[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

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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-


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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.