    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [November 3, 1994]
    [Pages 1978-1983]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Democratic Candidates in Des Moines
    November 3, 1994

        Thank you. Boy, I like being here. I like this. When I got off the
    airplane today and I thanked the people at the airport rally for giving
    me a drier reception than I had the last time--[laughter]--I began to
    think about all the times I've been to Iowa and how every time I come
    away with a renewed energy, a renewed connection to the people of this
    country, a renewed sense of energy that I can make a difference because
    of the feelings, the spirit, the character of the people I sense here.
    And I just want to thank you for that.
        I was listening to Tom give his sermon up here, and I was thinking,
    you know, Harkin just has no strong feelings about anything. [Laughter]
    You never know how he stands, doesn't have any energy for the task at
    hand. [Laughter] I'll tell you what, if the rest of us had half as much
    energy and conviction as he did, this country would have about half as
    many problems as it has. I want every one of you to know that he has
    been--in ways that have been public like the fight on ethanol, in ways
    that haven't been so public like the fight to get more money into health
    research, more money into projects to look into women's health, more
    money into the general development of our educational emphasis in all
    areas of research--he has made a critical difference not only for the
    people of Iowa but for the people of the United States. I don't know
    what I would have done without him in the last 2 years.
        Let me also tell you, I am honored to be here with Bonnie Campbell
    for many, many reasons. The first is, we do have an affinity for the
    same kinds of issues, and I understand what it takes to be a Governor. I
    had the privilege of being elected several times to be Governor of my
    State. I loved that job. On the really tough days in Washington, I
    sometimes think it's the best job I ever had. [Laughter] One nice thing
    about it was that it was a lot harder for people to separate me from my
    constituents and to sort of turn my positions upside down

    [[Page 1979]]

    than it is when you're President, you're in Washington, and you're a
    long way from the 255 million or so folks you represent.
        But it's a wonderful job. A Governor has to embody the hopes and the
    spirit and set the course for a State. The economic policies a Governor
    follows make a difference. The United States can shape the economy of
    any State and region, but how well it really does depends in part on the
    decisions that are made State by State. She has a strategy that I think
    is a very good and sensible one to build more high-wage jobs here, to
    deal with the problems of rural areas that have been left behind even in
    times of economic recovery. She cares about things that will help
    families and help people raise their kids. She's right, I'm doing my
    best to stiffen child support enforcement. I'm doing my best to
    radically change the welfare system in this country. I'm doing my best
    to have the criminal justice system deal with crime in the streets but
    also crimes against women and children where they live; I think that's
    important.
        To be a really great Governor, you have to have a strong sense of
    partnership as well as leadership. You have to be a leader and a
    partner. Your people, first and foremost, have to feel connected to you.
    They have to feel that you carry their hopes and their dreams and their
    best values, that you're both strong and compassionate. Then you have to
    be able to work with people in the legislature who often disagree with
    you in a spirit of good humor and good will and continuing confidence
    that at least you have the right motivations. And it helps if you have a
    partner in the White House and if you really are working together to
    take responsibility instead of to place blame. And for all those
    reasons, I think she would be an absolutely superb Governor for this
    State.
        You know, I was just asked today about--I did a little set of
    television interviews before I came out here, and one of the people
    asked me, said, ``Well, how do you explain this voter alienation? They
    say it's as deep as it's been in 15 years when the economy was spinning
    out of control, and now the economy is doing well.'' And I said, ``Well,
    one thing is a lot of people still have a lot of personal problems. Even
    though the economy is picking up and we passed the crime bill, a lot of
    people still feel personally insecure in this economy and personally
    insecure on their streets, so they haven't felt the impact of the work
    we've done. But for another, it is just in fashion to be as negative as
    possible today.'' Isn't it? We're just bathed with negative information.
    It blows away the positive. Very often in our communications, in the way
    we get our information, we hear it in attack form where people are
    screaming at each other and down on each other instead of talking to one
    another about their differences and our common problems. And in election
    times, as a matter of survival, even the most positive of candidates
    have to defend themselves from the most negative of ads.
        But what I want to say to you today is that we need more
    responsibility in this country both from our leaders and from our
    citizens because cynicism is, more than anything else, a state of mind.
    Most of you probably will remember that, well, it's been almost a year
    ago now that my mother passed away. And I miss her, I think, most of all
    in election seasons because this is the first campaign season I've been
    involved in in a long time where she hasn't been there.
        My mother was widowed three times, including once before I was born,
    and she had a lot of tough problems in her life. And honest to goodness,
    if I behaved the way some of these people in public life do today--
    [laughter]--doing nothing but spreading cynicism, being negative,
    pointing the finger of blame--and she were around, she would whip me, as
    old as I am. [Laughter] I never saw the like of it, all these people in
    positions of power and responsibility, and all they want to do is blame
    somebody else for their problems.
        This is a great country. You heard Tom Harkin talking about what the
    United States has done just recently to restore democracy in Haiti, to
    work for peace in Northern Ireland after hundreds of years of the
    Catholics and Protestants fighting each other, to stand up against
    aggression in the Persian Gulf, to help to make peace between Israel and
    Jordan, to facilitate the peace between Israel and the PLO, to work to
    finish the job in the Middle East, to work to diffuse the nuclear threat
    in North Korea. And for the first time since the dawn of the nuclear
    age, there are no Russian missiles pointed at the children of Iowa. This
    is a great country.
        And while we have reduced the nuclear threat, we have expanded trade
    opportunities through NAFTA, through the GATT agreement. When the
    election is over I have to go all the way to Indonesia, dead tired, to
    try to meet

    [[Page 1980]]

    with the leaders of the Asian countries. You know why I'm going over
    there? Because it's the fastest growing part of the world economically
    and because I want them to buy more American products. And it's
    important to our future.
        This country, for all of our problems, is in better shape than it
    was 21 months ago when I took office. Every conceivable thing--
    [applause]. And I've already told you, there are a lot of problems. The
    Bible says there will be problems even until the end of time. The issue
    is are we doing our part to go in the right direction, to make progress,
    to move forward. That is the test.
        We are moving forward on the economy. The unemployment rate has
    dropped across the country. We've got 4.6 million new jobs. We have more
    high-wage jobs this year than in the previous 5 years combined. Our
    economy has been rated in the annual vote of international economists as
    the most productive in the world for the first time in 9 years. And for
    the first time in 15 years, American auto companies have sold more cars
    worldwide than Japanese companies.
        We are moving forward. We're moving forward on the deficit. Our
    opponents cursed the deficit and exploded it. We have said, ``Why don't
    we quit whining about it and do something about it?'' Our opponents
    cursed the Government and put all their political appointments in all
    the jobs they could get in before I took office. They talked bad about
    the Government, but they were there when the checks were written.
    [Laughter] We, the Democrats, have reduced the size of the Federal
    Government by 70,000. We have reduced Federal regulation, saving
    billions of dollars for people. And we have taken the money that we got
    from the savings and given it to you to fight crime in the streets of
    Iowa and every other State in the United States.
        They said they were for family values. We said, we appreciate that,
    but our Government follows policies that hurt families. We passed the
    family and medical leave law, which my opponent vetoed at least once,
    maybe twice, I can't remember. We passed the bill to immunize all kids
    under the age of 2 by 1996. We expanded Head Start. We gave tax cuts to
    15 million working families with children in the home, because we don't
    think people who work full-time and have kids at home should live in
    poverty. The tax system should lift them out, not put them down.
        And yes, I tried to solve the health care problem in America, and
    I'm proud of it. The day after Senator Mitchell said we couldn't pass a
    health care bill this year, the newspapers were once again filled with
    the stories: More Americans are losing their health insurance. Middle
    class people are having to pay more for less health care. The costs of
    health care are running through the roof. The Government deficit will
    start going up again in a couple of years even if we cut everything else
    because health care costs are exploding. America spends 40 percent more
    than any other country and can't figure out how to keep working people
    secure. This is the fact.
        What I tried to do was to give you a private system that would let
    farmers and small business people buy health insurance on the same terms
    that people like Tom Harkin and I can get it from the Federal Government
    or people that work for big companies can get it. That's what I tried to
    do.
        And by the time the interest groups that are making a killing out of
    the present system got through spending a couple of hundred million
    dollars, they had me giving a big Government program and a thousand-page
    bill that gave people a headache and convinced them they were going to
    lose what they got. It wasn't true, but they did a good job of it. So we
    have to find another way to come back and convince the American people
    we are not going to have the Government take over health care, but we do
    think every American who goes to work should know they're not going to
    lose their health care; they can keep what they've got. They ought to be
    able to buy it at a fair price, and if they don't have it, they ought to
    be able to get it.
        We had a million people in working families, not people on welfare,
    people in working families lose their health insurance. This is the only
    country in the whole world with an advanced economy where the percentage
    of people working with children in their homes with health insurance has
    gone down for 10 years in a row now, the only one. I say we can do
    better than that, and we ought to. But even there we are making
    progress. Never before in the history of the country has a bill to do
    that even gotten to the floor of both Houses of Congress.

    [[Page 1981]]

        So you have to say, ``Well, people are cynical.'' ``Well, they're
    frustrated.'' ``Well, they get a lot of negative information.'' ``Well,
    they still have problems.'' All that is true. People will always have
    problems. I say, what is the issue?
        We're moving forward on jobs, forward on the deficit, forward on
    reducing the Government and giving the money back to you to fight crime,
    forward on crime, forward on issues that help working families. The
    world is more peaceful. It is more prosperous. We are moving in the
    right direction. We do not need to turn back. We need to stay with the
    people and the course that is moving this country forward. That is what
    we are doing.
        We are going to decide next Tuesday whether we're going to keep
    going forward or turn back, whether we're going to vote for hope over
    fear, whether we're going to vote for responsibility over blame. I have
    challenged the American people to do what is best, which means not only
    having the Government do something for you but having people do
    something for themselves. Nearly everything I have done simply empowers
    people to take more responsibility for themselves. That's about all the
    Government can do these days. And that's what we ought to be doing. I
    don't know anybody who wants a handout, unless they are flat on their
    back and can't do for themselves. That's what we're trying to do. We're
    trying to empower the American people to make the most of their own
    lives.
        The other side has come out with a contract. They talk so tough, and
    they cuss the Government, but what does their contract do? It's nothing
    but a big Government giveaway. They want to give a tax cut, most of it
    to real rich people, but they'll give the rest of you a pittance. They
    want to just get you to vote, too. They figure if you're cynical enough,
    you'll say, ``Oh, well, rich people always get more. I'll get a dollar
    and a half.'' [Laughter] So they promised everybody a tax cut, promised
    defense increases, promised to bring up Star Wars and balance the budget
    in 5 years. That's their deal. That is the tough, strong, responsible
    Republican Party platform. [Laughter] And we say, ``Well, okay, how are
    you going to pay for it?'' ``We'll tell you after the election, but
    meanwhile, we're going to blame you for the problems we created in the
    12 years before you showed up.'' [Laughter] That's their deal. That's
    their deal.
        I'll tell you how this contract is going to go down if they gain in
    the Congress. There are only two options if they get their way. If they
    slash taxes with the deficit like it is, give 70 percent of the benefits
    to the wealthiest Americans, have a big increase in defense, big
    increase in Star Wars, and commit to balance the budget, there are only
    two options.
        First of all, if they're telling the truth, the only way they can do
    it is to cut everything 20 percent across the board. That's $2,000 per
    person for everybody in Iowa on Social Security a year. If they say,
    ``Oh, we never said we'd cut Social Security,'' then they have to cut
    everything else in the Government 30 percent. That's a 30 percent cut in
    Medicare for every elderly person. That's a 30 percent cut in all the
    farm programs, regardless of what happens to the farmers. That's a 30
    percent cut in veterans benefits. That's a 30 percent cut in middle
    class college loans. The other possibility is that they were kidding.
    [Laughter] Right? Now if they were kidding, what you get is exploding
    the deficit, putting a terrible burden on our children, shipping our
    jobs overseas again, running people out of Iowa, running the economy in
    the ditch, putting us right back where we were in the 1980's with
    trickle-down economics. Those are the options.
        Why are they making any headway at all? Because when people are
    cynical and mad, they don't always think straight. And I don't mean this
    to insult the American people. I'm just telling you, the people of this
    country--this is a great country--they almost always do the right thing.
    But it is very important for you not to let people vote just their
    cynicism and their anger.
        What is the test of our administration? Have we done everything
    right? No. If you make as many decisions as I do, you take on as many
    fights as I do, you'll make a mistake now and then. Have we won every
    fight? No. But do you know what the objective surveys show? That for the
    third time only since World War II, we've had 2 years in which a
    Congress supported a President in more than 80 percent of the
    initiatives the President asked the Congress to pass--for the third time
    only since World War II.
        And people say, ``Well, it doesn't make a difference.'' Don't tell
    me it doesn't make a difference. It does make a difference whether you
    put the deficit down or up. It does make a difference whether we're
    taking a serious approach to crime. It does make a difference

    [[Page 1982]]

    whether your policies expand trade and create jobs for America. It does
    make a difference whether people can take a little time off when their
    babies are born or their parents are sick. It does make a difference
    whether kids in this country are immunized at the same rate other
    children are in other countries. It does make a difference whether poor
    children get to go to Head Start or not. It does make a difference. It
    matters. It matters. It matters.
        So I go back to the cynicism issue. Mrs. Roosevelt said once that
    you could spend your whole life battling all the demons in the dark, or
    you could just walk across the room and flip on the light switch.
    [Laughter] What you folks need to do for Bonnie Campbell, for Neal
    Smith, for Dave Nagle, for all these other candidates, is to walk across
    the room and flip on the light switch in Iowa between now and Tuesday.
    That's what you need to do.
        I'm telling you, if my mother were here, that's what she'd say.
    She'd say, ``You're the President. You don't have to blame anybody else.
    You're taking responsibility. Get out there and tell people what you've
    done.'' I have reached out my hand to these Republicans; I have asked
    them to work with us, but what have they done? They have constantly said
    no. They have constantly said no. I think the Republican leader is here
    today. And I don't know if anybody asked him about the comments of Mr.
    Kristol, that he was going to call for eliminating the farm support
    programs as soon as the election was over. That's the way they do it.
    [Laughter]
        But that's what he said. And Mr. Kristol is the same fellow that
    told them that they shouldn't cooperate with us on health care. And then
    he proudly released the memo and said, ``You can't cooperate with the
    Democrats on health care. If you do and you solve the health care
    crisis, the middle class will support the Democrats again. If you leave
    it like it is, we'll be able to upset the middle class, and we'll keep
    them voting for us by telling them the Democrats don't share their
    values. They're aliens.'' [Laughter] And then he was so proud of it,
    they released it. They're not even ashamed of it. I'd feel better if
    they were a little ashamed of it. He's the same fellow that says they're
    going to gut the farm prices. Well, he did what they told him to--they
    did what he told them to do on health care.
        You ask Tom Harkin. At the end of the last session of the Congress,
    they killed campaign finance reform; they killed lobbying reform; they
    killed the Superfund legislation to clean up toxic waste dumps. That was
    amazing. Wasn't anybody in America against it--[laughter]--except
    slightly more than 40 Republican Senators and the House leadership. We
    had the chemical companies, the labor unions, and the Sierra Club for
    it. You couldn't get them to agree on when the Sun's coming up
    tomorrow--[laughter]--but they wanted us to do this. But they would have
    rather left the poison in the ground than let Tom Harkin and Neal Smith
    come home and say, ``We helped to clean it up.''
        Now, folks, we have a fundamental choice here: whether we're going
    to vote for people to assume responsibility and roll up their sleeves
    and do what Americans have always done or people that sit around and
    point the finger, whether we're going to vote for hope over fear,
    whether we're going to keep going forward or turn back.
        I want you to imagine on a Tuesday every American is sitting at home
    looking at their television, and the movie on the television is the
    story of America. And on election day every American's got the remote
    control in his or her hand. You can push forward; you can push fast
    forward if you want to--[laughter]--or you can push reverse. Now, that's
    what it is.
        And when Tom Harkin asks you to go out between now and election day
    and call your friends on the phone, I think you ought to go out and find
    people who haven't made up their mind in this Governor's race and these
    other races and have a cup of coffee with them, and sit down and say,
    ``Listen, I understand you're mad, you're cynical, and you're upset.''
    The first thing you try to teach your kids as soon as they're old enough
    to understand it is never to make a decision when you're mad. How many
    parents, how many times have you said to your child, ``If you're really
    mad, count 10 before you say or do anything''? How many times have every
    one of us made a mistake in this room because we said or did something
    before we got to 4? [Laughter] What the Republicans want is for you to
    get to one and go out in a snit and vote for them. And what you can do
    as a friend and a neighbor is to say, ``Look, you've got the remote
    control in your hand. Push forward! Vote for Bonnie Campbell. Vote for
    your children. Vote for hope. Vote for tomorrow.''
        This is a great country. If we only saw ourselves as others see us,
    we would know that.

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    This is a very great country. Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 7 p.m. at the Hotel Savery.