[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[October 31, 1996]
[Pages 2001-2006]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in Oakland, California
October 31, 1996

    The President. Let's hear it for Sherman Spears; give him another 
hand. [Applause]
    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
    The President. Thank you, thank you very much. Well, happy 
Halloween, Oakland. Mr. Mayor, thank you for making me feel at home 
again. Senator Boxer, Senator Feinstein, Congressman Dellums, how 
fortunate the people of California are to have you pleading their cause 
and pushing their futures in Washington, DC. Thank you for your 
friendship, your support, and your leadership.
    I want to thank the House Jacks for the national anthem and their 
music. They did a great job. I want to say how glad I am to be here with 
all the people on the podium, including Lieutenant Governor Gray Davis, 
Congressman Tom Lantos. My Chief of Staff from California, Leon Panetta, 
is here with me. I want to thank the young people here who are in the 
neighborhood watch from the Oakland Home Alert; thank you. And I want to 
thank these young folks who made this bridge to the 21st century for me. 
Didn't they do a great job? [Applause]
    I want to echo what has already been said and ask you to help Ellen 
Tauscher go to the United States Congress. We need her there. She looks 
like a congresswoman--[laughter]--but, more importantly, she'll vote 
like a congresswoman from California, advancing the interests of all 
Americans. And I hope you will help her.
    You know, folks, I know this is Halloween and we've got a few masks 
on out there; we've even got a television camera over here masquerading 
as Freddy Krueger. [Laughter] But I want to ask you tonight to sort of 
take off the mask for a minute. I want to begin by thanking all the 
young people in this audience who have come tonight, for more than 
anything else this election is about your tomorrows. It's about what 
kind of country we're going to be in the 21st century.
    And I want to ask you all to do something tonight for me when you go 
home. Before you go to sleep, whatever your age is, just see if you can 
answer this question for yourself: ``What would I like my country to 
look like when we cross that bridge into the 21st century in 4 years? 
What would I like my country to look like when I have children, like 
Sherman does? What would I like that to be?''
    And I think you will find a good answer. And I want to tell you what 
my answer is. I believe in a country where everybody, without regard to 
race, gender, or whatever else, no matter where they start in life, has 
a chance to live out their dreams. I believe in a country--I believe in 
a country where America leads the world for people in freedom and 
prosperity. And I believe in a country where we celebrate our diversity 
instead of being divided by it, where we're one great, strong community.
    So when you choose the last President of the 20th century and the 
first President of the 21st century, you have to ask yourself this 
question. There is a huge difference here. There's a huge difference in 
these choices for Congress. And it's not fundamentally about party, it's 
about what you want America to be like. They say you'd be better off on 
your own. I say--as a friend of mine said, someone I'm reasonably

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close to--it does take a village to raise our children and build our 
future. They say, ``There is a future out there, and it sure will be 
exciting if you can get there, and I wish you luck.'' I say, we'll all 
get there if we build a bridge big enough and strong enough to walk 
across together.
    Now, 4 years ago the people of California gave me the chance to 
serve as President and gave Al Gore the chance to serve as Vice 
President, and basically you took me on faith. Tonight you don't have to 
do that anymore. We know which approach works. There's an old saying 
where I come from: If you find a turtle on a fencepost, the chances are 
it did not get there by accident. [Laughter]
    We do have 10\1/2\ million more jobs than we had 4 years ago. 
California's economy has turned around and is going in the right 
direction compared to 4 years ago. We do have 4 years of declining crime 
rates, the lowest crime rate in the whole country in 10 years and in 
California in 25 years. There are nearly 2 million fewer people on 
welfare than there were 4 years ago. We are moving in the right 
direction.
    Ten million more people got an increase in the minimum wage. There's 
been a 50 percent increase in child support collections. Twenty-five 
million people now have a chance to keep their health insurance because 
we passed a law that says you can't lose it if you change jobs or 
someone in your family gets sick. We also passed a bill that says that 
insurance companies can't kick mothers and their newborn babies out of a 
hospital in 24 hours anymore.
    We know that if we work to expand opportunity, increase 
responsibility, and build our American community we're going to be 
better off. Now, let me say--I'd be the very first to say, even 5 days 
before an election, I do not deserve credit, solely, for all the good 
things that have happened in America. We did this together. And I just 
want us to keep on working together. I don't want to see us divided and 
going back and forgetting about our obligations to one another.
    I'm trying to get another million people to join in these 
neighborhood watches like these young folks, because I know if you have 
police on the street and partners in the neighborhood working together, 
you can prevent crime and save children, not just catch criminals. And 
you'll drive the crime rate down.
    I'm trying to get a million more people--a million more--to go out 
there and teach our young children to read as reading tutors, so that 
every 8-year-old can read a book on his or her own by the year 2000. I'm 
trying to mobilize volunteers all across this country to help us hook up 
every classroom and library in the United States to the Internet, so 
that all our kids will finally have access to the same knowledge at the 
same time. We've got to do this together.
    I'm trying to work with the cities and the private sector to create 
another million jobs to move people from welfare to work. You can't tell 
people they have to go to work unless you also have work for them to go 
to.
    We've got to do this together. And your big decision here is: bridge 
to the future, or bridge to the past; doing it together, or you're on 
your own. I want the young people here especially to think about this. 
With all my heart, I believe the best days of this country are still 
before us. With all my heart, I believe that the people who are growing 
up now and will come of age in the 21st century will have more 
opportunities to live out their dreams than ever before, if we do the 
right things.
    But there are new threats, new challenges out there, challenges to 
our security in the form of terrorism and biological and chemical 
weapons and ethnic and regional hatreds all over the world that could 
flare up. There are new challenges here at home. We've got to get the 
drugs and the gangs and the guns off the street and give people 
something to say yes to and a future to build. We have to make it 
possible for everybody to benefit from this new high-tech global 
economy, not just the ones that are going to make it anyway if we don't 
do anything. And we're going to be better off, all of us, if all of us 
have a chance--not a guarantee but a chance--to make it. That's what 
this whole election's about.
    Now, since this is Halloween but I asked you to take off the mask, 
I'm going to take off a mask or two myself tonight. Yesterday we found 
out that the economy is growing at about 3 percent a year. Incomes were 
up 5 percent a year after inflation, after being stagnant for 10 years. 
People are actually getting paid for the work they're doing again. And 
my opponent said that we had the worst economy in 20 years.
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!

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    The President. I've got news for him. The worst economy California 
had in 20 years was when I got elected President. It's better now.
    Now--but it's not all bad because yesterday he said we had the worst 
economy in 20 years, but just 2 weeks ago he said we had the worst 
economy in 100 years. [Laughter] Now, I think you ought to vote for a 
guy who can make up 80 years in 2 weeks. I've done a pretty good job.
    But you have to decide who's right. Let me tell you, I don't 
approve--I'll say right now, I do not approve, even when we do it, even 
sometimes when I have lapsed into it--do not approve of all this attempt 
that people in politics make today to convince people that their 
opponents are no good, they're bad people, they're corrupt, you know. 
It's not true; that's not right.
    After the Vice President and I and Mr. Panetta spent 55 hours 
negotiating the budget with Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich and the 
leaders of the Democratic Party, Mr. Armey, on their side, we were alone 
in the White House one day, just the three of us. And I looked at them 
and I said, ``You know, I've enjoyed being with these people, and I've 
learned a lot. They're just different from us.'' And I do not mean it in 
any hateful way. They really believe things that are different from what 
I believe. And if every American understood that, every American would 
show up, they would show up Tuesday, and they would cast their votes, 
and we would all chart our course to the 21st century. I'll just give 
you a few examples.
    The family and medical leave law has helped 12 million people to 
take a little time off from work when their babies are born or when 
their family members are sick. They led the fight against it, because 
they said it would hurt the economy, we were interfering with the 
economy. My attitude is, the most important job anybody's got is raising 
their kids. If we had more people doing the job, we'd be in less trouble 
than we are in. And almost all families are having some trouble raising 
their kids and doing their jobs. Even well-to-do people often find 
terrible conflicts between the demands of their work and the demands of 
children, so you know how much harder it is for people that are just 
struggling to get by. And we have to fashion a world in the 21st 
century, we have to use the technology, we have to use our ingenuity, we 
have to use all our creativity, to help people succeed in raising their 
kids and doing their work.
    Nobody here is doing any more important work than Sherman is, trying 
to save our kids. But his first job now is to save his own child and 
give his own child a good future. We all have to succeed at both. So I 
think we were right. I want to expand the family leave law and say 
people ought to be able to go see their children's teacher twice a year 
and take them to the doctor without losing their job. I think that's 
right. I think when people work overtime, if they've got a problem at 
home they ought to have the option to take their overtime in pay or time 
at home dealing with their sick spouses or their children.
    That's what I believe, because we have to find ways for people to 
succeed at home and at work. It's a big challenge in the 21st century. 
They disagree. You have to choose. Should we build a bridge together, or 
would it be better if you were on your own? I know the answer to that. 
And I think you do, too.
    I'll give you another example. When I was for the Brady bill, they 
led the fight against it. When I supported Senator Feinstein in her 
finest hour in banning those assault weapons, they led the fight against 
it. When I said, ``I've been talking to all these police officers and 
they say we cannot jail our way out of this crisis; we've got to prevent 
crime and give our kids something to say yes to, and we need to put 
police back on the streets in the neighborhoods, building trust in 
partnership with people again. That's why I want 100,000 police,'' they 
led the fight against it. They really believed it was a mistake. And now 
we know it's bringing the crime rate down, and they're still trying to 
get rid of it. I don't think they're bad people, but I sure think 
they're wrong. And I hope you do, too.
    Their idea of balancing the budget included cuts in Head Start, cuts 
in college loans, abolishing the Department of Education.
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. My idea of balancing the budget has given us the 
smallest Federal Government in 30 years. We, the Democrats--Ron Dellums, 
Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein--we, the Democrats--you should know 
this--have eliminated more unnecessary programs, more pages of 
Government regulations, we have privatized more Government operations 
than the Republicans did in 12 years. But we still think we should 
balance the budget and invest in edu-


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cation and the environment and protect Medicare and Medicaid.
    My idea is to teach every 8-year-old to read, to let every 12-year-
old log in on the Internet, and open the doors of college to everybody 
in America that wants to go and will work for it. My idea of a tax cut 
is to give families tax cuts for raising their kids and education and 
health care and buying a home; to let people deduct dollar for dollar 
the cost of a typical community college tuition so we can make 2 years 
of college as universal as a high school diploma is today in just 4 
years.
    My idea is to let you save in an individual retirement account and 
withdraw from it tax-free if you use the money for education or health 
care or homebuying. And I think we ought to give you a $10,000 tax 
deduction for the cost of any college tuition at any institution of 
higher education in America. That's what I believe.
    But I don't believe--I don't believe in coming to you at election 
time and telling you I can have a huge tax cut that will blow a hole in 
the deficit, raise interest rates, send California's economy back into a 
tailspin and require bigger cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, and 
the environment than I vetoed before when they shut the Government down. 
I just don't agree with that. And I think you agree with me and America 
does.
    But we're different. They believe every time you really protect the 
environment it hurts the economy. So they said, ``We're going to cut 
environmental enforcement by a third; we're going to paralyze the 
ability of the Government to do new things to protect our air and 
water.''
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. They wanted to abolish the principle that the 
polluters should pay for their pollution and make the taxpayers pay for 
all of it.
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. There are 10 million children still living within 4 
miles of a toxic waste dump. My idea is clean them up and let our kids 
grow up next to parks, not poison. That's just different. We have 
proved--we have proved that you can protect the environment and grow the 
economy. Their idea is to just cut whatever needs to be cut because 
nearly any Government spending is worse than nearly any private. My idea 
is let's define together what things we have to do as a people.
    And let me just give you some examples of some things I think we 
have to do as a people. Yesterday, last night, I was in Denver and I 
gave a little speech like I am tonight, and then I did what I'll do 
tonight, I went around the crowd and shook hands with people just like 
this. And just standing there in the crowd, the following things 
happened to me--just literally walking down the crowd.
    Number one, I met a man and he said, ``My wife and I just adopted a 
child. And because of the family leave law, my wife's getting to know 
our baby at home and we're making that baby a part of our family, and 
she didn't lose her job.''
    And then I met a man who said that he got the first research grant 
under a new policy that I started when we lifted the ban on fetal tissue 
research that looked into Parkinson's. And this professor just had fire 
in his eyes, and he said, ``We're going to cure that, we're going to 
whip Parkinson's, we're going to make people free of that because of 
what we're doing in research.''
    And then I met a young man who said he'd given up all hope, but he 
listened to what I was saying and he believed he could make something of 
himself again. And he got a student loan and he was going back, after 
being a dropout, to study microbiology. And he was going to get a degree 
and help to build our bridge to the future.
    And then I met three ladies who had a little sign that said, ``Thank 
you for allocating $30 million more to breast cancer research.'' They 
were breast cancer survivors and determined to see us whip that disease.
    And then I met a young woman who was a police officer in a community 
near Denver, who said her community had just gotten five more police 
officers and she felt safer on the streets and she was going to make the 
people of her community safer. And that happened in about 10 minutes.
    See, I think that's what this election is all about. That's what I 
think. Oh, you know what all the issues are. But the bottom line is, are 
we better off when we do these things together?
    Audience members. Yes!
    The President. Or would you just like to go your own way?
    Audience members. No-o-o!
    The President. That's what the big decision is here, don't make any 
mistake about it. That's

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what this bridge to the future is all about. And I want you to think 
about that when you decide how you're going to vote and whether you're 
going to vote and what you can still say to others between now and 
Tuesday.
    You know, this is my last campaign unless I run for the school board 
someday. [Laughter] And I'm thinking about what we're going to be like 
in the 21st century, what we're going to be like when our children are 
our age, whether we can give the great genius of America for continuous 
improvement and advancement and moving closer to our ideals on to our 
children. And I know we can. We've just scratched the surface.
    We now know that there are two genes that cause breast cancer. And 
if we can figure out how they do it, we'll be able to cure virtually all 
cases and maybe even prevent all cases. We now know how to move drugs 
and mix drugs in a way that has more than doubled the life expectancy 
for people with HIV and AIDS in only 4 years. We know how to do that. We 
now know that for the first time in history laboratory animals with 
their spines completely severed have shown movement in their lower limbs 
because of nerve transplants from other parts of the body to their 
spines. If we can do that for people, we can revolutionize life in 
America for so many of our fellow citizens who deserve a better chance.
    We now know that all this money that we have spent for satellites in 
the sky to look at the planets beyond and to find out what's going on 
here on Earth--they have to see real well to do that. We now know we can 
do that and use that technology to look at our bodies and maybe find all 
kinds of problems way before they get out of hand. We know that.
    We're about to build a computer, the U.S. Government and IBM, that 
can do more calculations in a second than you can go home tonight and do 
on your hand-held calculator in 30,000 years. You get the point.
    The Internet, which a lot of you are on, was started as a Government 
research project. The American winners of the Nobel prizes in chemistry 
and physics got research money from the Government to explore the 
mysteries. We know now how fast we're going. Four years ago only 
physicists knew about the Internet. Today my cat has a home page. 
[Laughter] Four years ago there were only 3 million Americans working at 
home making their living. Today there are 12 million. Four years from 
now there will be 30 million. That will change everything for all of us 
in ways that will be some good and some challenge.
    And you have to decide. And if you want to know why I have spent so 
much time on this, it's because I believe that we've got an opportunity 
that our country has never had before. We're going through this period 
of change in how we work and live and relate to each other and the rest 
of the world. And if we do it right, it will be the most remarkable 
experience in democracy ever--ever.
    Now, look around this sea of people tonight, all the way back there, 
and I want to make my last point. One of the great moments for our 
family in the Presidency was when Hillary and Chelsea and I got to go to 
open the Olympics, to represent you and all of our country men and women 
at the opening of the Olympics. And I was filled with pride as I looked 
at those delegations from 197 different nations and nationalities 
walking around the Olympic stadium. And I thought to myself, we are the 
only country in the world that has people from nearly every one of those 
places in our country.
    And when I get up and I go to work on trying to keep people from 
killing each other in Bosnia, or trying to resolve the problems of the 
Middle East, or trying to resolve the problems in Northern Ireland; when 
I sent our troops to Rwanda with the French to stop the starvation of 
hundreds of thousands of people, I think to myself how sad it is that 
all over the world there's still so many people who have to define 
themselves in terms of what they aren't, who have to say, ``Well, 
whatever's wrong with me, at least I've got somebody I can look down on 
here; I've got somebody I can kick around; I've got somebody I can feel 
is subhuman.''
    It's just a terrible, heartbreaking thing to see. And I go around 
the world and I say all these things, you know, and make all these 
arguments, and what all these arguments amount to is I'm trying to get 
people to let it go. It's what Sherman had to do, he had to let it go. 
He said he could never get revenge. Folks, I'll tell you something, 
nobody gets even in this world. Only God can get even and help us get 
even. Nobody gets even.
    And there's a certain amount of injustice that everyone endures. I 
read something the other day where Mark Twain--he was a pretty smart

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fellow--said, ``Every dog needs a few fleas in his life; keeps him from 
worrying so much about being a dog.'' [Laughter]
    Now, I want an America where we all have a chance and where we 
respect each other. We don't have to agree with what we do; we don't 
have to agree with some of the choices we make. But we need a country 
where everybody's got a chance and where everybody is respected.
    My problem with this 209--I know it's maybe popular and maybe not--
but let me tell you what I know.
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. Let me tell you what I know. I'm old enough to 
remember in my home State when I could go into county courthouses and 
look at the square, and the restrooms were divided between ``white'' and 
``colored.'' I'm old enough to remember when people had to buy a poll 
tax to vote. I'm old enough to know that if my skin were a different 
color, I could not have been born to a widowed mother in a tiny town in 
Arkansas, who married my stepfather who did not have a high school 
diploma, and become President. But I believe there will come a time when 
all of you could become President or do anything else you want to do.
    And I know that all these affirmative action programs haven't been 
perfect. I've actually gotten rid of some myself; we've raised the 
standards on others. I've never been for quotas; I've never been for 
anybody unqualified getting anything they were not qualified for. But I 
am for giving people a chance to prove that they are qualified.
    Let me give you an example. I admire General Powell for coming out 
here and taking on his own party and being candid enough to talk about 
how many African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American, and female military 
officers there are who got there because they had the right kind of 
affirmative action; not because they were unqualified, because they got 
a chance--somebody made an extra effort to give them a chance to prove 
they were qualified. I admire that.
    I read an article the other day in a magazine about my appointments 
to the Federal bench. And they pointed out how I had appointed a higher 
percentage of women and minorities than any other President, but they 
also had the highest rating from the American Bar Association since the 
ratings have been used. We gave people a chance to prove they were 
qualified and then to serve. And I think we ought to keep doing that. I 
believe that. If somebody can show us where we're wrong on this or that 
or the other policy, we ought to be willing to change it. If some policy 
or program can't be defended, we ought to be willing to get rid of it. 
But we ought not to give up the idea that we're not where we need to be 
yet. But we're going in the right direction. That's what I believe. And 
I hope you do, too.
    The other thing I believe is, we've got to get to the point in this 
country where we can let some of this stuff go and say, ``You know, if 
you believe in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and 
the Bill of Rights, if you show up for work every day or you show up for 
school every day and you do what you're supposed to do and you're doing 
the best you can, we don't need to know anything else about you. The 
rest of that shouldn't concern us. You're part of our America. And we'll 
go in hands with you, and we'll go on into the future together.''
    That's why I was so against those church burnings and why I hate it 
when a synagogue or a mosque is defaced in the United States and why it 
is wrong for people to manifest their Government hatred by blowing up 
buildings like the tragedy in Oklahoma City. We cannot afford that. 
We've got too much to live for, too much to work for. No country in the 
world is as fortunate as the United States, if we build a bridge to the 
21st century together.
    Now, will you help me do that? [Applause] And will you show up 
Tuesday? And will you talk to your friends and neighbors? [Applause]
    Thank you, California. You were there for me. I've been there for 
you. I need you one more time on Tuesday. Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 7 p.m. in Jack London Square. In his 
remarks he referred to Sherman Spears, director, Teens on Target; Mayor 
Elihu Mason Harris of Oakland; Ellen Tauscher, candidate for 
California's 10th Congressional District; and Gen. Colin Powell, USA 
(Ret.), former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. A tape was not available 
for verification of the content of these remarks.