[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[August 28, 1999]
[Pages 1470-1473]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at a Victory 2000 Dinner in East Hampton, New York
August 28, 1999
Thank you. Let me thank all of you for the wonderful welcome you
have given to Hillary and to me, and to the cause that we come here to
advance tonight for the Democratic
[[Page 1471]]
Committee and for the Senate Campaign Committee and for our prospective
candidate from New York over here.
[Laughter]
This is a very special night for me for many reasons. Most of you--
and perhaps some of you know this, but Liz Robbins has been a friend of Hillary's and mine for about 20
years now. And she and Doug have brought a lot
of light into our lives, and I want to thank them for opening their home
to us. You know, this is kind of a--if you've ever hosted one of these
deals--[laughter]--you know, the nice wears off after about 10 minutes,
and you start thinking about it. And you think, ``If it's a bust, I'll
be humiliated; and if it's successful, they'll destroy all the hedges.''
[Laughter] So I think we ought to give them a hand and thank them for
doing this. [Applause]
I also want to thank all the people who--starting with the folks--
the singer--and the Turtle Crossing restaurant
for donating the food, and all the people who served us here tonight.
Thank you all very much for what you've done. I appreciate it very much.
We have mentioned our New York State chair, Judith Hope, and Governor Romer and Joe
Andrew and Beth Dozoretz and Andy Tobias, all the people
from the DNC, I thank them.
I'm very grateful to the Members of Congress who are here--to
Senator Torricelli and Senator
Lautenberg and Congressman
Forbes; and Congresswoman
McCarthy, who had to leave. I'd also like
to acknowledge a presence that you won't be hard to find in the former
Congressman, Tom McMillan from Maryland,
and the former Chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness.
Thank you, Tom, for being here. And Mark Green,
the New York City comptroller, thank you very much, Mark, for being
here--the consumer advocate.
And I love Phoebe Snow. And she has been so
good to me, and so good to the Democratic Party, and she has sung a lot
of different songs. Those of you who know a lot about American gospel
and music may know that ``His Eye is on the Sparrow'' was perhaps Martin
Luther King's favorite hymn.
But if you think about it, it's a pretty good reason for being a
Democrat, because our eye is on the sparrow, and all the other people
around, and we figure--most of us who can afford to be under this tent
tonight--that if they do well, God has given us enough gifts that we're
going to do just fine. If ordinary folks do well and the conditions of
the country are good, then those of us who have the resources and have
been gifted with certain talents and certain training, we're going to do
very well. And so the hymn was a good setting for our meeting here
tonight.
I will be very brief. I want to make a case for our party in the
coming election. I think that the First Lady made a pretty good case for herself--[laughter]--but
I'd like to say a word or two about that. And I want to talk about you
and what you're going to do between now and November of 2000. And I'll
do it quickly.
When I was elected in 1992, the people of New York and the people of
the United States took a chance on me and Al Gore, because they were
worried about the direction of the economy and the direction of the
society and the fact that we were becoming more divided when we should
become more united. And we made an argument and said we would challenge
the country to change. And the country took a chance.
And when we moved to Washington, we challenged the Democrats to take
the lead in restoring fiscal responsibility. I didn't think you could
ever be the progressive party in the country if the wheels were running
off the economy. And we quadrupled the debt in 10 years, 12 years. And
interest rates were too high. And so we challenged our Democratic Party.
We challenged the Democratic Party to take the lead in ending a
welfare system that was dysfunctional. We challenged the Democratic
Party to put a human face on the global environment, but not to walk
away from global trade. And we asked the Republicans to discard their
hatred of government, and their blind faith that the only thing that
would ever matter was having more tax cuts. And we asked them to abandon
wedge politics.
I think it is very interesting--when the history of this era is
written and people write the history of New York politics, it will be
very interesting that New York gave us two party switches based on
principle: Carolyn McCarthy switched from
the Republican to the Democratic Party and ran for Congress--and ran for
Congress when she paid the highest price a human being could pay, and
she realized she had to do more to ask her country to be a community and
to adopt responsible, commonsense legislation to
[[Page 1472]]
protect people from the kind of madness that she and her family
suffered. And Michael Forbes, under even
more difficult political circumstances, changed parties because he
couldn't believe that the majority party in Congress, in the face of the
American Medical Association and 200 consumer groups, would continue to
walk away from a Patients' Bill of Rights, and walk away from its
responsibility to educate all of our children for the 21st century. I
thank them both, and I think they represent the future of America.
Now, the reason I say that is, you took us on faith. And then in
1996 New York was very good to Bill Clinton and Al Gore again, because
you had a little more evidence. [Laughter] Now it's not even open to
doubt. It's our record against their arguments. And we now have over 19
million new jobs and the highest homeownership in history and the
fastest business growth in history and the lowest minority unemployment
rate ever recorded and the lowest crime rate in 26 years, the lowest
welfare rolls in 32 years.
And even when they have fought us along the way, we've continued to
stand up for peace and freedom and justice all around the world. And the
politics of inclusion works. America has not been hurt or weakened
because we've asked for every law-abiding American, without regard to
their race or their gender or their sexual orientation, to be treated
like decent human beings in this country, to end hate crimes, to end
abuse, to end bigotry. This is a stronger country because of it.
So there is no argument anymore. That's the first thing I want to
say. If people ask you why you showed up here tonight, say, ``Well, I
took a chance in '92, but there's no argument anymore--it works. Why
weren't you there? That's why I was.'' If anybody asks you why you were
here, you ask them why weren't they here? Because there is no argument
about that.
The second thing I would like to say is, all elections are about
tomorrow, and they should be. I remember one time when I was trying to
run for a fifth term as Governor. I went out to the State Fair in
Arkansas, and this old boy in overalls came to me, and he said, ``Bill,
are you going to run again?'' [Laughter] I said, ``I don't know, but if
I do, will you vote for me?'' He said, ``Yeah, I guess so. I always
have.'' [Laughter] And I said, ``Well, aren't you sick of me after all
these years?'' He said, ``No, I'm not, but everybody else I know is.''
[Laughter] And I said, ``Well, don't you think I've done a good job?''
He said, ``Sure, but that's what we hired you to do.'' He said, ``You
drew a check every 2 weeks, didn't you?'' Interesting point. All
elections are about tomorrow, and they should be.
Now, we have a record. You don't have to guess about us. But every
one of us, starting with Vice President Gore, all the other Democrats as far as I know running for any
office--certainly including Hillary--
are dealing with what I think are the most important big questions of
the future. And I'll tell you what I think they are--and I'm not running
for anything--but I don't want to see all this work we've done derailed.
And I don't want to see all the progress my country has made sacrificed.
And believe me, there is still a war going out there for the conscience,
the soul, and the future of this country.
You know, the country is working now. So what are we going to do
with this prosperity? I think we have an obligation as Americans, those
of us who are of age, to think about the children who are here and the
long-term challenges facing America. We have never had a chance like
this in my lifetime. And we've still got some big, long-term challenges.
I'll just mention three or four: the aging of America--twice as many
people over 65 in 30 years; under present circumstances, Medicare goes
broke in 15 years, Social Security in 34 years--the children of
America--over 53 million children in our schools this year, the most
diverse student population ever, the highest percentage whose first
language is not English. It is a godsend of opportunity in a global
economy if we give them all a good education. Keeping the economy going,
and that means two things, one of which Hillary already mentioned--
bringing opportunity to people and places that haven't had it yet.
Do you know that upstate New York, if it were a separate State,
would rank in the bottom five in this country in job growth in the last
6 years? And I'm not proud of that; I've worked hard to drive
unemployment down everywhere. But there are small towns in New York;
there are inner-city neighborhoods in every big urban area in the
country; there are Indian reservations; there's the Mississippi Delta;
there are places that have not felt this prosperity. If we
[[Page 1473]]
get investment there and growth there, we will have more growth without
inflation.
The other thing we have to do is to keep paying this debt down
instead of driving interest rates up with that tax cut that they have
proposed. You know, people say, ``Oh, they never have any big ideas.''
Here's a big idea: We can be out of debt in 15 years for the first time
since 1835, and our grandchildren will have lower interest rates and
more prosperity and a more harmonious society as a result of it. That is
a big idea, and it is worth hanging on to.
So I say this to you because, yes, we have done a good job the last
6\1/2\ years and, no, you don't have to guess anymore. But we need to
focus on the future. So when you leave here, and they ask you why you
came, tell them, ``I took a chance on those rascals, and it worked out
just fine.'' [Laughter] Tell them that they don't have to guess anymore.
And tell them you care about your children's and your grandchildren's
future.
The last thing I want to tell you is, when I met Hillary in 1971, we started a conversation about this
stuff that was going on at 1:30 last night, 28 years later. [Laughter]
And we were walking yesterday; we took a walk, and I said, ``You know, I
hope you're not tired of this after all these years.'' She said, ``No, I
still--it's very interesting to me.'' She said, ``You may be a lot of
things, but you're not boring, which I appreciate.'' [Laughter]
So, I want to tell you something. Here's what I want to tell you: I
have known thousands of people in public life, literally. I probably
know more people in public life than anybody else here. I have known--
I've served with over 150 Governors. I have known lots of Senators. I've
known lots of House Members. I've known State representatives and
mayors. I still believe it is a noble calling, being in public service.
And you should not even judge all Republicans--I'll say this for Michael
Forbes' benefit--by the tone set by the
leadership of their party in the Congress. Most people I've known in
public life were honest, hardworking people who got up every day and did
what they thought was right, to the best of their abilities.
But there is a genuine big debate. If you want somebody that's
thought about this stuff and worked hard and always tried to do it for
other people for 30 years, who has more heart, more intelligence, more
ability, and more commitment than any person I have every known, of all
the thousands I have known, then you ought to send her to the Senate and give her a chance to serve.
Thank you, and God bless you.
Note: The President spoke at 6:45 p.m. in a private residence. In his
remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Liz Robbins and Doug Johnson;
singer Phoebe Snow; and former Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado, general
cochair, Joseph J. Andrew, national chair, Beth Dozoretz, national
finance chair, and Andy Tobias, treasurer, Democratic National
Committee.