[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[December 1, 1997]
[Pages 1686-1688]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Dinner Honoring 
Evan Bayh
December 1, 1997

    Thank you very much. Governor, Senator Bayh, Lieutenant Governor 
Kernan, Senator Kerrey, Senator Torricelli. Ladies and gentlemen, first, 
thank you very much for being here for Evan Bayh tonight. You could 
probably tell that--you might have told a lot of things looking

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at that. You could probably tell we were good friends. When you heard 
him speak, you might have been thinking, ``There is Joe DiMaggio; why is 
he introducing Lou Gehrig?'' [Laughter] And then he started talking 
about what was on Jefferson's gravestone; I thought, my God, it's not--
bad enough that he's younger and better looking, now he's about to write 
my epitaph. [Laughter] But I was spared.
    Evan and Susan Bayh have been very close friends of Hillary's and 
mine for a long time now. I do remember when he was elected the youngest 
Governor in America, a position that I once held. And I remember how 
well he served. I remember when Senator Kerrey and I used to sit in the 
Governors meetings and think about how crazy things were in Washington, 
and we couldn't imagine how people lived and worked here, what strange 
decisions were made. We don't have any excuse for being here, Senator 
Kerrey and I. [Laughter] Senator Torricelli was always in the Congress; 
he didn't know any better. [Laughter] We were actually out there in the 
real world with Evan Bayh. And here is he about to jump off the same 
cliff.
    I want to tell you seriously that, you know, you meet a lot of 
people in this business and most of them are good people, honest people. 
They work hard; they try to do the right thing. Governor Bayh is one of 
the most extraordinarily talented and fundamentally decent people I have 
ever met in more than two decades in public life now.
    He also gets things done. He ran a great State, had a good economy, 
advanced the cause of education, had the biggest drop in welfare rolls 
of any State in the United States with a compassionate and commonsense 
welfare reform. And he embodies what I believe our party, and indeed our 
country, ought to stand for on the edge of a new century.
    I have spent a lot of time these last 5 years, with varying degrees 
of success--I'm grateful for that which we've had--trying to get our 
Nation to grasp the nettle before us, to do the things which need to be 
done in this dramatically new time to get us into a new century with the 
American dream alive for everybody who is responsible enough to work for 
it, and with our country coming together as one America when so many 
other people around the world are divided, and to maintain our 
leadership in the world for peace and prosperity and freedom.
    Evan Bayh embodies the kind of America I am trying to move us 
toward. I believe he will win next November. I believe he will render 
great service to our country. I believe you will always be proud that 
you were here on this night about a year before the election. And I hope 
that, together, those of us--we four in this room that either are now or 
I think soon will be serving in the Federal Government--will be able 
over the next 3 years to continue to move this country forward, based on 
what we believe in: building up, not tearing down; bringing together, 
not dividing; embracing the future, not the past.
    I've spent a lot of time in the last year going back to read 
American history. I was glad to--I love to go around with Senator 
Torricelli; we make a pretty good dog-and-pony show, and I'm always 
learning something from what he has to say. But I love the reference to 
the American Revolution and the beginning of our country.
    I really think that our country has been blessed by enormous 
political endurance. No other great democracy is as old as we are now, 
partly because we've had the good sense to maintain in various guises a 
two-party system that had consequences because the parties embraced 
different ideas with different consequences for the American people and 
partly because one of our parties always, against all the fears and 
reluctance of the moment, embodied the idea of the Nation and was 
willing to embrace the logical extension of the plain meaning of the 
American Constitution in each new time.
    In the beginning, it was George Washington and John Marshall and 
their heirs. In the Civil War, a new party, the Republican Party, was 
required to stand up for the idea of the Union and the logical extension 
of the Constitution that slavery could not coexist in a country 
dedicated to the proposition that all of us were created equal. And that 
was the position the Republican Party occupied through the Presidency of 
Theodore Roosevelt, during which time they reflected great credit on 
America and did great things for America.
    From the time of Woodrow Wilson to the present day, our party, the 
Democratic Party, has more clearly, more unambiguously, more 
consistently embodied the idea of the Nation

[[Page 1688]]

and extending the Constitution in its logical meaning to the challenges 
of the moment, from the end of the Progressive Era through the 
Depression, through World War II, through the beginning of the cold war 
under Harry Truman, through the New Frontier and the Great Society down 
to the present day.
    I don't think anyone questions the fact that our country is stronger 
today than it was 5 years ago because we have worked hard, not always 
succeeding, but succeeding far more often than failing, to bring to the 
country a new direction consistent with the age-old meaning of our 
obligation to form a more perfect Union.
    I am very proud of that. I am enormously grateful for the chance 
that I have had to serve. And I am very comforted that someone of Evan 
Bayh's quality would present himself to serve in the United States 
Senate, to join Bob Torricelli and Bob Kerrey and our other hardy band, 
who often stand alone against some honest philosophical differences and 
some downright political chicanery, from time to time, for what I 
believe is necessary to move us forward.
    I wish we had more like him; then I could get Bill Lee confirmed as 
head of the Civil Rights Division. I wish we had more like him; then you 
wouldn't see mainstream judges with impeccable credentials held up 
purely for political reasons. I wish we had more like him; then we could 
see the right kind of entitlement reform and the right sort of policies 
to enable our people to balance work and family and the right sort of 
policies to expand trade but help people who are left behind put their 
lives together and become a part of the American mainstream again.
    But it's a good thing for our country that Evan Bayh is presenting 
himself for the Senate. I think he'll be elected. And I think he'll do 
just as good as that as Joe DiMaggio was at baseball. [Laughter]
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:16 p.m. at the Hotel Carlton. In his 
remarks, he referred to senatorial candidate Evan Bayh, former Indiana 
Governor, and his wife, Susan; former Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana; and 
Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan of Indiana.