    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [December 11, 1997]
    [Pages 1750-1752]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1750]]

    Remarks at a Luncheon for Gubernatorial Candidate Buddy MacKay in Miami
    December 11, 1997

        The President. Thank you very much. You all calm down now; we don't
    want to be too rowdy. [Laughter] You've got to save some of this for the
    spring and the summer and the fall, so that on election day you have
    maximum enthusiasm and energy for Buddy MacKay for Governor. I want you
    to do that.
        Let me say, I am very honored to be here today. I want to thank so
    many people, but let me first say that Representative Kendrick Meek made
    such a good speech I thought the rest of us were going to be
    superfluous. Repetition is important, and he did it in a beautiful and
    eloquent way. And I thank him for his--for representing Florida's future
    so well.
        I thank Attorney General Bob Butterworth for being my friend and for
    being with me for a long time and for his strong support of Lieutenant
    Governor MacKay. I thank Lawton Chiles for his great leadership of the
    State of Florida. He has done a wonderful, wonderful job. And he has
    helped me to be a better President, as well as to do a better job for
    the people of Florida. I will never forget it. And he showed us all 4
    years ago how to win a tough election, and I haven't forgotten, Buddy
    MacKay hasn't forgotten, and all of you haven't forgotten. Let's bring
    our lessons to the table and push this thing forward next November. We
    can do it.
        Thank you, Jim Pugh, and all the others who worked so hard to make
    this a success. And thank all of you for giving your contributions to
    Buddy MacKay. It is not easy to run a campaign, and they are not
    inexpensive. And normally our side is running against people who have
    more money than we do. But the important thing is not whether they have
    more, it's just whether we have enough. If our side has enough to get
    our message out, we'll be all right. And you've taken a major step in
    that direction today, and we are profoundly grateful to you.
        Let me just take a couple of minutes of your time to tell you what I
    think this election is about and why I am here almost a year before.
    First of all, Florida is important to America. It's not only one of the
    biggest States in America, it represents every good thing that is going
    on as we hurtle into the 21st century and presents almost all the
    challenges our country faces as we move into the 21st century. Just
    think about it. You have a booming economy, and you have a gorgeous
    environment, and you have the conflict between the two. How are you
    going to preserve your natural resources? Can we restore the Everglades?
    Will there be enough water here 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 years from now?
        Then you have a wonderfully diverse culture with people coming from
    every country in our hemisphere and increasingly from all over the
    world, and you have some of the conflicts that that occasions. We have
    people living together and working together; we also have the challenges
    of crime and welfare.
        We have a place that people come to because they feel better and
    they feel healthier. And I can tell you, even though I didn't get here
    until after 2 o'clock last night, it still felt good when I got off the
    airplane after having stood in the snow in New York yesterday. So people
    come here because they feel good and they feel healthy, but you've got a
    whole lot of kids that don't have health insurance.
        So you have the challenges and the joys and the opportunities of
    21st century America writ large. It matters to America what happens in
    Florida. It matters to America whether Florida can meet its challenges
    and move forward together. That's the first thing.
        The second thing I want to say is that what the previous speakers
    said about the leadership Florida has enjoyed under the Chiles-MacKay
    team was not just political luncheon rhetoric. This State is in better
    shape than it was 8 years ago. It has been very, very well led. And you
    should be very proud of that, and it matters who has these jobs.
        It's also true that Lawton, as he said, and Buddy have had a
    remarkable partnership. And I did study up on the details a little when
    Al Gore and I took office, and the thing I liked the best was what
    Lawton said about--he got

    [[Page 1751]]

    to do the good stuff and the Lieutenant Governor got to do the bad
    stuff. I've tried to implement that at every turn in Washington--
    [laughter]--with mixed levels of success, I might add. But I've done my
    very best.
        I do think, you know, that it's clear that the Vice President has
    had more influence and a wider range of activity by far than any Vice
    President in history, in no small measure because I believe that's the
    way we ought to work. We ought to make maximum use of the talents of all
    of the people who can serve. And I saw when I looked at Lawton Chiles
    and Buddy MacKay that it could work, and so I am indebted in that way as
    well.
        Finally, let me say, just on a personal note, I'm here because in
    1991, when I started to run for President and only my mother thought I
    had a chance to win--[laughter]--Buddy MacKay stood up and stood by me
    in the straw poll in Florida and stayed with me in the darkest hours of
    my campaign. And when all the experts said that Bill Clinton is dead, he
    will be a minor footnote in history, we have to get somebody--in every
    election--he's the one we got out this time--Buddy MacKay said, ``I
    don't think so. I think I'll stay right there.'' And so I'm staying
    right here. I feel very good being here with my friend.
        There's something to be said for that. You ask, what do you want in
    a Governor? You want charisma, you want eloquence, you want somebody
    that's worked a lifetime and produced something for you. One thing you
    want is somebody who will stick right there, just pure old-fashioned
    personal strength of conviction. And all I know is I have no doubt that
    if any one of you or your beloved State were in trouble, he'd be the
    last guy to abandon ship. And that's important. I know it because I have
    seen it, and it matters in a leader of a State or a nation. Now, anybody
    can rock along with you when the times are good or when the
    circumstances are comfortable or when there's just another nice little
    media event to do. It's quite another thing to stand there when the
    times are tough but the stakes are high. And you should be very proud of
    that.
        Now, let me ask you this: What do you want in a Governor? What do
    you want? What do you want for your State? If I were to make the
    argument, I would say first of all, what we do works. And at some point,
    no matter how good our friends in the Republican Party are with their
    rhetoric, with their attacks, with their characterization, sometimes,
    sooner or later, results should be rewarded.
        You know, when I ran for President, remember what this country was
    going--we had high unemployment, stagnation, drift, division. And they
    had been telling us for 12 years that the Government was the problem and
    they were going to get it out of our lives. Meanwhile, they had
    quadrupled the national debt, and the deficit was $290 billion a year.
    Crime was up; they didn't like it. Welfare was up; they didn't like it.
    They just didn't do anything about it.
        And we said, consistent with, as the previous speakers have said,
    what we've tried to do with the Democratic Leadership Council, look, we
    don't think Government is the solution, but we don't think it's the
    problem either. We think it should be a partner. We don't believe
    Government can do everything, but neither do we want Government to go
    AWOL and sit on the sidelines. We believe the job of Government is to
    create the condition and give people the tools to solve their own
    problems, fulfill their own dreams, and make their communities in this
    country what it ought to be. That's what we stood for. And we said,
    look, we're going to have to do some things differently. If we want to
    restore the economy, rebuild the middle class, reclaim the future for
    our children, we have to do some things differently. We have to have
    different policies, policies that favor the future over the past,
    policies that help not just a few, and policies that unite us instead of
    policies that divide us for short-term political gain.
        And so we have worked at that. And we have worked in partnership
    with your leaders here. And you heard Bob Butterworth say what the
    results were. We had a $290 billion deficit the day I took office; it
    was $22 billion this year. Ninety-two percent of the work was done by a
    Democratic economic plan before the last balanced budget passed. The
    lowest unemployment and the lowest crime rates in 24 years, and all we
    did on crime--does the Federal Government have anything to do with the
    crime rate? It depends on whether it's a good partner.
        I'd heard all this talk all these years, but I was living out there
    in America like you. So I said, we're going to pass a crime bill that
    is, in effect, written by local prosecutors and police officers and
    community workers trying to save our kids. And that's why we said, let's
    put 100,000 police on the street; let's take the

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    assault weapons off the street; let's stop selling handguns to people
    with criminal records; and let's give our kids something to say yes to
    when they get out of school in the afternoon. And it's worked. It's
    worked.
        In this last balanced budget bill, we got the biggest increase in
    investment for child health since 1965; it will help to insure 5 million
    people. But it will be done at the State level. Which Governor do you
    trust more to insure the largest number of people over the next 5, 6
    years?
        In this balanced budget bill, we've got the largest new investment
    in education since 1965 and a commitment to set higher standards and a
    commitment to accountability. And we opened the doors of college wider
    than we had in 50 years, since the GI bill passed. But the work of
    implementing these things has to be done at the State level. Who do you
    trust to stand up for opportunity and excellence and accountability in
    education and giving Florida the kind of schools you need for the 21st
    century? Buddy.
        There are high stakes here. We have a good record; we have gotten
    results; we have done it by working together. Our theory of Government
    was right, and theirs was wrong. And you can see it in the evidence. But
    the most important thing is, look at Florida's future. You have to
    reconcile education opportunity as well as excellence in standards. You
    have to figure out how to continue to grow this economy, but you have
    got to stick up for the integrity of the Florida environment. Why have
    all these people moved here in the first place? Who do you trust to
    protect the environment of Florida for the 21st century?
        Audience members. Buddy!
        The President. So there are three issues: the environment, the
    economy, education and health care for children. And I can give you lots
    more. It is the nature of what we are trying to do in Washington to have
    a lot of this work actually done at the State and local level. If there
    is a partnership--and I'm trying to do what you want me to do, to set
    the direction for the country but not to try to direct the country, to
    set the direction, and then let people in their local communities solve
    their own problems--then the Governors of this country become more
    important than ever before.
        So Florida is in better shape than it was. The ideas that we've
    espoused have been proved right. And he is the person you can best trust
    to deal with the challenges of the future. That sounds like a pretty
    good case to me, and if you go out there and make it for a year, I don't
    care what other arguments are made, I don't care how much money is
    brought into play against him, I don't care what other national
    political currents are supposed to be bearing down on Florida and who is
    trying to get this electoral bloc or that one--just ask the people of
    Florida to vote for their children and their future and forget about the
    politics, and Buddy MacKay will be the next Governor of Florida.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:27 p.m. at the Radisson Mart Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to State Representative Kendrick Meek; Gov.
    Lawton Chiles of Florida; and Jim Pugh, general chairman, MacKay
    Campaign for Governor.