    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [June 23, 2000]
    [Pages 1237-1241]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a California State Democratic Party Reception in Los Angeles,
    California
    June 23, 2000

        The President.  Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, before I start my
    speech, there's one other thing I want to say. There's somebody else
    here I want to introduce and I want to ask to come up here.

    [[Page 1238]]

        When we nominated Al Gore--we haven't
    formally, yet, but when he got through the primaries--he's the only
    candidate in our party's history in a contested primary, including me,
    who went all the way through the primaries and didn't lose a single one.
    And I want to bring up Bill Daley's
    partner, Donna Brazile, our campaign
    manager for the Gore campaign. Come on up here, Donna. Thank you.
        I thank Joe Andrew for his leadership.
    And I want to thank Terry McAuliffe for
    coming in here to help us get this convention financed and get it off to
    a good foot. It sounds strange, but I'm grateful to Bill Daley for leaving my Cabinet--[laughter]--because he's
    going to lead the Vice President to
    victory. So I thank them all.
        I want to say a couple of things about--first, I thank Art for reminding you that I kept my word--[laughter]--and
    I'm glad to be here. In 1995 a Presidential scholar named Thomas
    Patterson surveyed all the campaign
    commitments made by the last five Presidents and said, by '95 I had
    already kept a higher percentage of my commitments than my five
    predecessors. And we've got a higher percentage now, thanks to you, and
    I thank you for that.
        I would like to say just a few things to you. First, I am grateful
    that we are having this convention which will be, as you know, my
    farewell convention as President, in the State of California.
        Audience members. Boo-o-o!
        The President. Well, I'm not going to shrivel up; I'll be around.
    [Laughter] But listen, I'm grateful that we're having this in California
    because so much of the texture of my campaign in '92--the energy, the
    ideals, the passion--was born out of the inspiration I received from the
    pain and the faith, from the longing and the idealism that I saw in
    California in 1992, when we had a terrible economy, a profoundly divided
    society, and a level of political rhetoric that was making it worse. And
    I asked you to give me a chance to turn it around. And starting with the
    California Democrats, you did. And you didn't give up on me.
        The day after I won the Democratic primary in California, they said,
    ``How dumb are they? Clinton is in third place in the polls.'' You hear
    all these people talking about the polls today; remember, in June I was
    in third place, at 25 percent. I've been buried more times than the
    undertaker's old suit. [Laughter] But you didn't quit because you had
    this idea that we could do something together to make a difference.
        And then, after I got in, California had earthquakes, fires,
    floods--[laughter]--everything but the lotus arrived for you. [Laughter]
    And we just kept plugging away and you didn't give up. And now--yeah, we
    had to rebuild a freeway, rebuild Cal State, Northridge.
        Audience members. You helped us.
        The President. We had to do a lot of things, but--I did try to help,
    and I appreciate that.
        So 7\1/2\ years later, thanks to your work and your faith and the
    support I got from the people of California, along with Al Gore and our
    whole team, we've got the longest economic expansion in history and the
    highest homeownership in history and over 22 million new jobs and the
    lowest Hispanic- and African-American unemployment rate ever recorded
    and a 20-year low in poverty, a 25-year low in crime, a 32-year low in
    the welfare rolls. The air is cleaner. The water is cleaner. The food is
    safer. We set aside more land to be protected in history in the lower 48
    States than anybody but the 2 Roosevelts. And we had the most diverse
    administration, the most diverse appointments to the courts in history,
    and we've been a force for peace and freedom and decency around the
    world. I'm proud of what we did in Kosovo--that caused me to have to
    miss my last chance at you. It made a difference. We stood up against
    ethnic cleansing.
        Now, I'm grateful for the chance you gave me to serve and to do
    that. What do you want to do with that? That's the big issue in this
    election.
        In 1992 we knew what the deal was. I mean, the economy was in the
    ditch; California was in trouble; all the golden era seemed to be washed
    away. We knew what we had to do. We had to turn this country around. We
    had to prove it would work again. We had to pull people together. We had
    to move forward. It turned out it worked.
        Now, the big question now is, what are we going to do with our
    prosperity? And what I want to say to you is a couple of things. Number
    one, I appreciate your support for me, but I didn't do it alone. Al
    Gore has done more good for more people as
    the Vice President than anybody that ever held that position, ever, by
    far. By far.
        When no--not one--Republican would vote for our economic plan,
    he cast the tie-breaking

    [[Page 1239]]

    vote. When we knew 6 years ago we had to do something to close the
    digital divide, we came here in California, began to wire the schools.
    At the time, only 16 percent of our schools were connected to the
    Internet; today, 95 percent are. Only 3 percent of our classrooms
    connected; today, 75 percent are. He did that. He led our empowerment
    zone program, which has brought opportunity to poor areas. He managed a
    lot of our foreign policies. He cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate
    on whether we would try to close the gun show loophole and have child
    trigger locks.
        No Vice President in the history of this country ever had such a big
    impact in the office of Vice President. A lot of them went on to be
    great Presidents--Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson--but
    none of them had any impact as Vice President remotely approximating
    what this man has done. He is the best qualified person to run for
    President in my lifetime.
        Now, the second thing I want to say is, we could have been
    compassionate and caring and hard working and eloquent, and if our ideas
    had been wrong, we still wouldn't be in very good shape. Now, we have
    tested our ideas. They said--the other side, our friends in the
    Republican Party--when we presented our economic plan, it would wreak
    havoc; it would cause a disaster; the deficit would go up; the economy
    would be in the tank. That's what they said. If you will notice, they're
    not running their quotes about my economic policy in this election.
    [Laughter]
        Then when I was advocating the Brady bill and the assault weapons
    ban and the 100,000 police, they said, ``Oh, these cops won't do any
    good,'' and ``This law won't keep any guns out of the hands of
    criminals.'' And now we've had a 35 percent drop in gun crime and a 25-
    year low in crime and a 30-year low in homicide, and you don't hear them
    criticizing our crime policy publicly anymore. I don't know why they're
    not publicizing their positions on all these issues.
        And every time we tried to have cleaner air, cleaner water, set
    aside more land, you know, it was a ``land grabber''; it was going to
    ``break up the economy.'' And now you don't hear that.
        So the second thing I want to say to you is this: This is a real
    important election. It's just as important as '92 and '96 were. What a
    country does with its prosperity is just as stern a test, if not a
    sterner one, of our character and our judgment as what we do in times of
    distress.
        In my lifetime we have never had a chance like this. The last
    longest economic expansion we had in American history was in the 1960's.
    When I graduated from high school in 1964, I thought it was going to go
    on forever. I didn't think anybody could mess it up. [Laughter] I
    thought--I did. And I was optimistic. Lyndon Johnson was my President. I
    thought all these civil rights problems were going to be solved in the
    courts and the Congress, not in the streets. I didn't believe we'd get
    all mired down in Vietnam.
        Four years later, when I graduated from college, it was 2 days after
    Robert Kennedy was killed here, 2 months after Martin Luther King was
    killed, 9 weeks after Lyndon Johnson said he couldn't run for President
    because the country was too divided. And just a few months later, the
    longest economic expansion in American history was history. Nothing
    lasts forever, folks. We're going to be judged by what we do with what
    we have built over the last 8 years. That's what this election is about.
        Now, I will remind you, there are differences between us and the
    Republicans--the second point I want to make. [Laughter] But they
    matter. What I'm saying is--and it's not like we hadn't had a test run
    here. [Laughter]
        So the three points are: It's an important election; there are real
    differences; the third point you've got to remember is, only the
    Democrats want you to know what the differences are. [Laughter] Why is
    that? Because we've had a test run here. They want to talk about how the
    economy is so prosperous, and we've got this big projected surplus so we
    can spend it all on a tax cut and on their plans to partially privatize
    Social Security and build a missile defense system and that kind of
    stuff. We can just spend it all.
        Well, I would like to remind you that that word is ``projected.'' Al
    Gore says, ``No, no. Let's save at least 20 percent by taking your
    Medicare taxes and walling it off and using it to pay down the debt and
    protect it for Medicare, because it may not materialize. And we don't
    want to go back to the bad old days of deficits and high interest rates
    and putting California's economy at risk and America's economy at
    risk.''
        Now, it's not like we hadn't had a test. We did it their way for 12
    years and our way for

    [[Page 1240]]

    8 years, and our way works better. People need to understand that.
        Now, look at crime. They tried to abolish my program to put 100,000
    police on the street. They opposed the Brady bill. They opposed the
    assault weapons ban. They won't close the gun show loophole. Now they're
    trying not to do the 50,000 more police that I want. And it's not like
    we hadn't had a test. We tried it their way for 12 years and our way for
    8 years. Our way works better. Crime goes down more.
        And they say if they get in, they will reverse my order for 43
    million roadless acres in the national forests. The Audubon Society says
    it's the most significant conservation move in the last 50 years. Al
    Gore says, ``I'll keep it, but I'll do better. I'll build on it.'' And
    they say all this stuff we're trying to do to clean up the air and the
    water is just terrible for the economy. I tell you what, if I was trying
    to hurt the economy with my environmental policies, I've done a poor job
    of it. [Laughter]
        So they say they won't be so tough on this clean air, clean water,
    safe food, all this environmental stuff. Now, wait a minute. We tried it
    their way for 12 years and our way for 8 years, and we proved you can
    make the economy very strong and make the environment cleaner at the
    same time. It's not like we hadn't had a test.
        So I want you to tell people this: It's an important election;
    elections are about the future; there are real differences. We want you
    to know what the differences are.
        And I want to make this last point. It's also important that we have
    a leader who understands the future. Al Gore understands the implications of the information
    technology revolution. He understands the implications of the foreign
    policy changes happening all around the world that will affect our
    children's lives. He understands the challenges that ordinary families
    face in this new economy. He and Tipper Gore
    were holding an annual family conference in Nashville, Tennessee, even
    before I named him to be Vice President. And so much of the things that
    we have done, from family and medical leave to parity for mental health
    in health insurance policies, are things that came out of the work he
    and Tipper did.
        So people ask me--I say, I'm for Vice President Gore because he'll keep the prosperity going, because he'll do
    more to spread it to people and places left behind and to help all
    American families, and because he understands the future and can lead us
    there. I am for the Democrats in the Senate and the House races. And
    you're going to give us, by the way, four or five new ones out here in
    California alone. And I'm for them, and I have a special interest in one
    in New York, as you know. [Laughter] But I'm for them because we've had
    a test run here.
        And if you listen to this rhetoric in the campaign, you know the
    Republicans never talk about their primaries. They're hoping you'll
    forget that and have amnesia. [Laughter] And all the commitments they
    made, and all the things they said and they really don't want to talk
    about, they want this to be a blur. They want you to think that nobody
    could mess up this economy; take your tax cut and run. And it's kind of
    like a--they kind of want you to say, ``Well, their fraternity had it
    for 8 years. Give it to ours for a while.'' [Laughter]
        Let me tell you something, this is about people's lives, folks. This
    is about our children's future. You've got to go out and tell people in
    California and beyond California--because we've been here a lot. I've
    been here more than any President ever had. [Laughter] You know what's
    going to--you lived this, and you have--here in California, you have a
    searing memory of what it was like in 1992. You remember what it was
    like.
        So you need to reach out across the country. And in this convention
    and after the convention, you need to say to the American people, ``Hey,
    we don't want a negative campaign. We want a positive campaign. We don't
    want to say anything bad about our opponents, personally. We want to
    assume that they're honorable, and therefore, they will do exactly what
    they say. But we don't want them to be too selective with you in
    pointing out our honest differences.''
        So we want this to be a campaign in which we honestly expose our
    differences, and we measure those differences against the experience we
    have had. And then we say to people, ``You've got to make this about the
    future.'' We may never have a time like this in our lifetime, and we owe
    it to the children in this room and throughout this country to build
    them the future of our dreams. We can do that.
        And if we make that the issue, then Al Gore and his new running mate will be elected, my favorite
    candidate for the Senate and a lot more will be elected, and Dick
    Gephardt will be the Speaker of the
    House. And we will get what

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    we should get because we have delivered for the American people.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 6:45 p.m. in the Century Room at the
    Century Plaza Hotel & Spa. In his remarks, he referred to William M.
    Daley, general chair, and Donna L. Brazile, campaign manager, Gore 2000;
    Joseph J. Andrew, national chair, Democratic National Committee; Terence
    McAuliffe, chair, Democratic National Convention Committee 2000; and Art
    Torres, chair, California State Democratic Party.