[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[October 22, 1996]
[Pages 1902-1904]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner in Miami
October 22, 1996

    The President. Thank you.
    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
    The President. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, this crowd's a 
little rowdy tonight. But it's only 2 weeks until voting time; it's 
about time to get a little rowdy. So I'm glad to see you.
    Let me ask all of you to join me in once again expressing our 
appreciation to the wonderful, wonderful entertainment we had tonight. 
[Applause] Thank you, Peabo Bryson. You were fabulous. Thank both of you 
so much. Thank you.
    I am so glad to see you here. I'm glad to be up here with Buddy 
MacKay and Lawton Chiles and Bob Graham. We've all been friends a long 
time. We've worked together on so many things for so long, we read each 
other's mind. I think we can say each other's speeches. [Laughter] 
Tonight I was kind of tired. I thought, maybe I could be Lawton; he 
won't talk very long. [Laughter] Then maybe I can be me and not talk 
very long--who knows. [Laughter]
    Let me say to all of you, I expect to be back in Florida before this 
election is over, but--and I have worked hard for this State for 4 years 
and with your leaders for 4 years in trying to help you overcome the 
impacts of the hurricane, in trying to help deal with the challenges of 
education and health care, in trying to help you grow your economy, in 
trying to help you save your environment, in trying to help you save and 
enhance the State's program.
    This is my last election, unless I run for the school board someday. 
[Laughter] For me, as Lawton Chiles said, it all started in Florida in 
December of 1991. You gave me the first step up on the road to the White 
House, and I will never forget that. I will always love you for it and 
always be grateful. And I'd sure like to go out with a victory in 
Florida.
    We have worked together to try to seize the future not only on the 
things I mentioned but the Summit of the Americas, which Senator Graham 
spoke about; the extra efforts we have made over the last 4 years to try 
to bring freedom to Cuba; the work that we must do--the work that we 
have done and must continue to do to shore up democracy in the rest of 
our hemisphere and our neighborhood.
    But tonight I just want to ask you very briefly--this will be 
brief--to take some time when you go home tonight--I hope you will pat 
yourself on the back for the contributions you have made and the efforts 
you have made, and then I hope you will redouble your efforts in the 
next 2 weeks. And I think you can do it if you go home tonight and go 
through an exercise that I frequently go through myself, if you ask 
yourselves before you go to bed, ``What do I want my country to look 
like when we start the 21st century just 4 years away? And what do I 
want my country to be like when my children are my age? What do I want 
it to be like when my grandchildren are my age?''
    We are going through one of those periods of profound change in how 
we work and live, how we relate to each other, how we relate to the rest 
of the world. You know it here in Florida and particularly here because 
you're on the cutting edge of so many of those changes. It is not as if 
we have an option to repeal those changes. That's nothing I can take 
credit for. These changes are big, deep, historical currents. The issue 
is, how will we respond to these challenges? How will we make these 
changes our friend? How will we be able to meet the challenges and 
preserve our values?
    For me, the answer has always been very simple. It's the thing that 
got me into the Presidential race in 1991. It has driven our 
administration every day for the last 4 years. It is, what can we do to 
make sure that when we start that new century in a new millennium, 
oppor-


[[Page 1903]]

tunity is still alive for every single person in this country who's 
willing to be responsible and work for it? What can we do to make sure 
that the United States continues to lead the world toward peace and 
freedom and prosperity? And what can we do to make sure America 
incorporates all these vast changes in a way that strengthens our 
American community, that brings us together instead of driving us apart? 
How can we learn to help people succeed more at home as parents and in 
the workplace? How can we live in greater harmony with our natural 
environment? And how can we live in greater harmony with each other, in 
spite of all of our differences?
    And I have worked very hard, and I'm proud to be able to say that 
compared to 4 years ago, in virtually every category of measurement, by 
those standards, we are better off than we were 4 years ago. We are on 
the right track to the 21st century.
    You know, in nearly every election and in too many over the last 10 
years or so, as you get along toward the end of the election, things 
tend to get sometimes harsh and personal. And many of you said to me 
tonight--I appreciate it--that you liked the way I avoided that in the 
second debate. I thank you for your comments about that. But let me say 
that to me it is not necessary to do that, and in fact, doing that 
undermines what I think we ought to be doing, which is to look at the 
fact that we have two candidates and two philosophies here that are very 
different about how to reach the 21st century. And they are so different 
and clear a vote should be easy to cast, and no one should be willing to 
stay home, because the consequences are so significant for how we'll 
have to live.
    I believe that the human dimension is very important. And you know, 
as I've said repeatedly, I had a good personal relationship with Senator 
Dole when he was the Senate majority leader. I had a good personal 
relationship with him when I vetoed the budget he passed. It wasn't 
personal. I realized that he thought it was a good thing to cut 
education by $30 billion and get rid of the national service program and 
undermine our environmental protection programs. He thought it was good 
because he thinks the Government is a disembodied, bad force in our 
lives. And I honestly disagreed.
    He wants to say that we're the party of Government, but you know, 
our Democratic administration reduced the number of people working for 
the Government, the number of regulations on the books, and eliminated 
more programs than they did in 12 years when they had the White House. 
This has nothing to do--[applause].
    The central question here is, do you believe there are some things 
that we must do as partners together because we can't do them on our 
own? I went out to the largest community college in America today--the 
president of that college, a Cuban-American who came here 33 years ago 
to start his life, now heading the largest institution of its kind in 
our entire country--and I looked out at that college and I said, ``You 
know, this is the way America ought to work. This is a flexible, 
nonbureaucratic, high-performance organization committed to the 
realization of everyone's potential. But they give you no guarantees. 
You have to work. All you get is a chance. But on the other hand, 
everybody gets a chance. Nobody gets filtered out because they're in 
some special category. All you have to do is to show up and be willing 
to work.'' And that's the way America ought to work. And that's what I 
believe we should be working for.
    So that's the big issue. Should we build a bridge to the 21st 
century wide enough and strong enough for everybody to walk across, or 
should we say that, ``In order to do that, I'll have to undermine your 
freedom. So there's the 21st century and there's a big deep valley and 
there's a big high mountain. I hope you get across, good luck.'' Should 
we say to people, ``You're better off on your own,'' or should we say 
Hillary was right, it takes a village to raise a child and build a 
country?
    I don't feel that it is necessary to believe that people who 
disagree with me on this are bad people. I do believe the consequences 
would be bad. I think we were right, for example, to take more chemicals 
out of the air and raise the standards of our food and strengthen 
environmental enforcement in a way that grew the economy--didn't 
undermine the economy. We've had more new businesses start in 
environmental technology, hiring more people, by far than anyone can 
reasonably claim jobs have been lost because we fought for clean air, 
clean water, and the preservation of our natural resources. I believe we 
were right. But you have to decide.

[[Page 1904]]

    You know, most of us will do fine no matter what happens in terms of 
educating our children. But I believe we're going to do better if we 
pass our program to open the doors of college education to all Americans 
and let everybody have access to at least 2 years of education after 
high school and give everybody some sort of tax deduction for the cost 
of college tuition up to $10,000 a year. I think we'll all be stronger 
if everybody gets a good education. That's what I believe.
    So you have to decide that. But I believe we must remain an 
aggressive, forward-looking, reformist country committed to meeting 
these challenges and meeting these changes. And I know we can do it. I 
think you know we can do it.
    That's the last thing I want to say. This election is not over. It 
has not even occurred yet, except among those of you who have voted 
absentee or if you live in one of those States where they let you vote 
for 3 weeks. Otherwise all these polls are pictures of horseraces that 
aren't over. Now, I know there are no gamblers in this audience. 
[Laughter] But if there were people who had ever been to horseraces in 
this audience, chances are that several of them held winning tickets on 
horses that were ahead at the three-quarter turn. Some of them held 
tickets on horses that were ahead in the stretch. But the only tickets 
they collected on were the horses that were ahead at the finish line. 
The finish line is November 5th. And I want you to be there. I want you 
to bring people there. And I want you to help us build that bridge to 
the 21st century.
    Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:03 p.m. in the courtyard at the Biltmore 
Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to singer Peabo Bryson.