    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [December 16, 1999]
    [Pages 2305-2307]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Luncheon
    December 16, 1999

        Well, thank you very much. First, I want to thank Mark and Peter and Andy and Charles for cohosting,
    chairing this. And I thank all of you for being here.
        You said some very kind things in your
    introduction. I'd like to thank you for being my personal friend for
    many years and for all the issues we've discussed and all the things
    we've talked

    [[Page 2306]]

    about, including before I became President. I'd like to thank the people
    here from the White House who have helped me to make this the most
    inclusive administration in history. And I want to thank all of you for
    all the issues that we've fought on.
        We actually had a very good year last year in many ways, and I got
    most of what I wanted in the budget at the end. But we didn't get the
    hate crimes legislation, so I ask you to stay with me and to make a good
    effort. I think we've got a much better chance to pass it in 2000, and I
    hope you will help me with that.
        I also think we should keep trying to get a vote on the ENDA
    legislation, which I strongly support. And one final thing. Sandy
    Thurman's here; we talked about this on the
    way in. While we've made remarkable progress with HIV and AIDS in the
    United States, it is still raging out of control in much of Africa and
    increasingly in parts of Asia. And I think we ought to do more on that
    around the world, and we're going to try to do more.
        But I want to ask for your support as we go to the Congress and ask
    them to take a strong stand on that. Otherwise, you're going to see
    whole countries collapse under the weight of AIDS-related death, AIDS
    orphans, and managing the situation. Those are three issues I wanted to
    mention.
        The last point I'd like to make is this. I've said this a lot of
    times, and all of you have heard me give this speech, so I won't give
    the whole speech. But if we have enjoyed any success in these last 7
    years--and I think we've had quite a lot of it--part of it was because I
    had an idea of what I wanted America to look like at century's end and
    at the beginning of the new millennium.
        It is very important to have a vision and to pursue it and very
    important not to forget your mission when things happen which are
    designed to make you forget your mission. I think it is. Now, in this
    election season, I think it's very important for us, not only as
    Democrats but as citizens, to get the American people to focus on the
    importance of doing that all over again, of having a vision for the
    first couple of decades of the 21st century, of imagining what we want
    America to be like, what we want the world to be like, and developing a
    strategy and a set of ideas to get there.
        We have never before, ever, in my lifetime and perhaps never in our
    history, enjoyed as much economic and social progress and national self-
    confidence with the absence of domestic crisis or foreign threat.
    Therefore, we have the greatest opportunity in our lifetime and perhaps
    ever to shape the future for our children. We ought to spend a lot of
    time defining and debating what that future should be.
        And when the next administration starts in the new century and the
    next Congress sits, they ought to sit and start with a mandate from the
    American people based on those big questions.
        Now, I have been through enough elections to believe that the
    primary determinants of the outcome of the election are the quality of
    the candidates and the subject of the campaign, assuming that both sides
    have enough resources to get their message out. The other guys will
    always outspend us, and we know why they've got more money than we do.
    And it's okay as long as we have enough. But assuming we have enough, an
    election's outcome is determined by the quality of the candidates and
    the subject of the election. I believe if the subject of the election
    is, what are the big issues we have to deal with between now and the end
    of the next decade, we win, because the American people agree with us
    about the big things. And we just have to keep pushing forward.
        The public opinion, the people of this country nearly always get it
    right if they have enough time and enough information. That's why we're
    still around here after 200 years. We wouldn't be if that weren't true.
    And just on the issue of equal rights and the absence of discrimination,
    there's been a sea change in public opinion in this country in the last
    7 years. We're a long way from where we were in '92, when, to put it
    mildly, there were some fairly visceral responses to the positions that
    I took in the campaign. It's a very different world out there now.
        So I ask you not only for your money--I'm grateful for that--but I
    ask you to think about all the various ways in which we can make sure
    that the American people use this moment to be responsible dreamers,
    instead of just to fritter the election away in some distracted,
    indulgent, or mean-spirited or shortsighted way, because if this thing
    is about the big issues and the long-time vision, we're going to do just
    fine. And you can have a big impact on that.
        The only other thing I would say is, I think there is a very great
    deal we can accomplish

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    next year. Conventional wisdom is, in election years you don't get much
    done. That's not necessarily so. I can remember we got a great deal done
    in 1996 in the election. In '98, we got a lot done in the 11th hour,
    simply because Congress wanted to go home. [Laughter]
        So stay with me, keep focused on this, too. We can get quite a lot
    done next year if we have the discipline to do it and the will.
        The last thing I want to say is, I am very grateful for having had
    the chance to serve and to work with you and to be President at this
    particular moment in history, when doors were being opened and a new
    chapter in the civil rights history of America was being written, and I
    hope we can do more and do better.
        But I'm very grateful for having had the chance to do this, and I
    have said many times I wish we could have done more, but I'm glad we did
    what we did. And I feel very fortunate just to have had the chance to
    serve at this moment, thanks in no small measure because of the progress
    we've made on these issues, and I thank you for that, too.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:55 p.m. in the Colonial Room at the
    Mayflower Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to luncheon cochairs Peter
    Amstein, software developer, Microsoft Corporation; Mark Fox, finance
    strategy adviser, FOX Group; Charles Nolan, fashion designer, Ellen
    Tracy, Inc.; and Andy Tobias, treasurer, Democratic National Campaign
    Committee, who introduced the President. The President also referred to
    ENDA, the proposed employment nondiscrimination act.