    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [June 8, 1998]
    [Pages 906-909]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 906]]

    Remarks at a Reception for Gubernatorial Candidate Barbara B.
    Kennelly in Westport, Connecticut
    June 8, 1998

        The President. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me first thank
    Martha Stewart for having us here. I had a
    wonderful time going through this wonderful enterprise, and I love the
    food. And I know it's all supposed to be light, but if you eat enough of
    it, it's still--[laughter]--it was a wonderful, wonderful lunch.
        I think of the great following Martha has
    throughout the country; there's no telling how much she's broadened my
    base today by giving me a chance to come here. [Laughter] There will be
    millions of people listening to me that never paid any attention to me
    before, just because I came here today. And I'm very grateful.
    [Laughter]
        I want to thank two Members of the United States Congress from
    Connecticut, who are not up on this platform but are out in the crowd,
    for being here today and for their service for you and our Nation,
    Congressman Maloney and Congressman Rosa
    DeLauro. Thank you for being here, so much,
    thank you. I thank our Democratic Party chair, Ed Marcus; your great attorney general and my old classmate and
    longtime friend, Richard Blumenthal, I
    thank him.
        You all know I owe Connecticut a great deal. I mean, I came to law
    school here; I met Hillary here; I worked in Joe Duffy's campaign in
    1970 and did a little work for Joe Lieberman. I've made friends that are still friends of mine forever.
    I actually have known both your Senators now for nearly 30 years. I knew
    them when all three of us were young, ungray--and frankly, most of our
    friends would have been astonished to know how any of us turned out.
    [Laughter] And being friends with them has been a great experience. I've
    loved in later years being--especially, serving with Joe Lieberman in
    the Democratic Leadership Council. You all know how grateful I am to
    Senator Dodd for chairing our Democratic
    Party at a particularly challenging time. I also appreciate the fact
    that Chris Dodd will still play golf with me, since Barbara Kennelly no
    longer has time to play golf with me. [Laughter] So I'm very thankful
    for that.
        I'm going to tell you a story today. I'm going to do something
    highly impolitic involving Barbara Kennelly. This is impolitic but, as
    God as my witness, it is true. Last summer Barbara Kennelly called me,
    and she said, ``I want to talk to you about running for Governor.'' I
    said, ``Okay.'' I said, ``Do you want me to tell you what you want to
    hear, or do you want me to be honest with you?'' She said, ``I want you
    to be honest with me; we've been friends a long time.'' So Barbara
    Kennelly came to Martha's Vineyard, where Hillary and Chelsea and I were
    on vacation, and we went out and played golf together, and then Barbara
    and her son came and had dinner with Hillary
    and me that night. And we talked about this. And I said, ``Barbara, I
    was Governor for 12 years, and I loved it. A lot of people thought I ran
    for President because I was bored being Governor. I was happier on the
    day I left than the day I showed up. [Laughter] I loved the job.''
        But I said, ``It is almost an unwritten rule of American politics
    that if the economy is good, you can't beat an incumbent Governor unless
    he does something real dumb.'' You've virtually got to have a lobotomy,
    and you can still get reelected if the economy is good if you're
    Governor--no offense to Governor Rowland, I
    didn't mean that he had. [Laughter] I didn't mean that. I didn't mean
    that. [Laughter] No, I didn't mean that. No, I'm serious, I didn't mean
    that. I told her the truth. I said, ``This is like rolling a rock up a
    hill, if the economy is good.''
        But she said, ``Look,'' she said, ``I can be reelected to Congress,
    and I love my job. But I'm concerned about my State. How many times do
    you have good times? And you should do more with good times, not less.''
    And it made a profound impression on me. We sat there and talked. And
    like I said, this is all very impolitic, what I'm telling you, but you
    need to know the truth. She knew what she was getting into. And she
    said, ``You should do more with good times, not less. You shouldn't take
    the easy way out just because times are good, because as a practical
    matter, when times are good, if you've got the right kind of leadership
    you can get things done that you can't get done

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    in tough times. So I'm going to run anyway, and I'm going to do my best
    to win.''
        Now, the first thing you need in a Governor is strength of
    character. Anybody who would take on those odds just because she
    believes in you and your future and what kind of future your children
    have deserves serious consideration and support from the Democrats of
    her State.
        Now I want to give you a second reason that you ought to support
    Barbara Kennelly in this race. Our country is doing pretty well now, and
    I am gratified beyond measure that in the last 5\1/2\ years we have
    worked hard together and worked with the American people. And we now
    have the lowest crime rates in 25 years, 16 million jobs and the lowest
    unemployment in 28 years, the lowest percentage of our people on welfare
    in 29 years, the first balanced budget and surplus in 29 years, the
    lowest inflation in 32 years, the smallest Federal Government in 35
    years, and the highest homeownership in the history of the United States
    of America. I'm proud of that. [Applause]
        What I want to say to you is it didn't happen by accident, and our
    role in it--that is, our administration and the National Government's
    role--came after the people voted in 1992 to take a different direction,
    to move out of this old debate between those that said Government was
    the problem and would mess up a two-car parade and should go away, and
    those who said we just want to defend the old status quo Government. We
    wanted to do something different.
        We had a whole different economic philosophy. We thought we could
    actually reduce the deficit and balance the budget and still invest more
    in education, in the environment, in health care, and the future of our
    people if, at the same time, we were expanding trade and creating more
    markets for American products. That was our strategy. I'd say, on
    balance, it's worked pretty well.
        But it was different. It's important that you know it was different,
    and it was extremely vulnerable to attack because it was different. And
    the first big test of the strategy was the vote on our economic plan in
    1993. My now-Treasury Secretary, Bob Rubin, who was then my economic
    adviser, and Lloyd Bentsen, the then-Treasury Secretary, came to me and
    said, ``We have talked to the financial markets; we have talked to Mr.
    Greenspan; we've talked to all these people; we believe we'll never get
    out of this recession unless we take at least $500 billion off this
    deficit so we can drive interest rates down and make investments more
    attractive and free up capital. You've got to do it, and you've got to
    make some tough decisions. And you're going to have to do some things
    that are very unpopular.''
        And we put that economic plan before the Congress. And Barbara
    Kennelly was in the Congress; so was her opponent. And everything you just clapped for was riding on what we
    did, because the crime rate is down because of our crime bill, but it
    wouldn't be down this much if the economy weren't better. The welfare
    reform rates are down because of welfare reform, but they wouldn't have
    come down as much if the economy hadn't been better. Everything was
    riding on it--all of our education initiatives--everything.
        It passed by one vote in the House and by one vote in the Senate. If
    Chris Dodd had said no, if Joe
    Lieberman had said no, if Rosa
    DeLauro had said no, and if Barbara Kennelly
    had said no--just one of them--all those numbers I just read you, that
    you clapped for, would probably not be on a list that anyone can say
    today.
        Everything was hanging in the balance. And everybody that got up to
    vote for it knew it was unpopular. Why? Because not a single, solitary
    member of the other party voted for it. They were terrifying people.
    They said if the President's economic plan passed, everybody's taxes
    will go up; the economy will go down; we'll have a terrible recession;
    the deficit will get bigger.
        Everybody's forgotten about all that now. Why have you forgotten?
    Because they were wrong. [Laughter] I have no more elections to run, so
    I'm not asking you to do anything for me. [Laughter] Just once, I'd like
    to see people really know what happened and reward those who were right,
    and at least hold accountable those who were wrong.
        So you know what happened in the ensuing 5 years. So what happens
    now? States all over America have more money than they had in a long
    time. And in 1994, the Republicans went out and told everybody how
    terrible we were and what an awful thing we had done, how we were going
    to bankrupt the economy. They won the Congress, and they got a majority
    of the Governorships, and they were wrong about

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    everything. And because they were wrong, they've all been reelected ever
    since because the economy has been good. That's the truth.
        Now, I believe when you think about what you're going to do with
    your prosperity, you have a key decision which helped to bring about
    your prosperity, and the two people running were on opposite sides--all
    I can tell you is, when it would have been very easy to walk away,
    Barbara Kennelly stood up, stayed hitched, and Connecticut and America
    are better places today because of it. And that's a good reason to vote
    for her.
        Here's the last thing I want to tell you; this is the third reason
    to vote for Barbara Kennelly and to work for her and to talk to people.
    And again, I say this having been a Governor for 12 years. I know
    something about this job. When I read you the laundry list of
    achievements, I said we had the smallest Federal Government in 35 years.
    That's true. Part of the reason it's smaller is that we've gotten rid
    of, for example, two-thirds of the regulations the Department of
    Education imposed on States for education funds. We say, here's the
    purpose; you decide the how's. We did a lot of that, because I had been
    a Governor, and I realized the Federal Government couldn't micromanage
    all the how's, but I always thought it was legitimate for them to tell
    me what the money was supposed to be spent on if they sent me the money.
        Now, because of the changes we have made and are making now, the
    next Governor of Connecticut will have unique tools to deal with some of
    the long-term challenges you face. Connecticut is one of the most
    interesting States in America. You have overall one of the highest per
    capita incomes and two or three of the poorest cities. You struggle with
    trying to build a community of people and bring people together and give
    everybody opportunity.
        Now, in the next 4 years you will have an unprecedented opportunity
    to do the following things: Because of the Balanced Budget Act passed
    last year, the next Governor will have an unprecedented opportunity to
    add children, poor children, to the ranks of those with health insurance
    because of what Congress--what the Democrats demanded to be a part of
    that balanced budget plan. So it really matters who the Governor is,
    because the Governor will decide what are the components of this effort,
    how will we do this. It matters how important it is to the Governor. And
    it matters how much of that kind of experience the Governor has. That's
    one thing. Children, whether they--often it may be the difference in
    life or death for them. It certainly may be the difference in how
    healthy they are.
        Secondly, if we pass tobacco legislation to protect our children
    from the dangers of tobacco, we will be sending back to the States
    substantial amounts of money. One of the things the States will have to
    decide to do is how much money to invest in increased child care for
    working people on modest incomes. This is a huge deal. If you want all
    the folks in the lower income neighborhoods of the big cities of
    Connecticut to stay off welfare and go to work, if you want people to
    work for modest wages even in times when they don't have a lot extra
    left over at the end of every pay period, and you want them to be
    successful parents, you want to want your State to do more to help them
    have affordable, decent child care. Who do you think is more likely to
    make the right decisions about what kind of child care ordinary families
    have with their children?
        Representative Kennelly. Me! [Laughter]
        The President. I'll give you three more examples. I'm going to go
    back tomorrow--I guess it is--I think it's tomorrow--but sometime in the
    next few days I'm going to sign the transportation bill. And that
    transportation bill has a lot of money in it that will go to States to
    help move people from welfare to work, literally pay the transportation
    bills. One of the biggest problems we have in getting poor people who
    are on welfare to go to work is that very often the jobs aren't anywhere
    they can walk to, and they don't have cars, and they may not be able to
    afford or even have access to transit. There's a lot in there. So it
    really matters. If you want the welfare reform to work and you believe
    that people should work if they can, but you want them to be successful
    parents, it matters who the Governor is.
        And the last thing I can't say enough about is education. Barbara
    mentioned it. But we still have enormous challenges. She mentioned the
    Internet. I gave a speech at MIT last Saturday about how we can make
    sure we make democratic--not party, small ``d''--make democratic the
    gains of the technological revolution. We have to hook up every
    classroom to the Internet. We have to make sure that all of our children
    have access to the benefits of the technology

    [[Page 909]]

    revolution. We have to make sure there are smaller classes in the grades
    when kids start out, especially if they have--they don't have the
    support at home that they need.
        All these things will matter. So you've got education, welfare,
    child care, health care. If you do these things right, you can bring
    Connecticut together; you can lift the State up; you can go forward into
    the 21st century together. It will matter a lot who the Governor is.
        So I can tell you, she's got the strength of character to serve.
    When the whole future of the country's economy and Connecticut's was
    riding on the line and we didn't have a vote to spare, she stood right
    there, toe-to-toe, knowing what a price she could pay. And when you look
    at what powers will be there for the Governors in the next 4 years and
    what you want from Connecticut, I don't think there's much of a
    question. Barbara Kennelly deserves your support, and I thank you for
    being here for her today.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:50 p.m. in the studios of the ``Martha
    Stewart Living'' homemaking television program. In his remarks, he
    referred to Martha Stewart, host of the reception and the television
    program; State Democratic Party Chair Ed Marcus; and Gov. John G.
    Rowland of Connecticut.