[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[June 24, 2000]
[Pages 1249-1253]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the Democratic National Convention 2000 Host Committee 
Breakfast in Los Angeles
June 24, 2000

    Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. And 
Nancy, thank you for having us in your 
home. Since you said I had done pretty well for a young fellow from 
Arkansas, I can't resist--I have a lot of friends here, but I cannot 
resist the temptation at this apt moment in history

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to introduce another contribution that my State made to your success: 
Mr. Derek Fisher of the Los Angeles Lakers. I 
was watching one of the Lakers games, actually, one of the games against 
Portland. And Derek comes in at the end, steals the ball five or six 
times, and confuses everybody. And somebody says, ``God, that guy is 
aggressive.'' I said, ``If you come from Arkansas, you have to be.'' 
[Laughter] It's just sort of our deal. You did us proud, and 
congratulations.
    I want to thank the host committee, every one of you. And I thank my 
good friend Terry McAuliffe. And I thank 
Secretary Daley--I don't know why I'm 
thanking Secretary Daley for leaving my administration; he was doing 
such a great job. But he's doing--it's a very important thing for us to 
continue our work, and I thank him for taking over the leadership of the 
Vice President's campaign.
    I want to thank Joe Andrew and all the 
people here from the Democratic Party and recognize two of my very old 
friends, Henry and Mary Alice 
Cisneros. Thank you for the help you've 
given us on the convention, and thank you for being my friends, and 
congratulations on being new grandparents--most important thing. They 
will shamelessly show you the pictures if you ask. [Laughter]
    I also want to congratulate Governor Roy Romer 
on his new job here in Los Angeles and thank him. When this was 
announced, I told--Hillary and I were talking. I said, ``This is really 
what Romer's always wanted to do. He's the only guy I ever knew who ran 
for Governor and served 12 years just so he could be a school 
superintendent.'' [Laughter] But you could go all the way across the 
country and not find a single human being who wants to do the right 
thing by our children and prove that our schools can work for all kids 
more than Roy Romer.
    And what I want to tell all of you is, I've been in a lot of Los 
Angeles schools, and I've been in some that are working very, very well, 
indeed. And I've been all across this country, and when several of us 
who are involved in this--and Secretary Riley and I, we go back to the 
seventies; we were involved in school reform. And Hillary and I rewrote 
all the school standards in Arkansas nearly 20 years ago now. There was 
a long period of time when everybody thought they knew what the answer 
was to failing schools and how to help kids in poor neighborhoods, 
sometimes in very difficult family situations, or just people whose 
first language was not English, learn up to world-class standards. But 
the truth is we didn't know as much for a long time as we thought we 
did.
    That's not true anymore, and we now have--this is the most exciting 
and important time in modern American history to be involved in the 
education of children from kindergarten to the 12th grade, for two 
reasons. One is, for 2 years we've had, for the first time, a group of 
schoolchildren bigger than the baby boom generation. It's the biggest 
group of kids ever in school. And those of us among the baby boomers, 
which are basically people today between the ages of 36 and 54 years 
old, we were the biggest group of people ever in school until this 
crowd. And this group is far, far more diverse racially, ethnically, 
religiously, culturally--much more diverse. So, obviously it's 
important--self-evidently.
    But the second thing you need to know is, we actually do know how to 
provide excellence in education to all kinds of children in all kinds of 
circumstances. And so now the question is how to replicate what works 
somewhere everywhere. But there's no excuse anymore; we really do know 
how to do it.
    I was in a school in Spanish Harlem the other day, appearing on the 
``Today Show'' for the VH1 music-in-schools program. Some of you may 
have seen it, where I tried to help VH1 get instruments donated, money 
donated to start school music programs again, because a lot of them were 
lost in the schools over the last 20 years, along with, I might add, the 
physical education programs for people not involved in team sports.
    And so, we were working on it. And in this school, I met this 
magnificent principal. Now 2 years ago, this 
grade school, P.S. 96 in Spanish Harlem in New York, had 80 percent of 
the kids--80 percent--reading and doing math below grade level--2 years 
ago. Today, 74 percent of them are doing reading and math at or above 
grade level--in 2 years.
    I was in this little school in Kentucky the other day in this real 
poor area, where more than half the kids are on free or reduced lunches. 
Four years ago, it was supposed to be one of the worst schools in 
Kentucky. Today, it's one of the top 10 or 20 grade schools in the 
entire State. Listen to this; in 3 years this is what they did. They 
went from 12 percent of the kids reading at or above grade level to

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57 percent; from 5 percent of the kids doing math at or above grade 
level to 70 percent; from zero percent of the kids doing science at or 
above grade level to two-thirds--3 years. And I can tell you there are 
hundreds of stories like this.
    So I want all of you to support your school system. We need to put 
this beyond partisan politics; we need to put this beyond everything 
else. But you do need to know that it can happen. And I have seen it 
with my own eyes in every conceivable different kind of circumstance. It 
can happen, and you can do it.
    Now, in 1991, before I had decided to run for President, as chairman 
of the Democratic Leadership Council, I came to Los Angeles to look at 
an anticrime program. And they had arranged for a young student who came 
from the East but who was studying out here in California, named Sean 
Landress, to drive me around. You might be interested to know he 
subsequently went to divinity school, got a graduate degree, studied in 
Romania, talked about how to rebuild the economies of central and 
eastern Europe. He's a remarkable young man. He was 20 years old at the 
time and had been in school at Columbia in New York.
    So we're driving across Los Angeles on one of these beautiful days, 
when I then did not have the benefit of not having to stop for the 
traffic. [Laughter] So this 20-year-old young guy that I'd never met 
before looks at me, he says, ``Well, let's get right down to it. Cut it 
out. Are you going to run for President or not?'' I'd never seen this 
kid before in my life. I said, ``Well, I don't know. Maybe.'' He said, 
``Well, if you do, here's what your theme song ought to be.'' [Laughter] 
So he puts this tape in the tape deck--we didn't have CD players in cars 
back then--and it's Fleetwood Mac's ``Don't Stop Thinking About 
Tomorrow.''
    And so we asked them later if we could do--I said, ``That's sounds 
pretty good.'' So I decided to run for President, and I asked Fleetwood 
Mac, and whoever we contacted had the same attitude that President Bush 
used to express, that I was just a Governor from a small southern State; 
why should I use their song? [Laughter] I was so naive I thought that 
was a compliment, being a Governor, and I still do. But anyway, 
eventually we found them, the Fleetwood Mac people, and they said okay, 
so that became the theme song of the '92 campaign.
    And I just want to pick up on something Terry said about Los 
Angeles. The best elections are always about the future. No matter how 
good a job you've done, they're always about the future.
    I remember once when I was trying to decide whether to run for my 
fifth term as Governor in Arkansas, I went out to the State Fair. And I 
used to have a booth at the State Fair, and I'd just sit there and talk 
to people, anybody that wanted to come up. And everybody in the State 
comes to the State Fair, in a little State like that.
    This old boy in overalls came up to me, and he said, ``Bill, are you 
going to run for another term?'' And I said, ``Well, I don't know. If I 
do, will you vote for me?'' He said, ``Yes, I guess I will. I always 
have.'' And I said, ``Well, aren't you sick of me after all this time?'' 
He said, ``No, but everybody else I know is.'' [Laughter] And I got kind 
of hurt. I said, ``Well, don't they think I've done a good job?'' He 
said, ``Oh, yeah, they think you've done a good job, but you did draw a 
paycheck every 2 weeks didn't you?'' He said, ``That's what we hired you 
to do, a good job.'' [Laughter]
    And so I say that to make this point. I think the record of our 
administration is a relevant consideration in this election but mostly 
because it's evidence of whether we will keep the commitments we make to 
the American people, or whether the Vice President will, and what we will do in the future.
    But one reason I wanted to be in the millennial year in Los Angeles 
is that you do represent the future. And you've got all the challenges 
and all the opportunities of the future within 20 miles of where we're 
having breakfast today. And that's what I want you to help us show 
America. I want America to see the future, the diversity, the youth, the 
vibrancy, the technology, the creativity, the whole 9 yards.
    I'm a little superstitious about things, and I'm--one of the things 
I'm happy about is the Lakers won in the Staples Center. And 4 years 
ago, we met in Chicago right after the Bulls won in the United Center. 
So I think if we can just keep this basketball-Democratic Party 
partnership going, we're in pretty good shape. [Laughter]
    But I hope you will think about this. Many of you, in ways that you 
can't even imagine now, will come in contact with people from other 
States, people from other countries, the

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thousands of people that will be here for the media. And I hope that you 
will say that, because the thing that's most important to me right now--
and I admit it's self-serving--but the thing that's most important for 
me right now is that the American people make the right decision in 
trying to figure out what this election is about.
    My experience in life is that a lot of you get--the answers you get 
sometimes depend on the questions you ask. So when people say, ``Well, 
who do you think's going to win this or that other election?'' I often 
say, ``Well, what's the election about?'' What the election's about 
depends on--will determine in large measure who wins.
    And we've got this enormous opportunity now to give America a gift, 
which is an honestly positive election, not a saccharine election, not a 
``let's all just kind of wander through in a fog'' election, but an 
election that is a genuine debate about the future of the country, at 
the time of the greatest prosperity and social progress we have enjoyed 
in my lifetime, with the absence of dramatic internal crises or external 
threats. And a time like this comes along once in 50 years, sometimes 
once in 100 years. And I think it is a very stern test of the judgment 
and character of the American people, what we do with this moment of 
prosperity.
    You know, when I came here in '92--you heard the mayor talking about 
it--I mean the economy was in the tank. You'd had riots in Los Angeles. 
The people in Washington were--had what I call the combat mentality. 
``I've got an idea. You've got an idea. Let's fight. Maybe we'll both 
get on the evening news.'' [Laughter] And people didn't worry about what 
was going to happen.
    So it was--to be fair, you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to 
figure out we needed a new economic policy, a new social policy, and a 
new way of doing politics. And we brought our ideas to the table, and 
thankfully, they worked out pretty well for America. And I am very 
grateful for the chance I have had to serve.
    But I, too, think this election is about tomorrow. And I've worked 
as hard as I could to help turn this country around, and I'm very proud 
of where we are. And I'm proud of the Vice President for running, and I'm very proud of my wife for running for the Senate in New York, and 
I'm proud of all these people who want to keep doing, keep the direction 
going that we have worked on.
    But for you, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, what you 
should want now is for the American people to come out of Los Angeles--
because it will be the second convention--thinking this is great, the 
country's in great shape, and we now have the opportunity and the 
responsibility to chart a course for the future, to think about the big 
issues.
    Now, I'll just mention some of them: What are you going to do when 
all of us baby boomers retire and there's only two people working for 
every one person on Social Security? What are you going to do to make 
sure all these kids do get a world-class education? What are you going 
to do to deal with the fact that we have a lot of people that have jobs 
in America today who still can barely pay their bills and have a hard 
time raising their children, because our country does less than other 
countries to help people balance work and childrearing?
    What are we going to do about the fact that global warming is real? 
These environmental challenges are real, and we have to find a way to 
grow the economy and improve the environment at the same time. What are 
you going to do about the fact that we still do have hate crimes in 
America? We had kids shot at a Jewish community center here; a Filipino 
postal worker killed--clearly, the person who went after him thought he 
had a two-fer, an Asian and a Federal Government employee; a former 
basketball coach at Northwestern, an African-American man killed by a 
fanatic in the Midwest who then went and shot a young Korean Christian 
as he walked out of his church. The guy said he didn't believe in God, 
but he did believe in white supremacy, and he belonged to a church that 
elevated it. So we still have these.
    How are we going to build one America? How are we going to build a 
global economy that has a human face, that gives everybody a chance to 
participate? How are we going to make sure that the people and places 
who have not fully been part of our economic recovery get a chance to 
share in the prosperity? That helps the economy grow and keeps the 
recovery going.
    What's your position about what we should do with this projected 
surplus? They now say the projected surplus will be huge--I'm going to 
talk about it the day after tomorrow. And the Republicans say we should 
spend way over

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half of it in a tax cut and spend the rest of it on the cost of 
partially privatizing Social Security and building a missile defense 
scheme and other things, and it will materialize.
    We say--even though I think our economic policy has produced this 
happy projection--that we shouldn't spend our money before it 
materializes, that we ought to save a good portion of it, pay down the 
debt, keep interest rates down, protect Medicare, and give a tax cut, 
but keep it within bounds in case all this money doesn't come in. 
Because once you cut taxes, if we don't have this projected surplus, 
we'll be back in the soup--old deficits, old interest rates, California 
1991-1992.
    Anyway, these are big issues. And when you're getting ready to do a 
convention you think about, well, who's going to do the party; what is 
the entertainment; how are we going to work out the security; what are 
we going to do if all the people who think the global economy is 
terrible show up and demonstrate? You've got all these practical 
problems to work out. But what I want you to remember is, how they're 
worked out and the spirit in which you work them out and what you say to 
people you come in contact with will determine what people think of Los 
Angeles but also what people think the election is about right now.
    I trust the American people to get it right; nearly always, they get 
it right. Otherwise we wouldn't be around here after over 200 years. If 
the alternatives are clear and they have time enough to digest it and 
hear both sides, they nearly always make the right decision. And what my 
mission is going to be is to make sure people understand this is a very 
big election, that we have an enormous responsibility to deal with the 
big challenges and opportunities facing the country, that there are 
dramatic differences between the two parties and we don't have to 
badmouth our opponents to say that--that we can just say, let's lay the 
differences out there, and you decide what you want for the future of 
America.
    And Los Angeles can help us do that. You can embody the future and 
clarify the choices to be made. And you can do it and have a heck of a 
good time doing it. I told the staff at the convention yesterday, I've 
been to every Democratic Convention since 1972; makes me feel kind of 
old. And what I think is important is that there be competence, a sense 
of mission, a sense of energy, and a sense of joy and pride. Our country 
has got a lot to be proud of; this State and this community have a lot 
to be proud of. I want you to have a good time. I want you to help 
everybody else have a good time. But never let people forget, it's still 
important to think about tomorrow.
    Thank you very much.

 Note:  The President spoke at 11:10 a.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to Mayor Richard J. Riordan of Los Angeles, and his 
wife, Nancy Daly Riordan; William M. Daley, general chair, Gore 2000; 
Terence McAuliffe, chair, Democratic National Convention Committee 2000; 
Joseph J. Andrew, national chair, and Los Angeles Unified School 
District Superintendent Roy Romer, former general chair, Democratic 
National Committee; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry 
G. Cisneros and his wife, Mary Alice; and Victor Lopez, principal, 
Joseph C. Lanzetta School (Public School 96), New York City.