[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[August 4, 2000]
[Pages 1558-1562]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Reception for Hillary Clinton in Nantucket, Massachusetts
August 4, 2000

    The President. When Smith started that 
story I didn't know where it was going. [Laughter] I thought he was 
going to say he called a surgeon or something.
    Let me say, first of all, I am delighted to be back here. I had a 
wonderful time last year, and Hillary and I came back. Chelsea came with us this year. Just took a tour of 
Nantucket, and it's a beautiful place. And I want to thank all of you 
for coming out here tonight to help.
    You know, we just finished the Republican Convention, and now it's 
our turn. And one thing that we apparently agree on--they did agree that 
the country was in good shape. [Laughter] And I appreciated that act of 
uncommon generosity on their part. [Laughter] We disagree on how it 
happened--[laughter]--and on what to do with it. I say that--I like to 
hear you laugh. I like to hear them laugh more. [Laughter] I mean, we 
need to lighten up here. But on the other hand, we need to be more 
serious about the election.
    I actually think this is a great opportunity for the American people 
because we don't have to say bad things about our opponents as people. 
And if I have anything to do with it, the Democrats won't do that. I 
don't like it. I've never liked it, and we don't need it. All we need to 
do is to give the American people the chance to have an honest debate 
over the issues, what are the differences and what are the consequences 
of the election.
    But if I could just say three or four things. First, I am profoundly 
grateful for the chance that I've had to serve. It's been a joy. Even 
the bad days were good, and the fights were worth making--if I had to 
fight it all again, I'd do it all again. I loved it.
    Audience member. Thank you.
    The President. And secondly, when we ran in '92, we had a very clear 
strategy. I didn't have any idea if it would work or not. I mean, when I 
started, the incumbent President was at 70-something percent approval, 
but the country was not in good shape. And so I actually laid out to the 
American people in great detail what it was I would try to do if I were 
fortunate enough to be elected.
    And I tried to make it a campaign of ideas, committed to change, but 
change rooted in endless American values, opportunity for everybody who 
is responsible, and a community in which all Americans can be a part. 
And it's worked pretty well. I mean, we voted in '93 to get rid of the 
deficit, and the lower interest rates led to a boom in the stock market 
and lower interest rates and getting rid of the--and more jobs, and you 
know the rest. It's worked pretty well.
    Last year I couldn't say this, but now we've had the longest 
economic expansion in our history and over 22 million new jobs. So if it 
worked, and you have evidence, then the question is, which course is 
more likely to keep this going and to spread the benefits of the 
recovery to the people in places who still aren't part of it?
    When I became President, the crime rate was going up. Now it's gone 
down for 7 years. We put 100,000 police on the street. We took assault 
weapons off the street. We passed the Brady background check law, and it 
plainly had a big impact on the crime rate. And so if there's a 
difference in crime policy, you have to decide, since America is nowhere 
near safe enough, which strategy is more likely to keep the crime rate 
coming down.
    When we tried to do welfare reform, I had to veto a couple of bills 
first, but then we said, ``Okay, able-bodied people ought to go to work, 
but the kids ought to be able to keep their guarantee of medical care 
and nutrition.'' And the welfare rolls have been cut in half, and all 
the horror stories that some people predicted haven't materialized 
because we went out of our way to give people, that we were requiring to 
work, the education, the transportation, and the support to be good 
parents so that it would work. And so you have to decide what you think 
is best for low-income people and how to empower them to go to work.
    The same is true in health care; the same is true in the 
environment. Somebody came up to me tonight and asked me to sign a 
picture of the Grand Canyon, and I was saying we just set aside another 
million acres around the Grand Canyon to protect the watershed. And Al 
Gore

[[Page 1559]]

and I have now set aside more land in the lower 48 States than any 
administration in history except those of Theodore and Franklin 
Roosevelt.
    And the other side is on record as to committing to repeal my order 
setting aside 43 million roadless acres in the national forests. The 
Audubon Society says it's the most significant conservation move in 40 
years. So you get to decide which you think is better.
    And I'd just like to say that for me--I'm not running for anything 
this year--[laughter]--and most days I'm okay about it. [Laughter] But I 
care a great deal about what we're going to do with this moment of 
prosperity. Let me just mention one other issue. In education, our 
theory was, have fewer regulations but higher standards; invest more, 
require more--more preschool, more after-school, smaller classes, better 
trained teachers--and a strategy to turn around failing schools; and 
then open the doors of college to everybody.
    Well, test scores are up. The dropout rate's down. The African-
American high school graduation rate equaled the white majority rate 
last year, for the first time in history. And we have record numbers of 
people going to college. So we have a strategy about that, and there 
will be differences, and you have to decide which you think is right.
    But all this is just to say, the most important thing to me--all 
these races I've run since 1974, I used to have a simple theory which is 
that I wanted to make sure that on the election day, every person who 
did not vote for me knew exactly what he or she was doing. Because I 
always felt that if I lost, then I would have no complaint, that if the 
people who voted for you and the people who voted against you knew 
exactly what they were doing, I would have no complaint.
    Therefore, I think it's important for people like you, who come here 
to help Hillary, to make a commitment that goes beyond writing a check, 
because you're obviously interested citizens. And what I think you 
should do is to go out between now and November at every conceivable 
opportunity and say, ``Isn't it nice that we can have an election where 
we don't have to run down our opponents, where we can posit that they're 
good, patriotic people, that they love our country, that they will do 
what they believe in, and all we have to do is to ask ourselves, what do 
we want to do with this moment of prosperity?''
    It is literally unprecedented in our country's history that we would 
have at once so much economic prosperity, so much social progress, with 
the absence of crippling internal crisis at home or overpowering threat 
abroad. So what is it that we're going to do with it?
    More than half the people in this audience are younger than I am, 
and a huge number of you have more years ahead of you than you do behind 
you. What is it that we propose to do with this? It is a huge question. 
And that--my experience is that very often the answer you get in an 
election depends upon the questions people ask in the first place. Or to 
be blunter, who wins the Presidency, who wins the Senate race in New 
York, who wins a lot of these other elections depends upon what the 
people really believe the election is about.
    And we have a chance, literally unprecedented in our lifetime, to 
build the future of our dreams for our children. But it requires us not 
to be complacent with our prosperity but to look over the horizon, to 
take on the big challenges, to seize the big opportunities.
    I tell everybody who will listen that there are four reasons I think 
Al Gore ought to be President. He's been 
the best Vice President in history and had more influence in that job 
than anybody ever had. He's got an economic program that will work 
instead of one that will spend the whole surplus on a tax cut today when 
the surplus hasn't materialized yet. I tell everybody that our proposal 
is, cut taxes but only to the extent that we can afford it and still 
invest in education, provide a prescription drug benefit for people on 
Medicare, and keep paying the debt down, because that will keep interest 
rates low, which is a de facto tax cut, and prosperity going.
    And so if you have a tax cut that essentially takes the whole 
projected surplus away--I can make you a good speech for it. I can say, 
``We're going to have this big surplus, and it's your money, not the 
Government's. And we're going to give it back to you.'' Sounds good, 
doesn't it? Except it hasn't come in yet. It's kind of like--did you 
ever get one of those letters from Ed McMahon and Publishers Clearing 
House? [Laughter] Think about it. ``You may have won $10 million.'' Now, 
if you went out the next day and spent the $10 million, you should 
support their program. But otherwise, you ought

[[Page 1560]]

to stick with us and keep this thing going. [Laughter] So that's the 
second reason that I think it's important.
    The third reason that I'm for Al Gore 
is that he understands the future, whether it's information technology 
or the human genome project or global warming. They made fun of him in 
'88--I mean, when he wrote the book. They made fun of him in '92 when we 
ran. Now even the oil company executives say global warming is real. It 
could change the climate of the whole world. It could flood the 
sugarcane fields in Louisiana and the Everglades in Florida we've worked 
so hard to save, and change the pattern of agriculture in the United 
States. And already you see in Africa malaria at higher and higher 
altitudes because of the warming of the climate.
    One of the biggest problems we've got--many of you mentioned the 
Middle East peace process to me. One of the biggest struggles we're 
going to have is to figure out how to provide water for all the people 
who live there, because of climate change. And I don't know about you, 
but if that's really a big issue, I'd like someone in the White House 
that understood it.
    And that's not an insult; that's a plus for Gore. That's not a criticism of his opponent. There's nobody 
that understands that in public life as much as he does. That should not 
be interpreted as a criticism of his opponent; it's a plus for him.
    Look, all your medical and financial records are on somebody's 
computer somewhere. Don't you think that we ought to have somebody in 
the White House that really understands what the privacy issues are? 
It's going to be wonderful--all the young women in this audience, when 
you start having babies, when you go home--and within 5 to 10 years, 
you'll take a little genetic map home with your baby. It will tell you: 
Here are the problems your baby has, but if you do the following five 
things, you will increase the chance that the child will have a great 
life.
    There are young women in this audience tonight who will have babies 
with a life expectancy of 90 years. That's not an exaggeration. But it 
seems to me that we ought to have somebody there that understands 
whether somebody ought to be denied a job or a promotion or health 
insurance based on their gene card. We need somebody that really 
understands the future.
    And the last thing is, we ought to have somebody that will take us 
all along for the ride. That's what the hate crimes bill, the minimum 
wage, the employment nondiscrimination bill--that's what all that 
stuff's all about. Should we all go along for the ride or not? And I 
presume that all of you believe that or you wouldn't be here. 
Otherwise--because the other guys are going to give you a bigger tax cut 
than we are. [Laughter] But we'll give you lower interest rates and a 
better stock market. You'll make more anyway. But I think we ought to 
all go along for the ride.
    So now, that brings me to Hillary--[laughter]--and this reason: It 
is very hard for me to say anything that is not either sappy, or I'm 
always afraid I'll be over the top and ineffective here.
    But let me just tell you. I've been President for nearly 8 years 
now. It really matters who is in the Senate. There is a gentleman here 
that I went to college with who is from South Dakota. We were bragging 
about Tom Daschle and how I couldn't have 
functioned the last 5 years without him, and it's really true.
    Many of you came up to me tonight and said, ``I'm so glad not only 
what you did but what you stopped--all the attempts to weaken the 
environment and all the attempts to weaken our economic policy or cut 
education or do other things, all the things that were stopped over the 
last 5 years.'' Well, it really matters who is in the Congress and, 
especially, who is in the Senate. They get to vote on the confirmation 
of judges, and if they don't want to bring them up, they don't. So I've 
tried for 7\1/2\ years to get an African-American judge in the 
southeastern part of the United States. There's never been one before. 
But their side doesn't want one, so we've got two perfectly well-
qualified people that I still can't get confirmed.
    There's an Hispanic-American who grew up 
in El Paso and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard. The ABA gives him 
unanimous high ratings. I can't even get him a hearing in the Senate 
because he's not part of what they think the bench ought to be about.
    Senators make a difference. The next President will appoint two to 
four judges to the Supreme Court. The Senate will confirm them. And 
whether you like it or not, when you vote for President and you vote for 
Senate, you better think about that, because the balance of the Supreme 
Court will change. And you have

[[Page 1561]]

to assume that any President you vote for and any Senator you vote for 
will vote and appoint his or her convictions. You have to assume that.
    The most important thing that I think that I could say to you about 
Hillary is two things. One is, this is just the last in a long line of 
lifetime public service for her. When I met her in 1971, when she wasn't 
old enough to vote, but I was--[laughter]--when I met her in 1971, she 
was already involved with the Yale Child Studies Center and issues of 
children's health care, children's education, family law. She took an 
extra year in law school to work at the Yale hospital in the Child 
Studies Center so that she would not have not only a law degree but a 
clear background in the legal issues affecting children's health and 
children's welfare, before anybody else was doing it--that kind of 
thing.
    Her first job out of law school was at what became the Children's 
Defense Fund, where she later served as chair of the board. Her first 
project, when I was elected Governor of Arkansas, was to build a 
neonatal nursery at the Children's Hospital in Little Rock. And when I 
left office, in my little home State, that was the seventh biggest 
children's hospital in the United States of America, and she ran the 
fundraising drive every year. She founded an advocacy group for children 
and families when we were living in Arkansas, and then when she came up 
here, she took up the cause of children's health care, our education 
reforms. She led the way to a total revision of the laws affecting 
adoption, cross-racial adoption, and what happens to foster care kids 
and how to improve their welfare. Things at a level of details unheard 
of for First Ladies to be involved in. And along the way, she found time 
to host conferences on early childhood and brain development, children 
and violence, and a lot of other things.
    And then this year, she ran our millennium program for the last 2 
years, which the gentleman who is the head of the National Historic 
Preservation Trust told me that Hillary's millennium program, which has 
now gotten $100 million for the preservation for American treasures, 
slightly over half public money, the rest private, was the largest, 
single historic preservation effort in the history of the United States 
of America.
    So when Senator Moynihan 
announced he wasn't going to run again and all these Democratic House 
Members came and asked her to run, I can promise you, it had never 
occurred to her before, because we assumed he was going to run, and we 
would support him.
    And so she started traveling around New York. And she found out, A, 
she kind of liked it, and B--not liked New York; she kind of liked 
politics; she knew she liked New York; she liked politics--[laughter]--
and B, she found out that people understood that what they needed in a 
Senator was somebody that would put their families first and think of 
their children's future and make the most of this moment of prosperity, 
which allows me to close this circle here.
    I cannot tell you--again, I'll say, no American who has not been 
where I am can possibly appreciate the importance of every single Senate 
seat--nobody. And I can tell you this. I knew, and I told her when we 
started, that we would have a hard fight the first time. But if she wins 
in November--and I'm convinced she will--she'll never have a close race 
again, because she'll be the best Senator they ever had.
    And I said something here last year I will say again. I have been 
privileged in my life, over, almost 30 years in public life now, to work 
with hundreds of people. I have known some magnificent leaders around 
the world; I have known some wonderful American public servants. I have 
never felt the kind of personal animosity for people in the other party 
that some of them seem to feel for us from time to time, because I 
wouldn't be able to get up in the morning if I was that torn up and 
upset all the time. [Laughter] And I basically like people in public 
life. I've found most of them are smart and honest and work hard and do 
what they think is right.
    But of all the people I have ever known, bar none, she has the best 
combination of heart, compassion, brains, and just plain old stick-to-
it-iveness, persistence. And you need that in a Senator. So you've 
helped her tonight, and if you can do anything between now and November, 
I'll be very, very grateful.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 8:10 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to reception host Smith Bagley; Enrique Moreno, 
judicial nominee, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; Ed 
McMahon, Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes spokesperson; and Richard 
Moe,

[[Page 1562]]

president, National Trust for Historic Preservation. The President also 
referred to his memorandum of October 13, 1999, on protection of forest 
roadless areas (Public Papers of the Presidents: William J. Clinton, 
1999 Book II (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001) p. 
1765).