[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[August 8, 2000]
[Pages 1579-1584]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner in Charlottesville, 
Virginia
August 8, 2000

    Thank you very, very much. First of all, I want to thank Pat 
Kluge for having us here. Thank you, Bill. 
Thank all of you for coming tonight. Some of you, like Alan, are my old 
friends; some of you I met for the first time tonight; some of you we've 
met along the way over these last 8 years. I know the hour is late, and 
the main attraction of this dinner is coming to this magnificent house. 
I may ask for your permission to use this in an ad, the tag line of 
which will be, ``If you want to live like a Republican, you have to keep 
voting Democrat.'' [Laughter]
    I'll be very, very brief. First of all, I thank you for your support 
of the DNC, and I thank you for--those of you particularly from Virginia 
who supported Senator Robb. But I want to 
ask you to think about what you should do now. The Republicans have had 
their convention in Philadelphia, and they presented themselves in a 
very appealing way. And we get our chance next week in Los Angeles, a 
place, I would

[[Page 1580]]

remind you, which 40 years ago this month launched John Kennedy on the 
New Frontier, and I believe will launch Al Gore as the first President of the new century.
    But I want to be very brief, but I want you to just try to listen to 
me--even though it's late and I may not be very good because I got up 
very early to go to Idaho today--about what I hope you will say to other 
people about this election. I have always believed--always--no matter 
what the polls said, ever, I've always thought the Vice President would be elected President. I've always believed 
Chuck Robb would be reelected to the Senate, 
for a combination of personal and political reasons.
    But the only thing that I'm concerned about this year is whether or 
not the very success that we've worked so hard to effect will put people 
in such a good humor--which I love, I want everybody to be happy, you 
know--not every President wants that--that people will be under the 
illusion that things are going along so well nobody could mess it up if 
they tried, and there aren't really any consequences to this election; 
and secondly, that everybody seems perfectly pleasant in this election 
year, and therefore, the differences between the two candidates for 
President and Vice President and the candidates for the Senate and the 
House and the two parties must not be very great.
    Now, I am all for a positive campaign. Having been the beneficiary 
of some of the negative campaigning of the last 20 years, I think it 
would be a good thing if we called a halt to campaigns where the main 
strategy was to convince the voters that your opponent was just one step 
above a car thief. And I think we can do without that. The truth is, 
most of the people I've known in politics were honest, hard-working, and 
did what they thought was right. And I've been in it for a good while.
    But it's very important that we go back to the main thing--I always 
tell people, there are just three things you need to know about this 
election. One is, it is a truly important election, a big election; two 
is that there are big differences between the candidates; and three is, 
we're the only side that wants you to know what the differences are. 
What does that tell you about who you ought to vote for?
    Now, let me just say on each point--why is it important? You can 
make a very strong argument that this election is just as important, if 
not more important, than the election of 1992, which had an historically 
high turnout, where people were full of energy, and where there was a 
very good response to the message that I laid out and the specifics in 
our program, much of which was developed when I worked with Chuck 
Robb in our years as Governors and our years 
with the Democratic Leadership Council--which, I hasten to add, Joe 
Lieberman is now the chairman of. So 
Chuck and I and our whole crowd, we're elated by this because it proves 
that the Democrats are going to keep moving the country forward, looking 
to progressive new ideas, trying to be relevant and to reach out to all 
thoughtful people without regard to their background and their party.
    But this year, you can understand why people would think that the 
election is not so important. We're in the middle of the longest 
economic expansion in history. We just--there's going to be an 
announcement tomorrow that the teen pregnancy rate is at a several-
decades-low rate. All the social indicators are going in the right 
direction: crime at a 25-year low; welfare rolls at a 32-year low, cut 
in half in the last 7\1/2\ years.
    But the truth is, this is the time which is even more important. 
Why? Because none of us have ever been in the position before where we 
could build the future of our dreams for our children because of our 
prosperity, first.
    Second, we live in a world where change is the only constant and 
where we know we still have big challenges out there. What are we going 
to do when the baby boomers retire? How do we propose to give all of our 
children a world-class education? We have the largest and most diverse 
group of schoolchildren. How do we propose to keep the economy going and 
do something about climate change, which even the oil companies now say 
is real? Twelve years ago, and even 8 years ago, all they did was make 
fun of Al Gore for being the first one to 
tell us to think about it. And those are just three issues.
    So you've got to convince people they need to pay attention, this is 
really important. What you do with your prosperity is at least as stern 
a test of character, judgment, and values as what you do with adversity. 
Because, really, if you've got any sense, if you're faced with adversity 
you only have one choice: change and work.
    The second thing is, there really are real differences here. And we 
can posit the fact that our opponents are good people and patriotic

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people and want to do what they think is right, but there are real 
differences. I just want to mention two or three, because they affect 
not only the President's race, the Vice President's race but Chuck 
Robb's race.
    One, on economics. Our position is we worked hard for this surplus. 
It's kept interest rates down; it's kept this economy booming. From the 
minute--as Chuck said, the most significant vote for the economy cast in 
this administration was way back in August of 1993, when we said we were 
going to reduce the deficit by at least $500 billion over the next 
couple of years, and we were going to do some very unpopular and 
controversial things to do it, and we were prepared to do it and take 
the heat.
    By one vote in both Houses it passed. Not a single Republican voted 
for it. They said it would bring a recession, increase the deficit, 
increase interest rates; the sky would fall; the world would end. That 
was their basic position. And so it is fair to say that they are not to 
blame for the consequences of our economic vote.
    Now, to be perfectly fair, a few years later they did come along, 
and we passed the balanced budget bill with big bipartisan majorities in 
both Houses. But that's because the hard work had been done by the 
Democrats alone, people like Chuck Robb, who 
put his neck on the line, knowing he was going to have to run for 
reelection in a very difficult environment, and he did it anyway.
    So what do we do now? Our position is, yes, we have a big projected 
surplus, but we think it would be a big mistake to spend it all, because 
it's projected and because the truth is, the way it's done doesn't take 
account of a lot of things we know we're going to have to spend. We know 
there will be emergencies. We know Government spending will grow by more 
than they say because it doesn't take account of the population. So what 
do we say?
    We say, let's give the American people a tax cut that we can afford 
and focus on things that we really need: universal access to college, 
access to long-term care, working families' access to child care, more 
retirement savings, relief from the marriage penalty. But let's keep it 
at a place we can afford.
    And I want to be quite candid. It's only 25 percent the size of the 
Republican tax cut; 80 percent of the American people would get more 
money under ours than theirs. None of you would; you'd all get more 
money under theirs. But why should you be for us? Because, among other 
things, you get at least interest rates a percentage lower for a decade, 
which is lower business loans, a stronger stock market, more jobs, 
higher profit, and for ordinary people, literally $250 billion in 
mortgage payment savings, $30 billion in car payment savings, $15 
billion in college loan savings.
    What's their--now, it took me a while to say that. They've got a 
much more appealing position. Their position is, ``Hey, it's your money; 
we're going to give it back to you. Why is the Government keeping your 
money? Vote for us; it's a $2 trillion tax cut over 10 years.'' What's 
the problem with that?
    Number one, they have said they want to partially privatize the 
Social Security system, which means those of you who are younger can 
take 2 percent of your payroll and invest it in the stock market. But in 
order to do it and keep everybody happy, they have to guarantee the 
benefits of everybody over 55 under the present system. Well, the thing 
is scheduled to run out of money in 2034 anyway. Under the Vice 
President's plan, it would go to 2054, 
which would take it out beyond the life expectancy of all but the most 
fortunate baby boomers. But if you lower the date of bankruptcy of 
Social Security from 2034 up forward, obviously that's a non-starter, so 
that costs a trillion dollars over 10 years just to keep it where it is. 
And then they promised to spend money and all that.
    But the most important thing you need to know is, this surplus is 
projected; it may not be there. And as I've said all over America, now, 
this is kind of like getting one of those letters from the sweepstakes 
signed by Ed McMahon. [Laughter] You've all gotten them--``You may have 
won $10 million.'' And you may. And when you got that letter, if you 
went out and spent the $10 million the next day, you really should think 
seriously about supporting the Republicans this year. [Laughter] But if 
you didn't, you ought to stick with us and keep this prosperity going.
    Now, this is important. You have to explain this to people. There 
was a big, big headline in USA Today, one of the big newspapers, just in 
the last couple of months, saying people didn't understand the 
differences. This is a gaping difference. They want to go back to the 
economic policy we had before we showed up here. And Chuck Robb sat there all these years

[[Page 1582]]

and voted for--took all these tough votes in a State that was anti-tax, 
stated it was conservative, put his neck on the line to get this country 
in the shape it's in now, and all of a sudden we're going to have an 
election and allow it all to be thrown away just because we don't 
understand the consequences? This is a huge deal, folks. This is not a 
casual conversation here. This is a gaping difference.
    I'll give you another couple of examples. Crime--we supported 
100,000 police, the Brady Bill, the assault weapons ban, and their 
leadership was against it--their past and present leadership. Now we 
want to put 50,000 more police on the street in the highest crime areas, 
close the gun show loophole in the background check law, mandate child 
trigger safety locks because a lot of kids die by accident every year, 
and stop the importation of these large capacity ammunition clips. They 
allow you to get around the assault weapons ban because you just get the 
clips from overseas legally, and then you add them to a weapon that you 
buy legally here because it's not an assault weapon, and presto, you've 
got an assault weapon. It's a huge loophole.
    And the Vice President thinks that 
people who buy handguns from now on ought to have a photo ID license 
showing that they've passed the background check and they know how to 
use the gun safely. I agree with that. That's our policy.
    Their policy is, they've never supported us on the 100,000 police, 
as Chuck will tell you, or the 50,000 more. We've had to just drag it 
out, fight for it every year. And their policy is, what we really need 
is to have more concealed weapons, and people should be able to carry 
them everywhere, even in houses of worship. [Laughter] No, they believe 
this.
    I was on a townhall meeting the other day and I spoke to one of the 
advocates of this position in Texas; this is the Texas policy. And she 
made a very heartfelt, compelling case for why this was the answer to 
all the crime problems in America and why I was wrong. The point I want 
to make is you have to assume when people say they're going to do 
something, they believe it, and they get elected, that they'll do it. So 
there's a real difference here.
    There are differences here on the Patients' Bill of Rights, on the 
minimum wage, on a whole host of other issues. There's a profound 
difference on the choice issue. The next President will appoint between 
two and four judges to the Supreme Court, in all probability. The next 
Senate will confirm or deny those appointments. The nominees of the 
Republican Party for President and Vice President have repeatedly said 
they believe that Roe v. Wade is wrong and should be changed. The 
nominees of the Democratic Party support it. And because they're 
honorable people, you have to expect them to do what they believe is 
right when they get these appointments.
    And I think that this should be something we deal with soberly, not 
in slogans, and not by attacking people. People who--everybody has very 
deep feelings about this, but we should assume that they will do what 
they believe is right. And I know that Al Gore will do what he believes is right. And I know what Chuck 
Robb believes is right. And it's not just on 
this issue, not just the choice issue, but this relates to civil rights 
enforcement and how the ordinary citizens are treated in the courts of 
the land, and all these matters are very important.
    So you need to think about this, and you need to tell people who 
tell you it doesn't matter who wins that they're wrong, that the 
rhetoric may have been similar at both conventions, and we're pleased by 
that, but that we have changed our policies--here's our policies; we 
tell you exactly what we're for. There's a reason that they didn't have 
as much detail at their convention, and that is that they hope you think 
there's not much difference here. There is a huge difference.
    And I could give you lots of other examples. But I don't want to 
keep you any later, but you get the point. We may never have another 
chance in our lifetime.
    And I want to say a couple of things about the Vice President, a couple of things about Joe 
Lieberman, and a couple of things about 
Chuck Robb, because I'm really proud to be 
identified with them.
    Al Gore is the best Vice President this 
country ever had, by a good long way. We have had a lot of very fine 
Presidents who were Vice President, including Senator Robb's father-in-
law, who gave us Medicare, the civil rights laws, and did a lot of other 
things of enduring value for America. Teddy Roosevelt was Vice 
President; Thomas Jefferson was Vice President; Harry Truman was Vice 
President. We never had anybody who in this job did anything remotely as 
much as Al Gore has done, to support

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the economy, to advance the cause of education, to make sure all of our 
schools were hooked up to the Internet, to help us deal with the 
environmental challenges of the country in a way that was good for the 
environment, to downsize the Government in a way that didn't require us 
to put people in the street.
    I could give you example after example after example. He is, therefore, the best qualified person in my 
adult lifetime to be President, to run. There's--not even close. No 
serious student of the Presidency, whether they agree with any of my 
policies or not, would seriously dispute this. There has never been a 
Vice President who did so much good for the country as Vice President 
and had this much influence and this much responsibility.
    The second thing you need to know is he's got the right economic policy. And I think that's pretty 
important. I'd kind of like to keep this thing going a while. I've got 
to go out and be a citizen, earn a living here--[laughter]--and I'm 
going to be really steamed if after all these last 8 years it doesn't 
work out for me. It will be terrible. Think about my daughter and my 
continuing educational responsibilities and--I'm kidding, but it's 
serious--dead serious. It couldn't be clearer.
    The third thing you need to know is, this guy really does understand the future. I saw Governor 
Bush took a shot at him on this whole 
Internet thing. That's another one of the many bum raps you get. If you 
stand around in politics enough, you'll get some bum raps. What Al 
Gore said he did and what he did--what he 
actually did is he sponsored legislation to turn the Internet from being 
the private province of a few physicists into a broadly available 
communications technology which is sweeping the world. Do you know how 
many sites there were on the Worldwide Web when I became President? 
Fifty--5-0--in 1993. It's now the fastest growing communications 
exchange in history. He did have a lot to do with that. He is the first 
person I ever heard say, ``The Library of Congress will be on the 
Internet, and ordinary people will be able to get it.''
    And he did lead the fight for the E-
rate, which means that all the poorest schools in America can now hook 
up to the Internet. When we started this thing, only 3 percent of our 
classrooms were hooked up to the Internet, only 11 percent of our 
schools. Today, over 90 percent of our schools and two-thirds of our 
classrooms are hooked up to the Internet. That's pretty good.
    He understands climate change. Like I 
said, people made fun of him for years. I don't want the Florida 
Everglades to flood; I went to too much trouble to try to save them. I 
don't want farm fields in the Middle West to burn up. I want somebody 
who understands this.
    He understands all our medical records 
and our financial records are on the Internet, and somebody ought to be 
able to say yes before somebody else can go get them. He understands the 
human genome issue and what we have to do to try to maximize its 
benefits without letting people lose the ability to get a job or health 
insurance because they got a bad little gene card. He thinks about these 
things. I want somebody in the White House that understands the future, 
and he does.
    And the fourth thing that's most important to me of all is that 
he believes in one America. He thinks we 
all ought to go along for the ride. He thinks that the people who served 
this dinner tonight deserve the same chance to send their kids to 
college as the rest of us have.
    And I'll tell you just a couple things about Joe Lieberman. When I was a first-year law student at Yale, he 
was a 28-year-old candidate for the State senate whom I had the honor to 
support. He's been my friend for 30 years. He believes ideas are 
serious. He was--Chuck will tell you, he's 
been an integral part of everything we've done with the Democratic 
Leadership Council over the last gazillion years--since we've been 
working on it, 15 years--and has firmly said that the Democratic Party 
is the party of the vital center and of tomorrow's ideas and we're going 
to keep changing in the right direction, which I think is very 
important. And I agree with what Chuck said, his wife will soon be one of the most quoted people in 
Washington. But I should tell you that we didn't mean that in a 
pejorative sense. She is a wonderful woman and will become, I think, 
terrifically popular around the country.
    Now, the last thing I want to say is, one of the reasons I always 
love to come to events like this is I get to embarrass Chuck Robb. [Laughter] Here's a guy who never talks about 
his military service. Do you ever hear Chuck Robb give a speech about 
Vietnam? You'd think he was teaching college somewhere talking about it, 
because he thinks all he did was do his duty.

[[Page 1584]]

    He never talks about the votes he cast in terms of putting his neck 
on the line. I'll never forget the night that he was sitting in the 
White House with me in 1993, and they were trying to literally 
eviscerate me over my gays in the military issue. And Chuck Robb--the only time I ever heard him talk 
personally about his record in Vietnam--and supported me on that, based 
on his personal experience, knowing he was going to have to face a 
terrible reelection battle in '94, knowing he was going to have to take 
a very tough vote on my economic plan, knowing that he was going to have 
everybody in the well-known groups in Virginia that don't agree with us 
about anything going after him and trying to basically politically 
decapitate him.
    And this man is very modest and very restrained in what he says. But 
I do not believe there is a braver person in public life today than 
Chuck Robb. I do not believe it. And I've 
always thought he'd be reelected. The people of Virginia need to know 
what kind of Governor he was, what kind of Senator he's been, and what 
kind of person he is. You need to take care of that, too. This country 
needs him. This country needs him.
    All that Al Gore and Joe Lieberman are saying, all the stuff that 
I've tried to do these last few years, he 
was out there in the early '80s, from then on, arguing that our party 
should take this course and our country should take this course. And I 
feel the same way I do about him and Joe 
and Al, all together: We must not let the 
people who did so much to bring America to this magic moment be punished 
in this election because times are so good people don't think it makes a 
difference. I'm telling you, if people know what the election is about, 
know what the differences are, I can go on vacation between now and 
November. But our job is to make sure they know that.
    So I thank you for your contribution; I thank you for your support. 
But remember, you may not get a chance like this in your lifetime again. 
You may not ever get a chance when there's so much economic prosperity, 
social progress, the absence of crippling domestic crisis or 
overpowering foreign threat, to literally shape the future of your 
dreams for your children. It may not happen to you again.
    You ought to carry that as a personal responsibility every day 
between now and November--for Al Gore and 
Joe Lieberman, for Chuck Robb, for my favorite Senate candidate from New York, and from everybody else we've got 
running. It's worth fighting for, and we have to win.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:54 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dinner host Pat Kluge and her fiance, Bill 
Moses; Ed McMahon, Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes spokesperson; 
Republican Presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush of Texas and Vice 
Presidential candidate Dick Cheney; and Hadassah Lieberman, wife of 
Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Senator Joseph I. Lieberman.