[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[August 7, 1999]
[Pages 1401-1402]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Gore 2000 Meeting in Little 
Rock, Arkansas
August 7, 1999

    The President. Thank you. Well, Myreon, 
you did a great job. I don't know what you're running for, but you've 
got a good chance. [Laughter] Congratulations.
    Let me thank all of you for coming here on this hot summer Saturday 
afternoon. Especially, I want to thank Congressman Bill 
Jefferson, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice 
Johnson, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson 
Lee, Congressman Bennie 
Thompson for coming from out of State to 
join our Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln and Congressman Marion Berry 
back there. And I believe Congressman Vic Snyder 
is here. And also, a former Governor of Tennessee, Ned 
McWherter, our great friend, thank you for 
being here, sir.
    I thank all the pastors and educators and businesspeople and 
community activists who are here. Many of you have been my friends for 
over 20 years, and all of you helped me to be elected President, with my 
friend and partner Al Gore. And then you helped us to be reelected for 
the first time a Democrat had done that in 60 years. And we know it 
could not have happened without your support.
    I want to say just a couple of things and turn the microphone over 
to the Vice President. Oh, let me also thank our Secretary of 
Transportation, Rodney Slater, who's from 
the Arkansas Delta. We're glad that he's here.
    When we took office--a lot of people have forgotten what it was like 
when we took office. We had high unemployment, low growth, increasing 
social division, and gridlock in Washington. It was not a good time. We 
had social unrest in Los Angeles. A lot of you remember that. And we 
decided that we could pull this country together and turn it around if 
the people would help us.
    Now, 7 years later we've got--yesterday we announced over 19 million 
new jobs, the longest peacetime expansion in history, the lowest 
minority unemployment rate ever recorded, the highest homeownership ever 
recorded, a 30-year low in unemployment, a 32-year low in the welfare 
rolls, and a 26-year low in the crime rate. And I think that's a pretty 
good record.
    Now, I want to say two things to you about that. First of all, I 
could not have accomplished anything I have as President without the 
absolutely unprecedented role that Vice President Gore played. A year 
ago--6 years ago the day before yesterday, he cast the deciding vote on 
our economic plan, which all the Republicans said would ruin the 
country, and they used their fear tactics to take over the Congress. And 
that's what has given us the biggest surplus in history and this strong 
economic recovery. And he did it, and you should know that.
    He has supported efforts to help families and communities. A lot of 
the pastors here appreciate the fact that he helped--he actually was our 
leading person in developing the television rating system and the 
Internet--the video game rating system and the V-chip for families.
    He has led all our efforts in technology. We passed the 
Telecommunications Act, which has already produced over 300,000 new jobs 
for America. And he led the way in saying, we cannot let America get 
caught on a digital divide. We have to have an E-rate, a special rate, 
so that the poorest schools and libraries and hospitals in America--like 
those in the Mississippi Delta--have to be able to get big discounts so 
poor children can have those computers in schools, too, and have access 
to everything kids in the richest part of America do. Al Gore did that 
for America and for its future.

[[Page 1402]]

    He has managed much of our difficult relationships with Russia, much 
of our promising future with South Africa. He has been involved in every 
good thing we have done, from restoring democracy to Haiti to ending 
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo.
    I know a little bit about American history, and I can tell you that 
whatever anybody thinks about whether I was right or wrong about a given 
issue, when the history of the last 6\1/2\ years, and the next year and 
a half, is written, there is one thing that no one will be able to 
question, and that is that Al Gore was, by far, the most influential and 
effective and productive Vice President in the history of the United 
States of America.
    Now, here's the second thing I want to say. I think one reason we 
succeeded in helping the country is that when we asked you to hire us 
back in 1992, we put out a detailed plan of what we'd do if you gave us 
the job. An election is a job interview. He wants you to hire him. 
[Laughter]
    The Vice President. I do. Absolutely.
    The President. Okay? And all these other people that are running are 
perfectly nice people, but all of them are saying, you know, hire us, 
too; we want to be President, and sooner or later we'll get around to 
telling you why. [Laughter]
    You already know more about him than anybody else running. But in 
spite of that, he said, here's my economic program; here's my crime 
program; here's my program to help attack social problems by working 
with faith-based institutions more in the community; here's my program 
to conquer cancer and other medical problems by increasing our efforts 
in medical research. Vote for me, and here's what I'll do.
    And the third thing I want to say to you is this: Everybody always 
says they want change. Change is a good thing. We have been in 
continuous change. The next 4 years will be different than the last 4. 
We will have to change. The question is not whether we will change, but 
how we will change.
    Don't listen to those folks who want to change by taking us back to 
what we tried before that got us in the ditch. What we want to do is to 
change in a way that goes beyond what we've done. And when 2000 rolls 
around, I'll be just a voter like every ordinary citizen. But I want you 
to know, too, finally, that this man is a good and decent man. He is a 
good man.
    And he has been with me through thick and thin, through light and 
dark. I've seen him deal with the challenges of raising his children 
under the scrutiny of the spotlight. I've seen him work with his 
wonderful wife in helping to make us think about things like mental 
illness, that we normally never wanted to talk about before. And I am 
telling you--everybody knows he's got a good mind--I'm telling you he's 
got a heart of gold, and he deserves your support.
    And for a long time now, he's been at my back, and I intend to be 
with his. Thank you.
    The Vice President of the United States.

Note: The President spoke at 6:37 p.m. in Hall One at the State House 
Convention Center. In his remarks, he referred to student Myreon Coleman 
of Marianna, AR, who introduced the President.