[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[July 31, 2000]
[Pages 1549-1554]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Dinner
in Palm Beach
July 31, 2000
Thank you very much. This is the fourth time that Bill and I have done this today, and we're about to get the
hang of it. [Laughter] I want to thank Eric and
Colleen for having us in their beautiful
little home tonight, in this fabulous, fabulous tent. This is exhibit A
for the proposition that if you want to live like a Republican, you
should vote Democratic. [Laughter]
I want to thank the Aaronsons for having us earlier at
the reception. I want to thank my great friend Alcee Hastings for being here and for representing Florida
brilliantly in the House of Representatives.
I want to say a special word of appreciation to Bob Graham, who has been my friend for more than 20 years now. He and
Adele and Hillary and I have been through a lot
of interesting times together. And I've told anybody who cared to listen
that the only job I ever could really hold down for any period of time
was being Governor of my home State. I did that for 12 years, and I
didn't seem to have much upward mobility for a while. But I had the good
fortune to serve with 150 Governors and to see probably another 100 or
more since then, since I've been President, and without any question,
Bob Graham is one of the two or three ablest people I ever served with
when he was Governor of this State. And he's done a fabulous job in
Congress. I'll say more about that in a moment.
And I want to thank Bill Nelson and
Grace for making this race for the Senate. It
isn't easy to run for major office today. You never know what's going to
hit you. You never know how difficult it will be, and you can't predict
the twists and turns of the campaign. And he looks great right now, but
when he made the decision, it might not have worked out this way. He did
it not knowing how it would come out because he believed he should
serve.
And he and Grace
have been friends of Hillary's and mine for a long, long time. They and
their children have spent the night with us in the White House. I know
them well, and I'm just so proud that people like that still want to
serve, still want to give. Besides that, he's really been a good
insurance commissioner. I mean, he stopped insurance fraud against the
elderly. He helped children to get health insurance. He's really done a
good job.
I also want to mention my good friend, your former Lieutenant
Governor, Buddy MacKay, who is
here with us tonight, who has really been great as our Ambassador to
Latin America. And we just got a special bill passed to increase trade
with the Caribbean region, which will be immensely helpful to the people
here in south Florida. And I thank him for joining us today.
I would also just--I'd like to thank the people that catered this
dinner and the people that served it. They made our dinner very nice
tonight. Most of the time, people don't say that. So I thank them.
Let me say that I never know what to say at one of these dinners
because I always feel that I'm preaching to the saved, as we say at
home. I mean, if you weren't for him, surely you wouldn't have written a
check. [Laughter] But I have a real interest in trying to get you to do
more than write a check, because everybody who can come here is someone
who, by definition, has a lot of contacts with a lot of people. And I'm
very interested in how this whole election turns out. I'm passionately
committed to the election of the Vice President, and I will say more about that in a minute.
And there is one Senate seat than I'm even more interested in than
the Florida election, in New York--[laughter]--where the best
person I've ever known is running.
And the thing I'm thinking about tonight--and I just kind of want to
talk to you--is, what is it that I could ask you to do that might make a
difference in the election? And here's what it is. You can understand
exactly what it's about and convince everybody you know that that's what
it's about.
My experience over many years now in public life is that very often
the outcome of an election is determined by what people think the
election is about. And it may seem self-evident, but it isn't. For
example, when I ran in 1992 and James Carville came up with that great
line, ``It's the economy, stupid''--well, he's great, but you didn't
have to be a genius to figure that
[[Page 1550]]
out. The country was in trouble, and we were going downhill
economically. We had quadrupled our debt in 12 years. All of the social
indicators were going in the wrong direction. Washington seemed
paralyzed.
The political climate seemed to me in Washington, when I was way out
in the country--at the time I was serving at what then President Bush
called--I was the Governor of a small southern State. [Laughter] And I
was so naive, I thought it was a compliment. [Laughter] And you know, I
still do. But anyway, it seemed to me like Washington, what happened in
Washington was, that the Republicans and Democrats were saying, ``You've
got an idea. I've got an idea. Let's fight. Maybe we'll both get on the
evening news,'' which got a lot of people on the evening news but not
much ever happened. And I didn't think anybody else lived that way.
So it was obvious that we had to try to turn the country around, and
I won't go through all that. But I will say now we've had 8 years of the
longest economic prosperity in our history, the lowest unemployment rate
in 30 years, 22 million new jobs. But it's not just economics. This is a
more just society: Child poverty is down to a 20-year low; the lowest
minority unemployment rate ever recorded; lowest female unemployment
rate in 40 years; lowest single-parent household poverty rate in 46
years; welfare rolls cut in half; crime rate at a 25-year low; teen
pregnancy down for 7 years in a row. The indicators are going in the
right direction. This is a more just society and a stronger society.
And what I think the election ought to be about is this: Now what?
Now, that may seem self-evident to you, but now what? What is it that
we're going to do with all this prosperity? Are we just going to feel
good about it? Are we going to take our cut and run? Or are we going to
recognize that this is something that happens once in a lifetime, and we
had better think very hard about the chance we have been given to build
the future of our dreams for our children, to seize the big
opportunities, to meet the big challenges?
There's not a person in this beautiful setting tonight over 30 years
of age who cannot recall at least one time in your life when you made a
big mistake, not because things were going so badly but because things
were going so well you thought there was no failure to the penalty to
concentrate--the failure to concentrate. There was no penalty to that.
If you failed to concentrate, you get distracted, who cares? Things are
going so great, nothing can go wrong. And so you got to wandering
around, and all of a sudden you made a mistake, something bad happened.
Now, countries are no different from people. So I say again--why am
I telling you this? Because you read all the stories about this
election--I read a huge story on the cover of USA Today a couple of
weeks ago that said the voters had no idea that there was any
significant difference between the Vice President and Governor Bush on economic
policy. A big story in the New York Times last week on a survey, a
national survey of suburban women voters who cared about gun safety
legislation. They were for the Vice President only 45 to 39. Then the
pollster, who doesn't work for any of us, not a politically affiliated
person, simply read their positions on the issues to the people, and the
poll changed from 49 to 35 to 50--45-39, excuse me, to 57 to 29. Boom,
like that, just with information.
So what have we got? We've got a team headed by the Vice
President, including Bill Nelson and Hillary and a lot
of others who say, ``Look, we've got to keep the prosperity going. We've
got to keep investing in education, expanding trade, paying down the
debt. We've got to have a tax cut, but one we can afford, so that we
don't spend it all. And we've got to do some other things. We've got to
lengthen the life of Medicare and Social Security so when the baby
boomers retire, they don't bankrupt their kids and grandkids. We ought
to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare because it's
unconscionable that all these seniors and disabled people who need these
drugs can't get them, and we'd never create a Medicare program today
without it. We ought to close the gun show loophole and do some other
things to keep guns out of the hands of kids and criminals. We ought to
do more to build one America. We ought to raise the minimum wage. We
ought to pass employment nondiscrimination legislation. We ought to pass
hate crimes legislation. We ought to preserve the fundamental individual
liberties of the American people including the right to choose.''
Now, on their side, they've got a team that basically says, ``We
used to be real conservative, but now we're moderate.'' [Laughter] Don't
laugh. I'm not being cynical here. I'm being
[[Page 1551]]
serious. And they talk about inclusion and compassion and harmony, but
they don't talk much about specifics. And it's clear that they are
greatly advantaged by the blurring of the lines between the two parties
and the fact that people don't know what the differences are. So that's
what I want to ask you to do. I want you to let me tell you, as much as
a citizen, as a President, what I think the differences are and what I
think is at stake.
First of all, on economic policy, our policy is pay down the debt,
keep interest rates low, keep the economy going, invest in education and
health care and science and technology, and have a tax cut we can
afford, that 80 percent of the people will get more out of than theirs,
even though it's only 25 percent as expensive, but most of you in this
room wouldn't get more money out of it. You would, however, get lower
interest rates, which the economists say our plan would give at least
one percent lower interest rates for a decade--at least--which is worth,
among other things, $260 billion in home mortgages, $30 billion in car
payments, and $15 billion in college loan payments, a pretty good size
tax cut, not to mention, lower business loan rates, which means higher
investment and greater growth and a stronger stock market.
Now, it took me a while to say that. Their case is a lot easier to
make. Their case is, ``Hey, we're going to have a $2 trillion surplus.
It's your money, and we're going to give it back to you.'' Doesn't that
sound good? In the last year they passed over a trillion dollars in tax
cuts, and they've been pretty smart this year. They passed some, sort of
salami fashion, so each one of them has a huge constituency. I like a
lot of them, and I like some of all of what they're trying to do. The
problem is it's kind of like going to a cafeteria. Did you ever go to a
cafeteria to eat, and you got the tray, and you're walking down the
aisle, and all the food looks so good? But if you eat it all, you'll get
sick. [Laughter] You think about it.
So they proposed to spend the whole surplus, the whole projected
surplus--never mind what they promised to spend in money. Now, what's
wrong with that? Well, we tried it before, number one. Number two, it's
a projected surplus.
Now, if you propose to spend some money and the money doesn't come
in, you just don't spend it. But once you cut the taxes, they're cut. So
they want to spend the entire projected surplus that we have worked as a
country for 7 years to accumulate to turn around the deficits and debt.
Now, it's projected; I don't know if it will come in or not.
It reminds me of--I told people at the previous meeting. Did you
ever get one of those letters from Publishers Clearing House in the mail
signed by Ed McMahon? [Laughter] Did you ever get one? ``You may have
won $10 million.'' You may have won it. Now, if the next day after you
got that letter, you went out and spent the $10 million, you should
support them and their plan. [Laughter] But if you didn't, you had
better stick with us. And that's what you need to tell people.
Nobody in their right mind--if I ask every one of you, whatever you
do for a living, from the people who run the biggest companies here, the
people that served our dinner, you think about this: What do you think
your income is going to be over the next 10 years? What do you think
it's going to be? Come to a very high level of confidence. Now, if I ask
you to come up here right now and sign a binding contract to spend it
all tonight, would you do it? If you would, you should support them. If
not, you should stick with us. This is a huge difference, and all the
surveys show the people don't know. You should help them know.
Let's take health care. We favor the Patients' Bill of Rights;
they're against it. We favor a Medicare drug program that all our
seniors can buy. They favor a private insurance program that, God bless
them, the health insurance companies--I've fought them for 7 years, but
I've got to take my hat off to them--[laughter]--they have been so
honest. The health insurance companies have said, ``Don't do this. It
won't work. Nobody will do this. You can't offer policies.''
In Nevada they passed a program like this, and not a single
insurance company's even offered the policy. So they're not doing
anything real for people who desperately need these drugs, the disabled
people and seniors. And we've got the money now. It's unconscionable not
to do it. If you live to be 65 years old now, your chance of your life
expectancy is 83 in America. But it ought to be a good life. It ought to
be a full life. If you're disabled in America today and you can get the
right kind of medicine, it can dramatically increase your capacity to
work and to enjoy life and to be a full person to the maximum extent of
your ability to do so. But you need medicine.
[[Page 1552]]
This is a huge issue, especially in Florida, but throughout the country.
They're not for it.
We say there are a lot of people who lose their health insurance
when they're over 55 and they're not old enough for Medicare; we ought
to give them a little tax break and let them buy in. They say no. So
there's a big difference in health care policy.
Big difference in education policy. We say that we ought to have
high standards, and people should turn around failing schools or have to
shut them down, that we ought to have more teachers and more money for
teacher training. We ought to spend more money to help places like
Florida build new schools or repair old ones. They favor block grants
and vouchers.
We say, on crime, we want more police in the high-crime areas, and
we want to close the gun show loophole on the Brady background check law
and require child safety locks on these guns and stop people importing
these large capacity ammunition clips that allows people to convert
legal weapons into assault weapons. And I say, and the Vice President
says, you ought to get a photo ID license before you get a handgun,
showing that you passed the background check, you know how to use the
gun safely. That's what we say.
Now, they think we're all wet. They think we're wrong. They think
that all of that should be opposed and what we really need is more
people carrying concealed weapons, even in their places of worship.
That's their record and their commitment.
We believe, as I said earlier, that we should raise the minimum
wage; they don't. We favor the hate crimes legislation. Their leadership
doesn't because it includes gays. I think that's one big reason we need
it. I mean, how many people do we have to see get killed in this country
because of who they are before we do that?
Same thing on employment nondiscrimination laws. And as Bill said in
a delicate way--and I'll be more blunt--maybe the biggest thing of all
is the fact that the next President is going to appoint between two and
four members of the U.S. Supreme Court, and it will change the face of
America, one way or the other, long after the next President's term is
finished. And on the one side, you've got the Vice President, who believes in a woman's right to choose but
also in the traditional commitment to civil rights and individual rights
and responsibilities and the idea that the law ought to be a place where
the weak as well as the strong can find appropriate redress.
And on the other side, you have two
candidates who are firmly committed to the
repeal of Roe v. Wade, and their Presidential candidate says the two
judges he most admires are Justices Thomas and Scalia, by far the most
conservative members of the Court.
Now, what's the point of this? We don't have to have a negative
campaign. We should say, we think they are honorable people with
wonderful families who love their children, who love their country, who
want to do public service. But as honorable people, we should say, we
expect them to do exactly what they say they're going to do even if
they're not talking about it in this election. We can't pretend that
these differences don't exist and that they aren't real and that they
won't affect millions of people's lives.
Look at civil rights. You know, they've gotten in a lot of--at least
a little stir lately because Mr. Cheney, when he
was in Congress, voted against letting Nelson Mandela out of prison, and
a lot of people are horrified to learn that. Now, he's a friend of mine
and, I think, one of the greatest human beings I ever met. But to be
fair, he did get out, and he's made a pretty good job of his life since
he got out. I'm not nearly as worried about Nelson Mandela 10 years ago
as I am about some other minorities today.
I'll tell you about Enrique Moreno. You
don't know him. He grew up in El Paso without a lot, and got himself to
Harvard, graduated summa cum laude, went home, and became a lawyer. The
judges out there in west Texas say he's one of the best lawyers in the
region. I tried to put him on the Federal Court of Appeals in Texas. The
ABA gave him a unanimous well-qualified rating. All the local folks were
for him, the Republicans and the Democrats, they were all for him in the
local level in El Paso.
But the Texas Republican
Senators won't even give him a hearing. They say
they don't think he's qualified. And the head of the Republican Party in
Texas, now the head of the Republican Party
in America, didn't lift a finger to get him a hearing. So I'd like to
get Enrique Moreno out of this sort of
political prison where he can't get a hearing.
In the southeast United States, more African-Americans live in the
fourth circuit than any
[[Page 1553]]
other one. There's never been a black judge on the fourth circuit. I've
tried for 7 years to put an African-American judge in the fourth
circuit. And the Republican Senators there are so opposed to this that
they have allowed a 25 percent vacancy rate on that court. Now, they
make all the decisions that don't quite get to the Supreme Court.
Twenty-five percent vacancy rate because they don't want--ask Alcee
Hastings if I'm telling the truth. Look at
him nodding his head. It's unbelievable.
I want every American to know this. I've got two African-American
judges now I've appointed. So I'm more concerned about those guys than
Mandela. Mandela made a pretty good job of his life because--thank God--
nobody listened to the vote that was cast by the Republican
nominee for Vice President. He did get out of
jail, and he went on and made a great job as President of South Africa.
Look, what kind of country do you want, anyway? And again, what I
want is a great election. I want people to be upbeat and happy and say,
``Gosh, here we've got these perfectly fine people that are honorable,
that are patriots, that want to serve their country, that have very
different views. Here's what the differences are. Let's choose.'' If
that's the way this election rolls out, you can book it. Al Gore will be the next President, and Bill
Nelson will be the next Senator from the State
of Florida.
But you cannot allow your fellow Floridians and any Americans you
know anywhere else in the country to sort of sleepwalk through the
election, sort of say, ``Oh, well, this is just a fine time, and
everything is great, and they all seem pretty nice. And this fraternity
had it for 8 years, maybe we ought to give it to the other fraternity
for a while.'' They've got a real pretty package here, the other side
does, and they just hope nobody opens the package before Christmas.
[Laughter]
And I say that not sarcastically. I don't blame them. It's a
brilliant marketing strategy. It's the way they can win. But America is
still here after 224 years because nearly all the time the people get it
right if they have enough information and enough time. You can give it
to them. You can go out and say, ``Look, an election is a choice with
consequences, and how a country deals with its prosperity is just as
stern a test of its values, its judgment, and its character as how it
deals with adversity. And we may never get a chance like this again to
build a future of our dreams for our children.''
And let me just close with this very personal note and show my age a
little bit. In February, when we broke the limit for the longest
economic expansion in history, I asked my staff to tell me when the last
longest economic expansion in history was. You know when it was?
Nineteen sixty-one to 1969. I graduated from high school in 1964, before
a lot of you were born, in the full flow of that longest economic
expansion in history.
President Kennedy had just been killed, and we were all sad about
that, but President Johnson was very popular. The country had a lot of
confidence. We took the health of the economy for granted, low
unemployment, low inflation, high growth. We thought the civil rights
problems we had would be solved in the courts and the Congress, not on
the streets. We never dreamed that Vietnam would get as big or as bloody
or as divisive as it did. And we were just rolling along. Two years
later we had riots in the streets all over America. Four years later I
graduated from college in Washington, DC--9 weeks after President
Johnson couldn't run for President anymore and told us so, because of
the division of the country over Vietnam, 8 weeks after Martin Luther
King was murdered in Memphis, and 2 days after Robert Kennedy was
murdered in Los Angeles. And the election and the national mood took a
different turn. And before you know it, the last longest economic
expansion in history was history.
I've lived long enough to know now nothing lasts forever. I have
waited 35 years for my country to be in a position to truly build the
future of our dreams for our kids. This kind of thing just comes along
once in a great long while. And believe me, when you think of the
implications in the human genome project or the information revolution,
all the things that are going out here, all the good things that have
happened in the last 8 years, they are a small prolog to what is still
out there. All the best things are still out there if we understand what
our responsibility is in this election and if the voters understand what
the choice is. Then we will not blow this, and when it's all done, we'll
be very proud we didn't.
Thank you. God bless you.
[[Page 1554]]
Note: The President spoke at 9:12 p.m. at a private residence. In his
remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Eric and Colleen Hanson; Senator
Graham's wife, Adele; Bill Nelson, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate
in Florida, and his wife, Grace; Palm Beach County District 5
Commissioner Burt Aaronson, his wife, Sheila, and son, Daniel; political
consultant James Carville; and Republican Presidential candidate Gov.
George W. Bush of Texas and Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney.