    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [April 9, 1998]
    [Pages 548-549]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception Honoring Senator Barbara A. Mikulski
    April 9, 1998

        This is exhibit A for everything I believe in in politics. You know,
    Senator Mikulski just reeled off my week to you, and we just got home
    from--Hillary and I did--from this incredible 12-day trip to Africa. And
    I have been in all those places she said, so I was tired when I got
    here. But if you stand this close to Barbara Mikulski for 5 minutes, I
    could get down and do 100 push-ups right now. [Laughter] I want to go
    out and run around the block. [Laughter]
        Let me say, all of you know I do a number of these kinds of events,
    and some nights when I'm tired I say, ``Gosh, I can't believe we've got
    to do one of these.'' I wanted to come tonight, and this is one that
    Hillary is jealous of me that I got to do that she didn't, because of
    our admiration for Barbara.
        I want to read you something. I normally don't speak from notes at
    these things, but I just want to read you this. Barbara Mikulski: the
    first Democratic woman to hold a Senate seat in her own right; the first
    Democratic woman to serve in both Houses; the first woman to win a
    statewide election in Maryland; the first woman to have a leadership
    position in the Senate for our party. She's the first woman Senator to
    write two mysteries, which I love because I read scads of them every
    year. [Laughter]
        What I want to say to you is that she got to be all that--first,
    first, first, first, first--not because she was a woman but because she
    has the heart of a lion and because she's done good things for the
    people of Maryland.
        The State of Maryland has been extraordinarily good to me, and we've
    won two great victories there, because I didn't have to run against
    Barbara Mikulski. [Laughter] And there's so many things that I could say
    about her, but let me just say a couple of things.
        First of all, in 1993, when we were being absolutely eviscerated
    with criticism from the Republicans in Congress, and when, to the
    person, they voted against my economic plan, and they said it would
    cause a terrible recession, and they said it was going to raise taxes on
    ordinary people--they said all these things--we carried that by one vote
    in the Senate. And if Barbara Mikulski hadn't voted that way, we
    wouldn't have the economy we enjoy today. But more importantly, Barbara
    Mikulski gave other people the courage to vote right. When it comes to a
    tough fight, she is the tallest member of the United States Senate.
        And I'm grateful to her for standing with me in the fight for safer
    streets, for 100,000 police, and to get the assault weapons off the
    streets. I'm grateful to her for helping to create the national service
    program, AmeriCorps, which has now given 100,000 young people, a lot of
    them in Maryland, a chance to earn money to go to college while serving
    in their communities. I'm grateful to her for leading the fight for
    safer food. The ``Food Safety Act'' that we adopted is profoundly
    important, and it will become more important in the years ahead as we
    have more and more food exported from the United States to other
    countries, more and more food imported into our country from others. I'm
    grateful to her for the work she's done on women's health in so many
    different areas. I'm grateful to her because she believes that we're
    here to do things. And I will say again, this is a year which is
    election year, and the country is in great shape, and I'm grateful for
    that. But Barbara Mikulski is helping me to challenge the Republican
    majority in Congress not to sit still and relax and enjoy the success of
    America but to take it as an opportunity and an obligation to deal with
    the long-term challenges of this country, to deal with the challenge of
    fixing Social Security; to deal with the challenge of making sure that
    we don't keep killing another 1,000 kids a day by not doing what we can
    to reduce teenage smoking, to deal with the further challenges of child
    care and education and the environment. We have a lot to do, and we need
    some more doers in the Congress. I

    [[Page 549]]

    don't think a single soul here doubts that there is no bigger doer in
    the Congress than Barbara Mikulski.
        Let me say, one of the big votes that Congress is going to face in
    the next few days--the Senate when they come back--is whether to vote to
    enlarge NATO, to take in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland. I wish
    every constituent of Senator Mikulski could have been with me in Warsaw
    when we had tens of thousands of people in the square there, and I
    introduced Barbara Mikulski, a daughter of Poland, to the assembled
    crowd, along with the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John
    Shalikashvili, also a Polish American.
        What we want to do in expanding NATO is to give Poles the chance and
    the security in their own country to grow up and live their dreams, to
    have the kinds of careers and lives that Barbara Mikulski has had.
        The last thing I want to say, which is, to me, more important than
    anything else: She is a person who lives her faith. She believes that we
    will all be judged by whether we have tried to provide opportunity to
    those without it, whether we have tried to take decent care of those who
    through no fault of their own are in genuine need. And she has helped us
    to prove that the Democratic philosophy that we have advanced, beyond
    any shadow of a doubt, demonstrates that the whole country does better
    when more people have opportunity.
        For all those reasons, I predict an overwhelming victory in
    November. And I thank you for making sure it happens.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:50 p.m. at the Hay Adams Hotel.