    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [June 10, 2000]
    [Pages 1120-1125]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Luncheon in Minneapolis
    June 10, 2000

        Thank you very much, Vance. Thank you,
    Darin. And thanks for being my friend for
    such a long time, and thank you for giving us a little walk through
    memory lane. [Laughter] I'm still proud I was a child of the sixties.
    [Laughter]
        I never have known what I was supposed to be embarrassed about. I
    remember President Bush used to refer to me as the Governor of a small
    southern State. I was so dumb, I thought it was a compliment. [Laughter]
    I still feel that way.
        I want to thank my friend of more than two decades, Joan
    Mondale, for being here, and for all the years
    that we've shared together. I'd also like to thank your former secretary
    of state, Joan Growe, for being here. Thank you,
    Joan. Sandy Novak, thank you. And
    I'd like to thank the people here from the Minnesota Teachers Group for
    their leadership in this event and for sticking with the Democratic
    Party and for their support of education reform.
        Let me say, first of all, I am glad to be standing here, because in
    the last week I have been to Portugal, Germany, Russia, Ukraine. I came
    back to the United States to meet with the King of Jordan, and then I flew to Japan to the funeral of Prime Minister
    Obuchi, then came back to meet with the President of Mexico. And now I'm here. [Laughter] I feel like a character
    in that H.G. Wells novel, ``The Time Machine.'' [Laughter] But if by
    some chance I should slip a word or two here, you'll just have to make
    some allowances for me. [Laughter]

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        I would also like to thank Mayor Rendell. He didn't really plan on leaving the mayoralty of
    Philadelphia and taking this little part-time job that I talked him
    into.
        One other, just--thing I want to say preliminarily, I've been to
    Minnesota three times in the last 5 weeks--[laughter]--and it's really
    funny, because I was screaming to the point of irritability at my
    scheduling staff for months before that. I said, ``Look, here's three
    places that I have not been in 2 years, and I'm really upset,'' and one
    of them was Minnesota. I said, ``I really want to go.'' [Laughter]
        So then, they said, all right, you know. So Fritz Mondale and I went to a farm in David Minge's district to talk about the China vote. And then I went
    to St. Paul on my education tour, to the first charter school in the
    United States. There are now over 1,700, thanks to our administration
    pushing that, and they're working well. And today I got to speak at
    Carleton about the importance of opening the doors of college to
    everyone. It's been a really rewarding thing.
        The people of Minnesota have been so good to me and to Al Gore and
    to Hillary and to Tipper. You know, I still remember when we rolled into
    Minneapolis on the bus tour in '92, we were about an hour and a half or
    2 hours late, and there were over 25,000 people in the streets. And I
    think Vice President Mondale kept the crowd
    there--[laughter]--by hook or crook. So I'm very grateful to you.
        I just want to say a couple of things briefly--one other thing. I
    want to thank Vance for helping
    Hillary, too. She's doing well. You'd
    be proud of her. I think she's going to win that race, and I'm very,
    very proud of her.
        When we took office 7\1/2\ years ago--Al Gore and I and our whole
    team--we were animated by some fairly basic ideas. One is that we could
    have good economics and good social policy, but to do it, we'd have to
    get rid of the deficit and have to go through the fire of doing that.
    The second was that we could grow the economy and improve the
    environment. The third was that we had to stop the politics of personal
    destruction and the kind of old rhetoric that had paralyzed Washington
    and try to find some way to bring the American people together as a
    community. And the fourth was that we had to abolish the distinction
    between domestic and foreign policy, that in the 21st century in a
    globalized society, it really wasn't going to be as--there are some
    things that are clearly, discretely foreign policy-oriented, like what
    we did--this is the one-year anniversary of our victory in Kosovo over
    ethnic cleansing, something I'm very proud of. But by and large, we
    needed to begin to look at the world more in terms of how it affected us
    here at home and look at how we were--what we were doing at home in
    terms of its impact around the world.
        So, for example, I think that it helps America that we're trying to
    relieve the debts of the poorest people in the world, that we now treat
    AIDS as a national security problem. I know Senator Lott made fun of me the other day when our administration
    announced that we considered the AIDS problem to be a national security
    problem, but I think it is. Seventy percent of the AIDS cases are in
    sub-Saharan Africa. There are countries there that are now routinely
    hiring two people when there is a job vacancy because they expect one of
    them to die within a few months. And this could wreck whole societies,
    wreak havoc on the continent, just at the very time when Africa offers
    the promise of new partnership to so many of us.
        Anyway, we had these ideas, and so we set about trying to make them
    work. And lo and behold, they did. And I'm grateful for that, and I
    thank you. But I just want to make a couple of points very briefly,
    because somebody might ask you why you were here. And if you say,
    ``Well, I wanted to shake hands with Bill Clinton,'' that's a good
    answer, but that won't get any votes for us.
        The first thing I would like to say is that ideas matter in
    politics, and they have consequences. And while we have had our fair
    share of good fortune, it flowed from a set of ideas and policies that
    we implemented. The second thing I want to say is, there was, 8 years
    ago, there was, 4 years ago, and there is today a significant and honest
    difference between the two parties. It is not necessary for us to do to
    them what they worked so hard to do to us, to convince the American
    people they're bad people, and they're no good, and we should tar and
    feather them and run them out of town. There are differences.
        The previous administration vetoed the family and medical leave law
    as being bad for the small business economy. I signed it and said it
    would be good for the small business economy if parents weren't all
    agitated all day every day about whether their kids were sick at home.
    And now, in each of the last 7 years, we've

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    set new records for small business formation. The debate's over, but the
    American people may not know it.
        The previous administration vetoed the Brady bill on the grounds
    that it was an infringement on the constitutional right to keep and bear
    arms and wouldn't do any good because crooks didn't buy guns at gun
    stores, they bought them at gun shows. That's what they said. Now they
    say they don't buy them at gun shows, but anyway--[laughter]--back then
    they said they did, and that it was an incredibly burdensome thing, and
    so they vetoed it.
        We passed it and signed it, and it turned out 500,000 people who
    were felons, fugitives, and stalkers did buy guns in gun stores, and we
    stopped them. And gun crime is down 35 percent; homicide is at a 30-year
    low; overall crime is at a 25-year low, and not a single hunter has
    missed a day in the deer woods. So the debate is over. We won that
    debate. We were right, and they weren't.
        And we raised the standards for air quality, for water quality, for
    land conservation. We set aside more land permanently in protected areas
    than any administration except those of the two Roosevelts. And I think
    we've proved you can grow the economy and improve the environment at the
    same time.
        I say that not to be self-serving but to say that they are ideas;
    they have consequences. We need to tell people this. And if you look at
    the debate today, you see the same sort of debate unfold. That's the
    first thing I want to say.
        So what are the issues today? Well, first of all, there's a big
    issue, huge issue: What do you think we ought to do with this situation
    we've got in America today?
        Now, in my lifetime, we have never had at the same time an economy
    this strong, so much progress on the social issues, and the absence of
    domestic crisis or external threat. The last time we had an economy this
    strong and a lot of the social indicators were beginning to look good
    was in the 1960's, and it came apart because of the civil rights
    challenge at home and the Vietnam war abroad. So I'm not sure it's ever
    happened in the history of America, but in our lifetimes, it had never
    happened before.
        The last longest economic expansion in history, the one that
    consumed the 1960's from '61 to '69, and it ended because we couldn't
    reconcile our external problems over Vietnam, our internal problems over
    civil rights, the economics associated with it, and the social fabric
    came apart, and I remember how it ended. I graduated from high school 9
    weeks after Martin Luther King was killed, 2 days after Bobby Kennedy
    was killed, 9 weeks after Lyndon Johnson said he couldn't run for
    President anymore because the country was too divided. A few months
    after I graduated from college, the last longest economic expansion in
    history ended.
        So these things don't last forever. This is highly unusual. So the
    big question in this election year is, overshadowing everything else,
    is: What do you propose to do with this? I have done everything I could
    do to turn this country around, to prepare this country for a new
    century, a new millennium. And it's your turn now. You get to decide.
    That's what this election is about: What are we going to do with all
    this prosperity? Ideas have consequences. It matters.
        What I think we should be doing is taking on the big challenges and
    the big opportunities. I think we ought to say, ``If we could create the
    future of our dreams for our kids, what will we do?'' I can only tell
    you what I think. I think we ought to extend opportunity to the people
    and places that aren't part of the recovery. I think we ought to make a
    commitment to ending child poverty and giving every family the time and
    tools it needs to succeed at home and at work.
        I think we ought to make a commitment to giving every kid a world-
    class education in the public schools and opening the doors of college
    to all Americans. I think we ought to have a commitment to roll back the
    tide of climate change and the environment, and to deal with the
    challenge of the aging of America, so we baby boomers don't burden our
    children and our grandchildren.
        I think we ought to commit to stay on the cutting edge of science
    and technology not only to reap the benefits but to deal with the most
    troubling potential burdens that are coming up, including the invasion
    of our privacy by the explosion of information technology.
        I think we ought to commit to continuing to work for one America
    across all the lines that divide us, and I think we ought to be more
    involved, not less involved, in all kinds of nonmilitary ways with the
    rest of the world. I think the trade agreements we made with Africa,
    with the Caribbean Basin, with China, trying to alleviate the debt of
    poor countries, the money

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    we're trying to raise to develop vaccines for AIDS, TB, and malaria--
    these things are all good, and they would directly benefit the United
    States by giving us a more peaceful, more free, more decent world to
    live in. That's what I think we ought to be doing.
        Now, how do you tell what to do in an election, if you've decided
    that? So you've got to decide what you think of it, that's what I think.
    Because I don't know if this will ever happen again in my lifetime, and
    I'd like to see America not relax, not lay down but say, ``This is an
    unbelievable gift, and we're going to make the most of it.''
        So what does that mean? That means that you've got to decide who's
    going to be the President, who's going to get elected to these Senate
    seats, who's going to get elected to the House seats. What are you going
    to do if you decide that that's what you want?
        Now, there are the following almost certain consequences to the
    election, based on the differences and ideas. And you don't have to
    believe that the two candidates for President are anything other than good people. Yes,
    I think you should believe they're both going to do what they say
    they're going to do. But you have to believe they're going to do what
    they said they would do in the primary as well as the general election.
    [Laughter]
        But there's a lot of studies on this, by the way, which show that by
    and large, even though our friends in the press try to convince you that
    we're all a bunch of slugs in politics, that Presidents historically
    have a pretty good record of doing what they say they're going to do.
    And when they don't, we're usually glad they didn't. [Laughter] I mean,
    aren't we glad Franklin Roosevelt didn't balance the budget in the
    Depression? Aren't we glad Abraham Lincoln didn't keep his promise not
    to free the slaves? I mean, once in a while, it doesn't happen. But,
    mostly, people do. An historian did an analysis that said I'd kept a
    higher percentage of my commitments than the last five Presidents. I was
    proud of that. But people do that.
        Okay, so what will happen? What is the difference in the economic
    policy? Well, there will be a difference. Al Gore will be for a tax cut that still enables us to invest in
    education and health care and science and technology and keep paying the
    debt down to take care of the aging of America. And if you both have a
    big tax cut and privatize a part of Social Security and guarantee the
    benefits to all the people that are older, you spend all the surplus and
    then some right there, before you spend a nickel on anything else. So
    we're going to have a different economic policy; we're going to go back
    to see if we can do without these surpluses and balanced budgets. And if
    you believe both candidates are honorable, that's what's going to
    happen. And I do.
        There will be a dramatic difference in environmental policy, if you
    believe that both candidates will do what they've been doing. In the primary, the
    nominee of the other party promised to reverse my designation of over 40
    million acres of roadless areas in the national forests, which the
    Audubon Society says is the most significant conservation move in the
    last 50 years. So there will be a real difference there in their
    attitudes, in clean air, clean water, how do you reconcile these
    conflicts.
        There will be a huge difference in the crime policy. You saw what
    Mr. LaPierre at the NRA convention said, that
    if they could just get us out of the White House and the Republicans
    won, they'd have an office in the White House. Now, I don't know if
    literally he will; they would probably be a little too red-faced to do
    that. But that's what will happen. You can book it; that will happen.
        And it's not like we don't have any evidence here. You've got
    evidence. You put more police on the street. You do things to keep kids
    off the street. You keep the economy strong. You try to keep going into
    these neighborhoods that are in trouble trying to change the texture of
    them, and do more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and kids.
    The crime rate goes down, and more people live. This is not complicated.
        And they keep talking to me about gun control. I get tickled--I
    asked one of these--I was at a debate the other day. I said, ``You know,
    there was a constitutional right to keep and bear arms.'' I said, ``I
    don't think you interpreted it right, but let's just assume you did.'' I
    said, ``There's also a constitutional right to travel.'' And I've
    exercised it. [Laughter] I said, ``Now, when I travel around, I look,
    and I see there's speed limit laws, seatbelt laws, child safety
    restraint laws. I never hear anybody talking about car control. Do you?
    Now, if I go get your car and put it in my garage, that's car control.
    '' [Laughter] ``But otherwise, it's highway safety.''

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        There's a huge consequence here. You've got to think about this.
    There are consequences.
        In health care there are consequences. We're for the Patients' Bill
    of Rights, and they're not. And I've been for managed care. My record on
    this is pretty clear. I've said that we couldn't sustain what we were
    doing in the health care system; we'd have to manage the system better.
    But I still think the critical decisions ought to be made by the
    professionals and the patients.
        And the court system will change dramatically, because there will be
    somewhere between two and four appointments to the Supreme Court. And if
    you think Roe against Wade should be repealed and that's an important
    issue for you, then you should vote for them, because that's what's
    going to happen. And if you don't, and that's an important issue for
    you, then you should vote for us. So there are consequences.
        The last thing I want to say is this, to follow up on what Vance
    said. I know Al Gore better than anybody
    but his wife, I believe--maybe his mother, who will chide me if I claim to know him better than
    her. [Laughter] She is an astonishing woman, once practiced law in
    Arkansas, 70 years ago--an amazing woman. Here are some facts you need
    to know.
        He supported me on every hard decision I ever had to make, whether
    it was going into Bosnia or Kosovo or Haiti or helping Mexico when they
    were about to go bankrupt. And we had a poll that morning that said by
    81 to 15, the American people didn't want me to do it. There was a real
    winner. [Laughter] But I knew it was the right thing to do. We had to do
    it.
        He cast the deciding vote on the
    economic program, without which we wouldn't all be standing around here
    today. Then he cast the tie-breaking vote on the--to close the gun show
    loophole and put child safety locks and ban large capacity ammunition
    clips when the Senate voted on that. And in between, he's done a lot of
    other things.
        He ran our reinventing Government
    program, giving us the smallest Federal establishment since 1958. The
    Democrats did that, not the Republicans--eliminated more positions and
    more programs. And I'll give anybody here $5 who can name three of the
    programs I eliminated. [Laughter] There are hundreds of them. We put the
    money--and we doubled investment in education with the money.
        He's managed our environmental
    programs, including our Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. He
    ran our very successful program to establish empowerment zones in poor
    areas which have created thousands and thousands of jobs. Ask Mayor
    Rendell; one of them is in Philadelphia.
        He managed a big part of our foreign
    relations with Russia, with South Africa, with Egypt, with a number of
    other countries.
        And you heard what Ed said about the Vice Presidency; I've actually
    done a study of this. Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were the first two
    people that ever took the office systematically seriously, in the whole
    history of America. I love Franklin Roosevelt, but as sick as he was,
    it's unbelievable he didn't take any more time picking Harry Truman and
    didn't tell him anything. Harry Truman didn't even know about the bomb
    when he became President. Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were the first
    two people who ever took the job systematically seriously.
        If you look at the whole history of the office, Vice President Nixon
    and Vice President Johnson had more influence than their predecessors.
    And then here's Mondale up here. And to President Reagan's credit, he
    gave Vice President Bush a lot to do, and they had more of a systematic
    relationship. And then when--and Al Gore and I actually made a study of
    this, what had happened throughout history. And I decided that this was
    crazy; that, first of all, this guy might be President any day now,
    especially with the kind of mail I've been getting the last--
    [laughter]--and secondly, why have a person with a lot of energy and
    intelligence just hanging around waiting to go cut ribbons?
        And so, I put him to work. And I nearly
    broke him a couple times. I never saw anybody work any harder; he's the
    only guy I ever met who worked harder than me. But you need to know that
    there has never been anybody in that job who had more of an impact on
    more issues across a broader range of areas, and that a lot of the
    success we enjoy today would not have been possible if it hadn't been
    for him. So there's nobody that's any better prepared, not only by
    virtue of past service but by virtue of future orientation.
        So I realize this is not a big campaign speech, but you need to
    think about this. If somebody says tomorrow, ``Why did you go there?''
    say, ``Well, but first, I'm really concerned about what

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    we're going to do with this prosperity. It's just as stern a test of the
    country's character, what you do with good times, as what you do with
    bad times. It's not as if you've got a lot of options when your back is
    against the wall. Second, ideas matter, and there are honest differences
    between the candidates and the parties. Third, I think based on the
    evidence and the argument, I agree with the Democrats, and here are some
    examples.''
        Now, I hope you can all do that, because this is going to be a close
    election. And part of it--in a funny way, we're almost disadvantaged by
    how well things have gone. There are young people who are voting in this
    election who can never remember a bad stock market, never remember high
    unemployment, never remember the kind of social discord and rising crime
    and those kinds of things. They just think it happened. It didn't just
    happen.
        And I don't mean by any stretch that I am solely responsible; that's
    not what I mean. America changed in the nineties. We became more
    community-oriented; we became more civically responsible; we became more
    interested in opportunity for other people as well as for ourselves; and
    we began to think about tomorrow as well as today. It wasn't just me. I
    was just a part of it.
        But you need to really keep that in your mind between now and
    November. This is a big election. It's about what we're going to do with
    our prosperity. It's a stern test, ideas matter, and you think we're
    right--if you can sell that, I'll feel pretty good about the outcome.
        Thank you very much.

     Note:  The President spoke at 2:30 p.m. in the Atrium Room at Key
    Investment, Inc. In his remarks, he referred to luncheon hosts Vance K.
    and Darin Opperman; Joan Mondale, wife of former Vice President Walter
    Mondale; State Senator Steven G. (Sandy) Novak; President Ernesto
    Zedillo of Mexico; King Abdullah II of Jordan; Edward G. Rendell,
    general chair, Democratic National Committee; Gov. George W. Bush of
    Texas; Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president, National Rifle
    Association; and Vice President Gore's mother, Pauline.