[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book II)]
[October 12, 1998]
[Pages 1790-1793]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1790]]


Remarks at a Dessert for Senatorial Candidate Charles E. Schumer in New 
York City
October 12, 1998

    First of all, I want to thank Harvey for his wonderful words and for 
being a real friend to me and to Hillary and to our causes. And I want 
to thank Steve and Maureen for having us here tonight in their modest 
little home. [Laughter] I love this place. [Laughter] And you might be 
relieved to know that while Chuck Schumer was in here giving his speech 
to you, I was next door signing the budget bill so the Government won't 
shut down tomorrow morning. So they have--I was giving the Congress 4 
more days to do right.
    Let me say, first of all, I just talked to Hillary this morning. 
She's in Prague tonight, but she would like to be here. And when I tell 
her about it, she will be sorry that she wasn't. But she wanted me to 
say a special thank-you to all of you. New York has been especially 
wonderful to our family, to our administration, and especially 
supportive in these last several months, and I might say, no one more 
than Congressman Schumer. I also see Congressman Nadler over there, who 
was reminding people about the Constitution last week in a truly 
stunning way. Thank you, Congressman, for your great work.
    And let me say, I went to a big fundraiser for Chuck Schumer earlier 
tonight at a hotel. There were hundreds of people there. And he wasn't 
there because he had been down voting, notwithstanding Mr. D'Amato's ads 
saying that he didn't show up. He was down there voting. So I told Chuck 
when he started running that I wasn't up this year, and if I could ever 
fill in for him, I'd be happy to. And so that's what I did earlier 
tonight. [Laughter]
    And I'd like to just tell you a couple of the things that I said, 
because I--Harvey talked about standing by me. If you want to stand by 
me, the best thing you could do is stand up for him, for Congressman 
Schumer, and for the people who are basically supporting the vision 
we've all shared for moving this country forward.
    I was amused to see this television ad saying that in this last year 
the Congressman had only voted--whatever--70-something percent of the 
time. You know, we don't, we the Democrats, we don't set the agenda for 
Congress, and we don't even determine how many days a week they work. 
But I think if you'll check, they worked fewer days this year than in 
any year in the last umpty-dump zillion; nobody can remember a time. And 
if I were a member of the Republican majority, I would not be 
criticizing Chuck Schumer for what he did in this Congress, because what 
they've done is to kill campaign finance reform, to kill the tobacco 
reform legislation, to kill the minimum wage increase, to kill the 
Patients' Bill of Rights, to try to stop us from saving the surplus for 
Social Security reform. So I don't believe I would be criticizing 
someone else.
    I also, if I were this particular Republican from New York, I 
wouldn't be talking about Chuck Schumer's voting record, because we are 
enjoying the first surplus in 29 years in no small measure because in 
1993, without a single Republican vote and without a vote to spare, 
Congressman Schumer, Congressman Nadler, and the Democratic caucus voted 
for an economic program that reduced the deficit by 92 percent, before 
we had the bipartisan balanced budget agreement of last year.
    And then in 1994, if you want to really see the issues that divide 
these two candidates when they're a good ways away from an election, we 
had two issues that I can't help mentioning. One was the Brady bill, 
which Chuck Schumer wrote, which has now kept a quarter of a million 
felons and fugitives from getting handguns and saved Lord knows how many 
lives. Congressman Schumer was the sponsor of the bill; his opponent 
voted against it.
    Then there was the crime bill. I remember well the crime bill of 
1994, when the Democrats were in the majority in the Senate and the 
Republicans were in the minority, but they were trying to filibuster to 
keep us from actually even getting a vote on the crime bill--even 
bringing it to a vote. And therefore, Congressman Schumer was for 
putting 100,000 police on the street, for community policing; everybody 
that lives in New York City knows the crime rate has gone down because 
of community policing, people

[[Page 1791]]

walking the streets. We have made that contribution all over the 
country, and we've got crime at a 25-year low. And Congressman Schumer 
was on one side, and his opponent was on another. The same thing with 
the assault weapons ban, same thing with the Violence Against Women Act; 
all those things were in that bill.
    So if you're just going to look at this from a traditional point of 
view, the attacks and the parries and then the counterattacks, I think 
Schumer wins hands down.
    There is another way to look at this. I probably shouldn't say this 
because Chuck's got an ad on this, but a lot of people, a lot of the 
Democrats, they make fun of Senator D'Amato for being called ``Senator 
Pothole.'' And I'm kind of sympathetic with that. You can only make fun 
of that if you don't have a pothole in front of your house. If you have 
a pothole in front of your house, you would like it if someone filled 
it. And if you get a flat every time you get in your car, it's hard to 
think about the higher things. So there's something to be said for that.
    But what I always say about Chuck Schumer is, having dealt with him 
now for years and years, he is the most intensely meticulous, detailed, 
constructively aggressive politician I ever dealt with. Therefore, no 
one will hold a candle to him when it comes to filling a pothole that 
needs to be filled. [Laughter]
    But being a Senator is about more. So let me just take 2 minutes to 
ask you to think about what I think is really important. I mean, if you 
want to have people decide whether to vote on these ads, or whatever, I 
can give you all those answers. But what really matters is this: It's 
how people think we ought to be using our time today, and what that will 
mean tomorrow and next year and 5 and 10 years from now. That's what 
really matters.
    I mean, if I told all of you that helped me in 1992, if I had told 
you--I said, okay, we'll meet in 6 years at Steve and Maureen's 
apartment, and when we meet we'll have nearly 17 million new jobs and 
the lowest unemployment rate in 28 years, and the first balanced budget 
in 29 years, and the smallest percentage of people on welfare in 29 
years, and the lowest African-American poverty rate in history, and the 
highest homeownership in history, and the biggest real wage gains in 20 
years, and finally, after 25 years, a reversal of wage inequality--and, 
oh, by the way, we'll be making progress in making peace from Northern 
Ireland to the Middle East to Bosnia--tonight, thank God, to Kosovo--and 
you'd have said, ``Well, it sounds good, but I don't believe you. It 
won't happen.''
    But it has happened. And I'm very grateful for having had the chance 
to serve. But what really matters in this Senate race, what really 
matters in all these Congress races, what really matters is, what in the 
world are we up to now? What are we about? What are we going to do with 
all this that we have? Are we going to just sort of sit back, relax, and 
enjoy it? Are we going to be preoccupied and distracted? Or are we going 
to recognize that it is a precious gift for a nation, a free nation, to 
have a moment like this? And it gives us the freedom to look beyond our 
nose and the daily concerns of life at the larger problems around us. 
That's what I hope and pray to goodness we'll do.
    Now, everybody that lives in New York knows that in spite of the 
good times we're enjoying, this is a very turbulent time in the world. 
All of you know that because this is the home of the stock market, 
because you know what goes on in Asia and Russia and these other places. 
But there are lots of examples of that. And just because we're doing 
well doesn't mean that things are static and they're going to be that 
way a long time.
    The real reason that I would like to see Chuck Schumer go to the 
Senate is that I think he has the unique capability of being both a 
practical, day-to-day person who will serve the immediate interests of 
the people of New York and of being a visionary who can make a 
contribution to the Nation's future.
    And the thing that I have tried so hard to do since I became 
President is to get the people of this country to look down the road, 
beyond today, and to get the people to come together across the lines 
that divide them. Looking down the road, we've got to do something with 
the international financial systems. We've got to do something with 
Social Security and Medicare before all the baby boomers retire and 
bankrupt our kids. We've got to do something; we've got to keep doing 
things until we prove that we can have the best education system in the 
world for all of our children, who are increasingly minority, 
increasingly lower income, increasingly the children of single parents. 
We've got to prove we can grow the economy and improve the environment. 
And we have to prove that

[[Page 1792]]

we can come together across the lines that divide us, and in so doing, 
we can lead the world to a better place.
    It's amazing, isn't it, how much of your time I've had to spend as 
President dealing with people's primitive hatreds? You think about it. 
Rwanda, my people in Ireland--although we're doing real well right now; 
if the wheel doesn't run off, we're actually going to stay on the good 
path. In the Middle East, I talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu and 
Chairman Arafat today; they're coming on Thursday. We're going to work 
and try real hard to make that next big leap toward peace. But people 
have harbored ancient hatreds there.
    Bosnia, Kosovo--today in Kosovo, NATO voted to give notice that 
we're prepared to conduct airstrikes to stop the slaughter of the 
innocents in Kosovo. And Mr. Milosevic said that he would fully comply 
with the U.N. resolutions and let us bring in an international set of 
observers to monitor it. So the NATO people said, ``Okay, we'll take 4 
days and watch and see.'' This is good news.
    But this is amazing. This is the 21st century. We're talking about 
putting computers in every kid's classroom, and we're dealing with 
centuries-old ethnic, religious, and racial hatreds. And today, what was 
America's greatest sadness, that in Wyoming a young man who was brutally 
beaten died. And he was beaten up because he was gay.
    So that's the last thing I'd like to say to you. I have tried to 
make our party and, hopefully, our country stand more for the 
proposition that we should not define ourselves in terms of what we 
aren't and who we can look down on, but we should instead define 
ourselves in terms of what we have in common and what we can together 
build. And I think it's fair to say that I've had more success out in 
the country and maybe out in the world than I have in Washington, DC, 
where old habits die hard.
    But I can tell you, if you want your country to do good in the rest 
of the world, we must be good at home. And the sort of typical daily 
politics of give and take and cut a little here off of your opponent's 
hide and hit a little there, it's not worthy of a great country doing 
what we're doing now. We're doing very well in a world with a world of 
trouble. And a lot of the people in trouble helped us get rich the last 
6 years. And we have higher obligations. We have responsibilities that 
no one else can fulfill. And unless we fulfill them, the rest of the 
world won't do well, and eventually it will come back to haunt us and 
our children.
    I can tell you now after 6 years as President, every single Senate 
seat--every one--is a matter of great import to the United States and to 
its future. New York--it's very hard to have a competitive Senate seat 
because once people get in, particularly if they're in the other party, 
they normally outspend us three or four to one. We now have a genuine 
debate going on here between two people who are, thanks to you, both 
going to be adequately funded, who will be able to discuss what the 
future ought to be like, and who have voting records which are 
indicative of how they will be in the future.
    And I really believe that Chuck Schumer is an extraordinary human 
being. I believe he has the capacity to have a lot of the things that 
make Senator D'Amato popular with many New Yorkers: he'll be aggressive; 
he'll be persistent; and he'll fill the potholes. But he will vote a 
progressive tradition all 6 years of his term, not just as we get nearer 
to election. But far more important, he'll be thinking about these big 
issues.
    So when you go home tonight, I want you to think about this. The 
outcome of these midterm elections will rest on whether people of a 
progressive bent, many of whom could never afford to come to an event 
like this, will take the trouble on election day to go and vote. If we 
were having a Presidential election, Mr. Schumer would be winning this 
race in a walk. You wouldn't have to worry about it. Why? Because there 
would be this huge turnout.
    But normally, in the off years in the United States, a lot of people 
just don't go. And a lot of them are our people, the people that work 
and wear the uniforms at those three hotels I visited in New York before 
I got here. They're a lot of the people we're working for, and their 
children and the promise of their children. If they decide that they 
ought to show up, if they go through the hassle of figuring out how to 
vote while they're dealing with a job and the child care and everything 
else, then we have a chance to do something that has not been 
accomplished in 150 years in American politics.
    But that's what your being here tonight will make possible. So, I 
want you to think about it. I think it's a very exciting time. It's not 
free

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from danger; this is not an easy time. This international financial 
situation is very, very important, and we have got to convince our 
allies to join with us, in my judgment, in taking strong action here, 
just like they did in taking strong action on Kosovo today.
    But we can do these things. And again I want to say, New York has 
been a special part of this country from its inception. It is still a 
special part of our country. It carries all--when I got off the 
helicopter tonight down in lower Manhattan and I was fixing to get in my 
car, and it was kind of a warm fall night, and I looked out and I saw 
the Statue of Liberty down there, it just literally--still, after all 
these years--took my breath away.
    This is a place that ought to be represented by a Senator who can 
make a major contribution to what America should become in the 21st 
century. That, more than anything else, is my case for Congressman 
Schumer.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10:05 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dessert cohosts Harvey Weinstein, Steve Rattner, 
and Maureen White; and murder victim Matthew Shepard. H.J. Res. 134, 
making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 1999, 
approved October 12, was assigned Public Law No. 105-254.