    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [November 1, 1997]
    [Pages 1480-1481]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1480]]

    Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner on Amelia Island
    November 1, 1997

        Thank you very much. Please be seated. We're going to reverse the
    order tonight, and I'm going to introduce the Vice President because
    you've all heard me speak before--[laughter]--because I need to save my
    voice to campaign for our candidates in New Jersey and in New York
    tomorrow. [Applause] Thank you.
        Let me once again thank all of you for coming. I hope you have
    enjoyed this. I certainly enjoyed it today. I was glad to meet with the
    various panels, and I enjoyed Governor Romer's speech at lunch very,
    very much. Didn't he do a terrific job?
        Ladies and gentlemen, 6 years ago when I began running for
    President, I wanted to win the election to change the country, and I
    felt very strongly that we were not preparing America for the 21st
    century and that our party needed to break the logjam not only with a
    set of new policies but with a set of new ideas. I thought the political
    debate had become, frankly, stale and, at least to someone like me
    governing a State out in the country, often completely meaningless.
        I believed we had to move the debate toward what was good for the
    future, not the past; what would support positive change, not the status
    quo; what would bring us together, not divide us; and move away from the
    old left-right, liberal-conservative, and frankly outdated name-calling
    and labeling that dominated national politics. Six years later, we've
    made a lot of progress, not only in moving the country to a better place
    but in changing the nature of political debate.
        I very much hope that the simplistic antigovernment, reactionary
    approach had its last gasp in the Republican congressional victory in
    1994. The fact that we beat back the Contract With America and signed
    the right kind of welfare reform, got a balanced budget with the biggest
    investments in education and health care since 1965 and that we're
    moving forward in a way that brings the country together around the
    ideas of opportunity, responsibility, and community that we have
    espoused now for a long time is deeply encouraging to me.
        The fact that all around the world now people are beginning to talk
    in the same terms--the First Lady is in Great Britain today; she's been
    in Ireland--I frankly was very flattered that Tony Blair's campaign was
    often compared to ours and that the so-called New Labor movement has a
    lot in common with what we've tried to do here. I believe all over the
    world countries that are serious about helping people make the most of
    their own lives, assuming a leadership role in dealing with the
    challenges of the modern world are going to have to basically adopt
    similar approaches.
        If you hadn't helped us, none of that would have been possible. But
    what I want to say to you is, if I hadn't been smart enough to pick Al
    Gore to be my running mate, none of it would have been possible.
        Let me just give you a few examples. Sam Rayburn used to say it's a
    lot easier to tear something down, even a jackass can kick a barn down,
    but it takes a carpenter to build one. Now, we took the position that
    the old debate that Government could not be a savior, but couldn't sit
    on the sidelines either, was a false debate and that we had to have a
    new kind of Government that was smaller, that did more with less, that
    could balance the budget but also invest more in our future. Al Gore's
    reinventing Government project was the instrument through which we put
    that principle into practice.
        And 5 years after we took office, our Government is smaller by
    300,000, several thousand pages of regulation, several hundred
    Government programs that were out of date. It has been modernized in
    many ways, but we did not walk away from the problems, the challenges,
    and the opportunities of the American people.
        The reinventing Government project was often, frankly, made fun of
    because it's not the sexiest issue in town. But it's what enabled us to
    cut the Government by 300,000 and increase the quality of public service
    and have money left over after we reduced the deficit, passed the
    balanced budget bill, to still invest in our future. The American people
    owe the Vice President a great debt of gratitude for that achievement
    alone.

    [[Page 1481]]

        Second example: When I became President, I got a very interesting
    letter shortly after I took office from former President Nixon, written
    a month and a day before he passed away. And it was about Russia, the
    importance of Russia to our future, and how we had to work with them to
    make sure we didn't repeat the ugly history of the last 50 years but
    instead had a partnership for peace and prosperity and cooperation.
        Well, I struck up a pretty good relationship with President Yeltsin,
    and I stuck by him through tough times because he was standing up for
    democracy and prosperity. But we had a huge number of exceedingly
    difficult issues, and frankly we still have some tough issues, and we
    always will because it's in the nature of relationships between two
    great countries.
        The Vice President agreed to head a commission along with the
    Russian Prime Minister, Mr. Chernomyrdin, for which there was really no
    precedent in global affairs. And the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission is the
    instrument through which the good intentions and principles articulated
    first by me and then by Boris Yeltsin have made the United States-Russia
    partnership the success it is. They've made it possible for us to go
    together into Bosnia. They made it possible for us to dramatically
    reduce the number of nuclear missiles we have. They've made it possible
    for us to detarget missiles so that none of our missiles are pointed at
    each other's children. They made it possible for us to do a whole range
    of things.
        The Vice President has done a similar thing with the Vice President
    of South Africa. He has worked out an environmental partnership with top
    officials in China. In other words, it's fine for the President to make
    these statements; it's quite another thing if you have to look up 4 or 5
    or 6 years from now and nothing has been done. It won't happen because
    Al Gore was the Vice President of the United States with unique
    responsibilities for helping to build our common future.
        I could give you any number of other examples. I remember not long
    after I became President, when I was still reading critical columns--
    [laughter]--someone wrote a column in which they said something like--
    well, anyway, the import of it was that obviously I was a weak person,
    and that's why I had a wife who was so influential and why I gave my
    Vice President so much power, more than any President ever had before.
    And that sort of tickled me, because it seemed to me that if I had a
    partner in the Vice President who had knowledge in areas greater than
    mine, who had expertise in areas greater than mine, and who had all this
    energy and ability and a passionate dedication to this country and its
    future, I would be a fool not to use it. And I would be disserving you
    and every other American citizen if I had done anything other than make
    Albert Gore the most influential and effective Vice President in the
    history of the United States. So I think I did the right thing there.
        We've had a unique partnership. Believe it or not, we don't always
    agree. [Laughter] Our disagreements have been among the most stimulating
    experiences of my presidency. But if I want to disagree with the Vice
    President, since I get the last vote, I know at least that I have to go
    to school and I better have my facts straight.
        I will never be able to convey publicly or privately the depth of
    gratitude I feel for the partnership that we have enjoyed. But I just
    want you to know that every time I see another economic report like the
    one we saw yesterday, that the economy grew another 3.5 percent in the
    last quarter; every time I think about the 13 million people who have
    jobs, the 3 million people who aren't on welfare, the more than 12
    million people who have taken advantage of family and medical leave, and
    all of the achievements that this administration has played a role in, I
    know--I know that one of the most important factors was the unique and
    unprecedented relationship I have enjoyed with this fine, good man.
        Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice President.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:32 p.m. in Salons Two and Three at the
    Ritz-Carlton Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Tony
    Blair of the United Kingdom; President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister
    Viktor Chernomyrdin of Russia; and Executive Deputy President Thabo
    Mbeki of South Africa.