[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[September 6, 1996]
[Pages 1502-1504]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Reception for Representative Pete Peterson in Panama City
September 6, 1996

    Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. Thank you 
for waiting for us. You have no idea how hot it was in that rally. 
[Laughter] I'm surprised we've got the skin on our--[laughter]--it was 
wonderful. It was wonderful, as Lawton said, seeing the crowds coming 
in.

[[Page 1503]]

    Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know I came here for three 
reasons. I know no sitting President has been here before. The others 
didn't know what they were missing. But I came here, first of all, 
because Joe Chapman is my friend and he wanted me to come, and because 
his mother is the best politician I know and I wanted to see her, see if 
I couldn't get a few pointers.
    The second reason I came here is that I did not want Pete Peterson 
to leave the Congress without my having a chance to come to his district 
and thank the people of his district for sharing him with the Nation and 
giving him to the Congress. He is a perfectly wonderful man.
    I was really honored when he agreed to let me present his name to be 
the first Ambassador to Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam war. You 
can only imagine how momentous that appointment is, not only in our 
country but throughout Asia. The coming together of these countries, our 
effort to establish some decent and normal relations with them, our 
success in getting them to account for those people whom we still 
haven't accounted for who served in Vietnam and who are still missing, 
this is a huge emotional event for our country but also there. And it 
also has enormous political and commercial implications for our country 
over the long run. And I think there is no one in America who will serve 
our country better in every way and will embody everything that is best 
about America like Pete Peterson will. And I'm very grateful for this.
    Third reason I'm here is, like Lawton said--what did you say? I want 
to try to remember what he said; it was one of those ``he-coon'' things. 
I think he said that no redneck wants a dog that won't bite. [Laughter] 
I think that's what he said.
    I came here because the people that live up here are pretty much 
like the people that I represented for 12 years as Governor. They're 
better off than they were 4 years ago because of the policies we've 
pursued. Their children are going to have a better future if the path 
that I've laid out to build that bridge to the 21st century is followed 
than if the other people win. And I think the people here ought to be 
given a chance to sort of drop their blinders and join us and go on into 
the future together.
    And I'm glad to fight. I'm going to fight for Florida. I'm going to 
fight for north Florida. I'm not going to give up any place. And I want 
you to help me win this State, and I hope you will, for yourselves and 
your children.
    Let me also tell you that when I saw those people on the street 
today--and I knew that our loyal opposition had taken out a big 
newspaper ad and asked all the folks to come down and get signs and say 
I shouldn't be here, you know--there were a few of them on the road. 
They did a pretty good job, but they were just overwhelmed by real 
people. [Laughter] You know, I mean, other citizens. They did a good 
job.
    But I want to tell you, there is something going on in this country. 
When Hillary and Chelsea and I went to Huntington, West Virginia, to 
start to take that train to the Democratic Convention, there were about 
20,000 people in Huntington, West Virginia. And we made I think 11 or 12 
or 13 scheduled stops, something like that, in 3 days and a late 
afternoon and a night. We had 2 crowds with fewer than 10,000 people 
there. We had 4 crowds with 20,000 or more.
    We got to East Lansing, Michigan, where Michigan State is. There are 
a lot of young people there. But they were having a Crosby, Stills, and 
Nash concert there that night, and there were 10,000 young people in 
that concert. There were still over 20,000 people there in this huge 
field when we stopped the train. We had over 30,000 people in Michigan 
City, Indiana, a State that a Democrat hasn't carried in forever. And 
there were thousands of people along the road. We would slow down in 
these little towns with 2,000 people and not even stop the train, and 
there would be 1,000 people there at 11 o'clock at night, kids out there 
waving their flags.
    And the same thing on the bus tour: where we wouldn't even stop, 
these people would just be along the road, and we didn't have time to 
stop everywhere.
    I went to De Pere, Wisconsin, for Labor Day. It's a suburb of Green 
Bay, which itself is not a very big town. And that's the most Republican 
part of Wisconsin. The suburb has 22,000 people, population. There were 
over 30,000 people around the lake that day for this rally--that we 
magged, that we magged and counted.
    Now, I think people are coming out because they know we're better 
off than we were 4 years ago. They know we're on the right track. They 
know there is a clear choice, and they're pre-


[[Page 1504]]

pared to fight for it and for their children's future. And that's what 
I'd like to ask you to do.
    It is no accident that it's been 50 years since a Democratic--60 
years, 60 years since a Democrat won a second term, when President 
Roosevelt won in 1936. And then, of course, he won two more terms, and 
the war came. And it hasn't happened since then. That is not an 
accident.
    And the Republicans have been very skilled in their Presidential 
campaigning, and in times past they have been very skilled at demonizing 
us and making us look like we didn't represent mainstream values. But 
you know, families are stronger. There are more jobs. The streets are 
safer. The environment is cleaner. And our future is brighter than it 
was 4 years ago. And the policies we followed were almost all--not all 
but almost all opposed by the leaders of the other party, including 
Senator Dole.
    And if you look at the future and what the two of us propose, 
building a bridge to the future is a lot better way to get there than 
building a bridge to the past. It just is; it is a better way to get 
there. And it is true that we've got some problems today we didn't have 
30 or 40 years ago. It's also true that there are a lot of things that 
are better today than they were 30 or 40 or 50 years ago.
    It is also true that there is literally--this is something I know, 
not something I believe, something I know and something that as 
President I am in a position to know--there is no nation in the world 
today as well-positioned as the United States to move into the next 
century, none--no country that has our combination of entrepreneurial 
skills, our research and technology base, our outward-looking contacts 
with the rest of the world, our work ethic, and our diversity. Nobody 
has got all of that in any other country.
    And what we have to do is, as I have said until I'm blue in the 
face, build a bridge to the future that gives opportunity to everybody, 
expects responsibility from everybody, and then says, if you are willing 
to share our values and play by the rules, we don't care anything else 
about you. You don't have to tell us anything else. We don't care about 
what your race is, whether you're a man or woman, whether you're old or 
young, whether you've got a disability. We don't care. If you're willing 
to do your best and be a part of this, our bridge is going to be big 
enough for you to go across, because we'll all be better off if you're 
better off. And we're going to have an American community. And my wife 
is right: It does take a village. And we are going to do it together.
    Now, what I want to ask you is, I want to ask you to forget about 
the polls. There's a lot of elections where they could have a bonfire on 
election night burning the polls that turned out to be wrong. If all the 
polls had been right, Lawton wouldn't be Governor. [Laughter] And a poll 
is a picture of a horserace that's not over. That's all it is. But the 
people now are voting their hopes, not their fears. The people are now 
voting the facts, the evidence, the ideas, not the insults, the 
innuendoes, the assaults. That's what they're doing.
    We really have succeeded in replacing the politics of blame in 
Washington with the politics of what are we going to do about it, and 
that's good. But we've got 60 days to go. And if you want 4 more years, 
and if you want us to go into the 21st century with the American dream 
alive for everybody, and if you're willing to rear back and fight, then 
remember this: You cannot have 4 more years without 60 more days.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at approximately 7:30 p.m. in the Student 
Union East Building at Gulf Coast Community College. In his remarks, he 
referred to area businessman Joseph Chapman III and his mother, Gladys, 
Bay County supervisor of elections.