[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[July 31, 2000]
[Pages 1544-1549]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Reception




in Palm Beach, Florida
July 31, 2000

    Thank you very much. I am so happy to be here. All of you know I 
love Florida. A good portion of my wife's family has lived down here for 
the last 15 years and more. I got my start in Florida twice, once in 
December of 1991--everyone knows about that--when the Florida straw poll 
came out with a majority for me against six opponents and got me 
started, and I'm very grateful for that. But once, maybe only one person 
in this room remembers, and that was in early 1981 when I had the 
distinction of being the youngest former Governor in the history of 
America, when I was defeated in the Reagan landslide of 1980, Bob 
Graham still invited me to come speak to the 
Florida Democratic Convention to explain how it was that I got my brains 
beat out in the hope that others could avoid a similar fate. [Laughter] 
I have never forgotten it, never stopped feeling indebted. And Bob asked 
me back three more times after that, and I think that had a lot to do 
with what happened in 1991, so I'm very grateful to him.
    I'm grateful that both Bob and Adele and Bill and Grace 
Nelson have been friends of Hillary's and 
friends of mine for a very long time now. And Bill and Grace and their 
children have spent the night in the White House. And Bill was making 
fun of me because his daughter used to call 
Chelsea, and from time to time I, like 
every father of a teenage daughter, I was the answering service. 
[Laughter] The Presidency doesn't alleviate some responsibilities in 
life.
    We've had a great relationship, all of us, all six of us have now 
for such a long time, and I'm so honored that Bill is running for the Senate, so grateful.
    I want to just--I'll be brief tonight because I know I'm preaching 
to the saved here. But Florida is very important. We have to win the 
Senate race, and you have to carry it for the Vice President, and you can. And I believe in 1996, early on 
election night, when I saw that we had carried Florida, I knew the 
election was over. And in 2000, early on election night, if the polls 
show we have carried Florida, the election is over. And I want you to 
understand that.
    I have--Al Gore and I have spent a lot of time in Florida over the 
last 7\1/2\ years. We worked with many of the people here in south 
Florida to save the Everglades, to bring the Southern Command here from 
Panama, to bring the Summit of the Americas here, to work to expand 
trade. We just passed the Caribbean Basin trade bill which will be very 
good for

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southern Florida. And I can't thank Bob Graham 
enough for the help and support and wise counsel he's given me over 
these entire two terms.
    But here's what I want you to think about. What about everybody 
who's not here tonight? Do you believe that everyone you know who is a 
friend of yours knows what this election is about? Do you believe that 
everyone you know has a clear idea about what the differences are 
between Bill and his opponent, between the Vice 
President and Governor Bush and Mr. Cheney? Do you believe 
that? You know it's not true, don't you? They don't. Why is that, and 
what are we going to do about it?
    There are three things you need to know about this election. One is, 
it is a very big election. It is every bit as important, maybe over the 
long run of our life, more important than the election in 1992. I'll 
come back to why. Two, there are profound differences between the 
two candidates 
for President, between the candidates for Senate and the House, 
differences that will have real consequences for how we live together in 
the years ahead. And three, only the Democrats want you to know what the 
differences are. [Laughter] Now, what does that tell you about who you 
ought to vote for?
    What do I mean by that? First, it's a big election because we have 
an unprecedented moment of prosperity and it's not just economics. Crime 
is down. Welfare is down. Teen pregnancy is down. People are working 
together and dealing with each other as never before. We are a more just 
society than we were. Child poverty is down, minority unemployment the 
lowest ever recorded, female unemployment the lowest in 40 years, 
poverty among single-parent households the lowest in 46 years. This is a 
more just society. And we are more full of confidence. Moreover, we have 
no crippling domestic crisis or foreign threat.
    So it's a big election because we have a chance, because of our 
prosperity, to build the future of our dreams for our children. But 
that's not automatic. That requires that instead of taking a relaxed 
view and sort of wandering through the election and wandering through 
the next couple of years, we have to say, ``Hey, we might not ever have 
a chance like this again. We've got to seize the big opportunities and 
take on the big challenges that are out there.''
    And there are some big ones out there. You know them in Florida, and 
I'll just give you two of the biggest that you experience here to a 
greater degree than almost any other State. Number one, we've got the 
largest and most diverse group of students in our schools in history, 
and they're not all getting a world-class education yet. Number two, 
we're living longer than ever before. If you live to be 65, your life 
expectancy is almost 83 now. And when all the baby boomers retire, there 
will only be about two people working for every one person drawing 
Social Security. We have to lengthen the life of Social Security. We 
have to lengthen the life of Medicare, and we have to add a prescription 
drug benefit to the Medicare program.
    And I might say, nobody has worked harder or more effectively to 
that end than Bob Graham. And everybody in 
Florida ought to know it and ought to be grateful for it.
    Now, there are the challenges of the future--climate change. We 
worked so hard to save the Everglades. If we don't turn this global 
warming around, in 30 years a lot of it will be under water.
    We've now sequenced the human genome. That's great. There are going 
to be unbelievable medical discoveries made. And pretty soon young women 
will bring their children home from the hospital with a little gene map, 
and before you know it, there are kids in this room whose children will 
have a life expectancy of 90 years or more when they're born. But do you 
think someone should be able to use your gene map to deny you a job, a 
promotion, a raise, or health insurance? I don't think so. We need 
someone in the White House and people in the Congress who understand 
science and technology.
    The Internet revolution, people made fun of Al Gore over who invented the Internet, but he sponsored the 
legislation almost 20 years ago that took the Internet from being the 
private province of physicists and people involved in defense work to 
sweeping the world. And if it hadn't been for him, we wouldn't have 
gotten the E-rate in the telecommunications bill 4 years ago, which 
guarantees that every school, no matter how poor, can afford to have 
computers for their kids and be part of the Internet.
    Now, there are big challenges out there. The outcome of this 
election will depend upon whether the American people believe what I

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just said, that it's a big election with big challenges and not a time 
to lay down and relax. You can just book it. When this is over, you read 
the election analyses in the week after the election in November, and 
you remember what I told you tonight. The outcome of the election will 
depend upon what the American people believe the election is about, 
number one, and number two, whether they understand the differences.
    On our side, we've got people like the Vice President and people like Bill Nelson, who 
did more with that insurance commissioner's job than anybody ever has, 
stopping fraud against seniors, enrolling children in the Children's 
Health Insurance Program, people who want to build on the progress of 
the last 8 years to make the changes of the future.
    On their side, they've got their nominees 
for President and Vice President and others, who 
basically tell us that these are the best of times, and we're all going 
to have harmony and compassion and get along together, and the surplus 
that we've accumulated--that we're supposed to accumulate over the next 
10 years--is your money, and they're going to give it back to you. And 
otherwise, they're kind of blurring the differences.
    Bill's talking about how moderate his opponent sounds now. They're 
not bragging about shutting the Government down twice anymore or trying 
to shut the Department of Education down or having the biggest Medicare 
and education and environmental cuts in history. You never hear them 
talking about it anymore. Gone is the harsh rhetoric and the mean words 
of 1992 through 1999. Even the mean words of the 2000 primary against 
Senator McCain, that's all gone now. What are 
you to make of that? It's a very appealing package.
    The first thing I want you to know is, I don't think this should be 
a mean election. I think we should say on the front end, we think our 
opponents are good, patriotic people, that they love their children, and 
they love their country. But they have honest differences. And this 
pretty package that they have presented is one they hope nobody will 
open until Christmas and certainly not before the November election. But 
there are real differences, and we want you to know what they are. And 
I'll just mention two or three tonight, but I want you to remember this 
because you've got to talk to people.
    All these news stories that I've read say people don't know if there 
is any difference between the Democrats and Republicans, between our 
nominees for President on economic policy. There was a huge article in 
the press last week surveying lots and lots of suburban women who care a 
lot about gun safety and they asked--the Vice President was ahead like six points in this poll among women who 
cared about this issue--then the person doing the poll, who doesn't work 
for either campaign, simply read their positions, and the numbers went 
from 45 to 39, to 57 to 29. So you can understand why they wouldn't want 
you to know what the real differences are, but you have to do that.
    Let me just mention one or two. One, on the economy, here's our 
position. Our position is the American people should get a tax cut, but 
it ought to be one we can afford, because we still have to invest in 
education and health care and science and technology in providing for 
the future, number one; number two, because we still have to lengthen 
the life of Medicare and Social Security to get past the baby boomers' 
retirement, and we've got to provide that drug benefit; and number 
three, we've still got to keep paying down this debt and get this 
country out of debt to keep interest rates low so the economy will keep 
going.
    Now, we have tax cuts that we admit, they're only about 25 percent, 
30 percent of what theirs are. But they do more good for 80 percent of 
the people, for sending a kid to college, for long-term care, for child 
care, for retirement savings, for alleviating the marriage penalty. 
Eighty percent of the people or more are better off under ours. 
Moreover, because we continue to pay down the debt and they can't, 
interest rates will be at least a percent lower. Do you know what that's 
worth in tax cuts over a decade?--$250 billion in lower home mortgages, 
$30 billion in lower car payments, $15 billion in lower college loan 
payments.
    Now, that took me a while to say, didn't it? Theirs is so much 
easier. ``Hey, this surplus is your money, and we're going to give it 
back to you.'' And that's what they do. If you take the tax cuts they've 
passed in the last year plus the ones that are in their platform that 
their nominee ran on, it takes up the whole surplus, the whole projected 
surplus and then some, not a penny even for their own spending promises.
    Now, quite apart from the obvious problems, like how do we spend 25 
percent as much and

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give 80 percent of the people more, there is this: It is a projected 
surplus, projected. Did you ever get one of those letters in the mail 
from Publishers Clearing House? Ed McMahon sends you a letter saying, 
``You may have won $10 million.'' Well, if you went out the next day and 
spent the $10 million, you should vote for them. But if not, you ought 
to stick with us to keep this prosperity going. [Laughter] Now, this is 
a big issue. No way to paper this over. This is a huge, gaping 
difference.
    Secondly, on health care, we're for a Patients' Bill of Rights. 
We're for investing--I mean, a real one that means something--we're for 
investing whatever it takes--and it's not that much money--to lengthen 
the life of Medicare and to add this Medicare prescription drug benefit. 
We're for a not particularly costly tax break to let people between the 
ages of 55 and 65 buy into Medicare if they lose their health insurance. 
And we're for letting the parents of these--the low-income parents of 
these kids that are in our Children's Health Insurance Program buy into 
the program if they don't have insurance.
    Now, what's their program? They answer no to all these--no, no, no, 
no. And their Medicare drug program basically says that they'll help you 
if you're up to 150 percent of the poverty line but not if you're over, 
and you've got to buy private insurance. What's the problem with that?
    The insurance companies, after all the fights we've had together--
against each other over health care--I've got to brag on the health 
insurance companies. I want to brag on them. They have been up front and 
honest. They say, ``This is a bad idea. You cannot offer a stand-alone 
drug policy that anyone will buy.'' Nevada passed a plan just like the 
ones that the Republicans are backing, and not a single, solitary 
insurance company has offered drug coverage under it because they don't 
want to be labeled frauds.
    Now, why do they do it? Because the drug companies don't want us to 
buy all these drugs for seniors. Now, that seems counter-intuitive. 
Normally, if you're in business, you want to sell as much as you can. 
But they fear that because we'll be buying a lot, we'll have a lot of 
bargaining power, and it will drive the price down, and people will only 
have to pay 25 percent more than they pay in every other country for 
American drugs. I just don't think it's a good reason. But it's a huge 
difference.
    In education, we're for higher standards, requirements to turn 
around failing schools or shut them down, more teachers in the schools, 
more money for teacher training, more money for building or modernizing 
schools. Florida needs that bad, right? That's what we're for. They're 
for block grants and vouchers. That's what their program is.
    In crime, we're for more police and closing the gun show loophole in 
the Brady bill, right? They have never supported the police program, 
even though it's given us the lowest crime rate in 25 years--never. And 
in the previous administration the President vetoed the Brady bill. Now, 
this group of people are against closing the gun show loophole. Their 
answer is, more people carrying concealed weapons, even in their houses 
of worship. Now that's not demagoguery, those are facts. That's their 
answer.
    So the point I'm trying to make is you get to make a choice. And 
speaking of choice, that may be the biggest consequence of all. The next 
President will appoint two to four members of the Supreme Court, which 
is why it's important who's in the Senate because they have to confirm 
them. Al Gore is pro-choice and mainstream 
on basically preserving individual liberties and civil rights. And our 
judges are the most diverse group in history, but they have the highest 
ratings of the American Bar Association in 40 years. So they are 
confident, mainstream, and diverse.
    Both their candidates on the national ticket are against the Roe v. Wade 
decision, and their nominee says his favorite judges are Justices Thomas 
and Scalia, the two most conservative on the Court. Those are his 
favorites.
    Now, you have to--these are honorable people. I'll say again, they 
will do what they believe. How can you--you don't expect people to get 
elected President and not do what they believe. You have to assume that 
you can trust them to follow their conscience and their lifelong 
positions.
    Now, there won't be any talk about it probably this week, but this 
is a huge deal. The composition of the Supreme Court will change. And 
that Court will shape America well beyond the term of the next 
President, and this is a consequence. So what you have to tell your 
friends and neighbors is, look, these are just four I've given you, but 
if you look at--or five--education, health care, the economy, crime, and 
choice. Those are five. We could talk about the

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environment; I could give you lots of other issues, but you get the 
point.
    Elections are choices that have consequences, and people must live 
with the consequences. So it is very important that they understand the 
choice. The American people always get it right if they have enough time 
and enough information. That's what you've got to believe. Otherwise, if 
they didn't nearly always get it right, we wouldn't be around here after 
220 years.
    So I say to you, this is a profoundly important election. There are 
big differences. You have to make sure people understand what their 
choices are. You don't have to say a bad word about our opponents. You 
can say that you, too, are sick of 20 years of negative politics, of 
trying to convince people that your opponent is just one step above a 
car thief. I know a little something about it. I don't like it very 
much. But that cannot be permitted to obscure the differences.
    And I'll just say this in closing. I've lived long enough now to 
know that nothing stays the same forever. In my lifetime, we never had a 
chance like this. We can literally build the future of our dreams for 
our children. We can also be a more positive force around the world for 
peace and freedom and security and prosperity. But we can only do it if 
we make the right choices.
    I want to say just one word about the Vice President. One of the things that bothers me is that the polls seem 
to say he gets no credit for our economic policy. Before I took office, 
we spent 2 months debating economic policy. You may remember I had a big 
national economic summit. When we had to decide whether we were going to 
make the brutally tough decisions to get that deficit down, Al Gore was 
the first one to say, ``We've got to do it. Let's just take the lumps 
and go on.'' When he cast the deciding vote on the economic plan of 
1993, without which we could not have done any of the things we've 
enjoyed since, he acted on his conviction.
    He was instrumental in the 
Telecommunications Act, which had a lot to do with creating hundreds of 
thousands of high-wage jobs. He supported all my trade initiatives. He 
has been there, an integral member of our economic team. He understands 
the future. That's important. You want a President who understands the 
future.
    And finally, let me say the most important thing of all to me is 
he wants to take us all along for the ride. 
He is for a minimum wage; they are not. He is for employment 
nondiscrimination legislation; they are not. He is for hate crimes 
legislation, and their leadership isn't because it also extends 
protection to gays. And I think that we need to be building an America 
where everybody that works hard plays by the rules and doesn't get in 
anybody else's way in a defensive way ought to be part of our America. 
That's what we think.
    Now, people are free to think something else. But no one should be 
confused about the consequences. Now, I'm telling you, in my lifetime 
we've never had a chance like this. And I feel so good--in spite of all 
the good things that have happened in America in the last 7 years, I 
feel like we've been turning an ocean liner around in the ocean, and now 
it's headed in the right way, and it's about to become a speedboat. All 
the best stuff is still out there if we make the right choice. Bill 
Nelson is the right choice, and so is Al 
Gore.
    Thank you, and God bless you.
    Also, I want to tell you something else. When Grace got off the plant with Bill and 
I tonight, not a single soul saw either one of us. [Laughter] They said, 
``Who are those two old gray-haired guys with that beautiful woman in 
the red dress?'' [Laughter] And she is also somebody that will do well 
in Washington.
    Thank you very much. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 6:55 p.m. at the Colony Hotel. In his 
remarks, he referred to Senator Graham's wife, Adele, and their 
children, Nan Ellen and John, Jr.; Bill Nelson, Democratic candidate for 
U.S. Senate in Florida, and his wife, Grace; and Republican Presidential 
candidate Gov. George W. Bush of Texas and Vice Presidential candidate 
Dick Cheney.

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