through all the tensions that would be caused by the
    economic contraction of the moment until we could turn it around.
        I have really given a lot of thought to this. And when we put
    together an economic strategy, it was pretty simple. It was: reduce the
    deficit; increase investment in education, training, and new
    technologies; expand trade and investment; and try to empower
    individuals and communities to succeed, which means that the

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    places that are in the worse shape need some extra help.
        How did that play itself out in California? Well, we removed
    restrictions on $35 billion worth of high-tech exports where California
    has a decided interest greater than any other State in the country. We
    spent hundreds of millions of dollars, as Kathleen said, on defense
    conversions, helping to turn bases over to local communities so they
    could get businesses in there to put people to work and actually
    investing with companies in new technologies of the future. I visited
    the Rockwell plant out there, and you were there, too, the day we went
    there to talk about that.
        When the earthquake came, when the fires came, we were there with
    emergency aid in a hurry. We rebuilt the world's busiest highway quicker
    than anybody thought we could by literally reinventing, to use the Vice
    President's term, the way we spend the money out there.
        In spite of all this talk about immigration, it was our
    administration that for the first time recommended and got through
    Congress Federal assistance to pay for the criminal justice costs of
    illegal immigrants. We increased by 30 percent, by 30 percent, the
    amount of aid--in a tough time when we were reducing spending overall,
    we increased by 30 percent the amount of money going to California to
    deal with their costs of immigration, 30 percent over what happened when
    the previous President was here and the present Governor was a Member of
    the United States Senate. That's what we did. That's our record on that
    issue.
        We have done a number of other things. We are backing Senator
    Feinstein's desert bill. Last weekend we turned the Presidio over to you
    so you folks can do something great with it. We are doubling the border
    guards for enforcement on the border. We have worked hard for
    California. We're selling California rice to Japan for the first time in
    history.
        I met a walnut farmer last month from California said, ``It just
    kills my farmer friends because they're all Republicans, but they have
    to admit that you have done more for us than any President in the last
    30 years.'' So we are working for California.
        Now, I say that to make this point--and why it's so important that
    you're here--all that can still be washed away by the deliberate,
    concerted effort of our opponents to place blame over responsibility,
    division over unity, fear over hope, can wipe away all the details and
    all the facts. And what you have to do to help Kathleen Brown win is to
    contribute now and then talk and work between now and the election, to
    prove that what really counts is what will build that State.
        I'm really proud of the fact that in 20 months we have made a good
    start on bringing this country back. But don't kid yourself, it's just a
    good start. I'm proud of the fact that we have 3 years of deficit
    reduction in a row for the first time since Truman; we're going to the
    smallest Federal Government since John Kennedy was President--the
    Republicans bad-mouth the Government, but we shrunk it with no help from
    them; that there are 4.3 million new jobs in this economy; and that for
    the first time in 9 years the United States was rated a couple of weeks
    ago by the panel of international economists as the most productive
    country in the world. I am proud of that. But it is just a beginning.
        You look at what is happening in California, and you will see the
    combined impact of 30 years of social problems, 20 years of economic
    problems, 12 years of neglect and a disproportionate impact of the
    defense cutback. The people out there cannot be blamed if they are still
    frustrated and full of anxiety. That is not their fault. It is our job
    to tell the people of California that Kathleen Brown and Dianne
    Feinstein are builders, people who are trying to make things better and
    that they should not be diverted from the urgent task of building the
    country and building the State.
        If I might just say a word about crime, Kathleen's already said
    that. You know, a picture of Kathleen Brown and Jerry Brown and Rose
    Bird is not worth near as much as the assault weapons ban, 100,000
    police, 100,000 jail cells for criminals, thousands and thousands of
    prevention programs, and a tougher approach to crime. And I'll tell you
    something else, I know something about this; I started out as attorney
    general of my State. I have a different position than she does on
    capital punishment, but our crime bill had 60 different specific
    statutes on that. She supported our crime bill, and he didn't. Who are
    we kidding with these ads about who's weak on crime or not? She had the
    record when we needed it.
        So I say to you, you have to make up your mind. You can cheer
    tonight, but tomorrow all those ads will still be out there on
    television,

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    and everybody will be writing about this as if it's a horse race instead
    of a fight for the spirit and the soul of that State and what happens to
    the future of little children. And you have to decide whether you feel
    some sort of personal responsibility to affect the outcome.
        I'm telling you, it is a wonderful place. It has enormous potential.
    This country will never fully recover until California recovers. And we
    have work to do. And the people out there cannot be blamed for voting on
    what they know. That's the way all the rest of us are, too. We can only
    act on what we know. We can only see the world through the prism of our
    own experience. And while all of us have been up here working for them,
    the other guys have been out there talking about us. So now when the
    Congress goes home, the election should be our friend because we can go
    tell the truth. And what you have to do is make a personal commitment to
    do that.
        The economic plan that Kathleen Brown has outlined will help to do
    what only the State can do to rebuild California. The Federal Government
    and a partnership that we are building between the private sector and
    the Federal Government cannot do it alone. There must be State
    initiatives. There will always be in California things that can only be
    done by people who know the problems the best, who understand the
    opportunities most clearly. The economic strategy that I have outlined
    cannot fully succeed anywhere without aggressive leadership at the State
    level to rebuild the economy. And believe me, we can continue to make
    progress on education and training; we can continue to build this
    economy; we can drive down the crime rate; we can make progress on
    immigration. But to do it, it's going to require a tough, disciplined,
    concerted, long-term partnership between the White House and Washington
    and the people who live and work in California, starting in the
    statehouse in Sacramento. That's what this election is about.
        So the country has a big interest in who wins here--not the
    political system, not the political pundits but the welfare of the
    average man and woman and child all across America. You just heard her
    case for why she should win. Let us exalt hope over fear. Let us exalt
    unity over division. Let us prove that responsibility still beats blame
    in commonsense America by making sure that no voter goes to the polls in
    California unaware of the real facts.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 6:45 p.m. at the Sheraton Carlton Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to Gov. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Rose Bird,
    former justice, California Supreme Court.