[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[September 21, 2000]
[Pages 1897-1902]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Michigan Victory 2000 Reception in Livonia, Michigan
September 21, 2000

    The President. Thank you. If Jennifer had just given me credit for the Sun coming up in the 
morning, I would have been sure I was at a Republican rally. [Laughter] 
I mean, look up here. I'm basically here as an affirmative action prop 
so the men wouldn't be too outnumbered.
    I want to thank Jennifer Granholm for 
her introduction, for her service, for holding the flag of the 
Democratic Party high in Michigan. And for her, there will be life after 
the attorney general's office. I'll guarantee you that.
    I want to thank Dianne Byrum for running 
for Congress. You get a two-fer if she's elected. You'll have a great 
Member of Congress, a great successor to Debbie Stabenow, and you'll help make John Conyers chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I want to thank Matt 
Frumin for running for Congress and for proving 
that Democrats can tie and wear bow ties. [Laughter] I've never been 
able to do that. See, look at Orson Porter down 
there laughing. He wears a bow tie every day, and I still can't do it, 
and I'm 54. [Laughter]
    I want to thank Marty Robinson 
for running for the supreme court. She's out here somewhere. We thank 
her. I want to thank Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick for being a great Representative and a great personal 
friend to me in these years that she has served.
    And I don't know what to say about John Dingell. But when I was at the Congressional Black Caucus dinner 
the other night--I mean about John 
Conyers--I want to say something about John Dingell, but I'm going to 
save that. I want to tell you something about John Conyers. I was at the 
Congressional Black Caucus dinner the other night. And all these people 
got up and talked about how the caucus always had their back, how good 
they were--always. Even the Ambassador from South Africa talked about--when they gave an award to 
Nelson Mandela--and she was passionate about 
how the Black Caucus was always there, always had their back. The Vice 
President got up and said the caucus always 
had his back. I got up and said, ``Covered my back? When they came after 
me with a torch and lit the fire, John and 
the Black Caucus brought the buckets and poured water on it, and I 
appreciate it.'' [Laughter]
    I want to say something very serious about Debbie 
Stabenow. I was here at an event for her not 
so long ago--or two events. It is, next to a certain race in New York, 
the Senate seat that I may feel the strongest about. [Laughter] Nobody 
in America now appreciates the importance of every single Senate seat as 
much as I do. They confirm judges. They can hold up bills. They can hold 
up judges, including two from Michigan that should have been confirmed a 
long time ago. In the Senate, except for the budget, 41 Senators, not a 
majority--41--can stop anything from happening. And I can't imagine a 
clearer choice, whether it's on a real Patients' Bill of Rights or a 
real drug benefit for seniors through Medicare or a real commitment

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to human rights and building one America or a real commitment to an 
economic policy that continues to benefit average people.
    What she said is true. They've got more dollars. They should have. 
They earned them. [Laughter] They earned them. You want to see them 
vote, follow the money. And there's nothing wrong with that. I believe 
in raising money. I think people ought to contribute. But forces that 
block positive change have to be opposed or they will prevail. And very 
rarely nowadays--it's hard to find somebody to take on an incumbent 
Republican Senator.
    Now we have a man who was brave enough to do it in Minnesota, but 
he's independently wealthy. We have a wonderful woman who voted for my 
economic plan in 1993, lost her seat in the House, and is now ahead in 
running against the incumbent Senator from Washington State. But she's 
independently wealthy. Debbie Stabenow is 
just independent. [Laughter]
    But it's really true--even if they do have more dollars, I can tell 
you for sure, I know her well, she does have 
more sense. [Laughter] I've watched this thing very closely. I know if 
one person goes off the air and the other dumps several million on the 
air, you can move the numbers, but they're not getting above 50 percent. 
She can win, and she will win if you will fight for her. And do not be 
discouraged. Do not give up. Fight. This is worth fighting for. It's 
worth fighting for.
    Now, I've got a little something substantive I want to say, but 
first I've got to say something about my young friend, Mr. 
McNamara. All the talk about Ireland and 
the trains and all that, this guy was there for me when only my mama 
thought I could be elected President. [Laughter] And this is his 74th 
birthday. So we're going to sing ``Happy Birthday.'' Ready? One, two, 
three.

[At this point, the audience sang ``Happy Birthday'' to Wayne County 
Executive Edward H. McNamara]

    Mr. McNamara. He is a much better 
President than he is a singer. [Laughter]
    The President. You may be the only 74-year-old man in America with 
more than enough hot air to blow out those candles. [Laughter] Go blow 
those candles out. And make a wish.
    Now, I just want to say a couple of other things. First, on behalf 
of Al Gore and Tipper and Hillary and me, I want to thank the people of 
Michigan and the Democrats of Michigan. You heard in the introduction 
that no Democrat had carried this State since 1968. Michigan gave me a 
margin of 8 points in 1992, and 13 points in 1996. And even before, on 
Saint Patrick's Day in 1992, the voters in the Democratic primary in 
Michigan and Illinois ensured that I would be the nominee of my party. I 
will never forget that, ever, as long as I live.
    Michigan is a special place with special leaders. One of them who's 
not here tonight is John Dingell. I wanted 
to say that. I thank Debbie for being here, 
for carrying all of our water all these years and doing all this work. 
And I'm deeply indebted to a lot of people from Michigan. Senator 
Riegle is here. And we worked 2 years 
together, and he was terrific. Jim Blanchard was great to me. All of them--I appreciate that. But John 
Dingell is sort of a vanishing breed. He's just an old-style person who 
believes politics is an honorable profession and who believes that 
there's no point in being in office unless you're going to get something 
done or stand against something you don't believe in.
    And so what I want to say to you is, you need to treat this election 
like you're going to get something done. And Michigan is really America. 
Yes, it's different than America; people make more cars here than 
anyplace else. But it's also an agricultural State; it's a small-
business State; it's a high-tech State. It's a place with worlds of--
very remote rural communities and big thriving cities. It is America.
    And what I want to say to you is, for 47 days it will be the center 
of the conflict between the Democrats and the Republicans for the Senate 
and the House and between Al Gore and Joe 
Lieberman and Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney. And I was 
told on the way up here that the Republican nominee is coming here in a 
day or two and is going to stand in an automobile factory and blast Al 
Gore over the internal combustion engine. The only thing I want you to 
remember is, when you voted for me, when they had the White House the 
last time, not very many people could afford to buy an internal 
combustion engine or fill it up.
    We've had a real partnership with the people of Michigan, and I've 
worked, when I could, on a bipartisan basis. We've had a partnership 
that's helped to lower the welfare rolls, to lower the unemployment 
rates, lift the State up. We've

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also had a very important partnership with the UAW and the automobile 
industry to build the next-generation vehicles.
    Now, you all are following what's going on with the oil prices--and 
I don't want to say much tonight, otherwise it will be a big story 
tomorrow, and I'm going to have more to say about it later. But the 
point I want to make is, one of the reasons we're doing better than we 
were the last time this happened is that the American people have become 
much more energy-efficient; our cars get better mileage; our homes are 
more energy-efficient; our factories are more energy-efficient.
    And we know--we know that the work being done now with high-tech 
companies, with the major auto companies and the UAW--work that our 
administration has supported financially and otherwise to build next-
generation vehicles that can get 70 or 80 miles a gallon or use fuel 
cells or use electricity and gasoline or use alternative fuels that 
don't pollute the atmosphere, that we can make here from an unlimited 
supply of other things.
    Let me just say, you know this whole business about ethanol and 
farm-based fuel products, right now the reason we don't have more of it 
is, it takes about 7 gallons of gasoline to produce about 8 gallons of 
ethanol. But we are funding research, which is very close to making a 
breakthrough that is the equivalent of what happened when crude oil was 
broken down so that it could be refined into gasoline. And when that 
happens--when that happens, you'll be able to make 8 gallons of ethanol 
for about one gallon of gasoline, and the whole world will change. That 
is what Al Gore has been doing the last 8 
years.
    And whatever they tell you in the next 47 days--I'm not running for 
anything, but I've got a record in Michigan--if I were trying to cost 
you jobs, I've done a poor job of it. Now, if we develop new engines, 
new fuel cells, and new fuels, it will save the automobile industry in 
Michigan, not destroy it. It will be more prosperous than ever before.
    And every single year I have had to fight the other party in 
Congress for funds for the Partnership for the Next Generation Vehicle, 
for funds to promote energy conservation, for funds to develop 
alternative sources of fuel to keep our automobile industry strong and 
our people able to afford to drive and our country more secure--every 
single year.
    So what we need is not to stick our heads in the ground and deny 
that there's a challenge; what we need is what we've had, a genuine 
partnership that will save America's auto industry, create more jobs, 
and lower our alliance on expensive and unreliable fuel. We can do that 
together if we do it.
    Now, let me just say something else. In the last few weeks, since 
the convention, where I thought the Vice President and Senator Lieberman 
made great speeches and laid our program out for the American people, 
our side has been doing pretty well. And their side has had a few 
problems. [Laughter] But one of the things I've learned in life is that 
all those martial arts people--you ever watch those martial arts, the 
judo and karate contests or the tae kwon do contests? You know what they 
do before every match? They bow to their opponents. Why do they do that? 
Because they know that the surest sign of defeat is to disrespect your 
opponent, to underestimate your opponent, to have contempt for your 
opponent.
    So I have said all along, why don't we just call a moratorium on 
personal abuse and attacks? Why don't we posit the fact that our 
adversaries are patriots and good people; they love their families. And 
why don't we thank them for abandoning, or at least appearing to 
abandon, the 20 years of negative politics that they have brought to 
this country's political life and talk in a more inclusive way and thank 
them for that and say, ``Okay, let's have an election on the 
differences.''
    And I can just tell you, I have worked hard to turn this economy 
around, but the best is out there. Believe me. As good as everything is, 
the best stuff is still out there. If you make the right decisions, we 
could bring jobs and economic opportunity to people and places that 
haven't felt it yet.
    I was in Flint today to highlight the possibilities of the Internet 
to educate, empower, and employ people from Michigan with disabilities. 
And it's stunning. I was able to talk in Flint--because we had one of 
the machines there, this new laser technology that operates with the 
eyes--about a friend of mine from North Carolina who has Lou Gehrig's 
disease, who can no longer move any part of his body. He can't speak, 
and he can't move. And when we were friends and working together in the 
eighties, he was a strapping, healthy, charismatic, handsome, active, 
vital guy. But he's an even greater

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person now because of the courage with which he's proceeded. But because 
of new technology, he is about to publish a book he wrote on the 
computer with his eyes. Now, because of new technology, he still can 
work at home and earn a living doing business at the bank he used to 
run--unbelievable.
    So I'm telling you, the best of it is still out there. If you make 
the right decisions, in the next decade you can get rid of child 
poverty; you can give all working families access to affordable health 
insurance; we can take Social Security and Medicare out beyond the life 
of the baby boomers. We can get this country out of debt for the first 
time since 1835. We can generate more jobs in transportation, including 
automobiles, by developing cars that get 80 or 90 or more miles to the 
gallon. And we can clean up the environment and generate hundreds of 
thousands, maybe even millions more jobs. We can do all this stuff if 
you make the right decisions. We've opened the doors of 2 years of 
college to all Americans. We can open the doors of 4 years of college to 
all Americans, if you make the right decisions.
    Every time I see Debbie out here making 
this campaign, and I realize she could have just stayed in Congress and 
enjoyed her seat, rolled along, she knew what she was up against--what I 
see are all the little children that will grow up with a better 
education, have access to college, all the older people that will have 
real medicine when they need it, a genuine Patients' Bill of Rights so 
that the doctors, not the HMO's, will be making your health care 
decisions, and an America with a stronger economy.
    And when I see Al Gore and Joe 
Lieberman, I am telling you, they have a 
different economic policy. You cannot--you cannot--I don't care what 
they tell you these projected surpluses are. Believe me, they're just 
projected. And because I was conservative with your money every year--
every year--first the deficits were less than they were supposed to be, 
and then the surpluses were bigger. But, why? Because I didn't play like 
it was, and I didn't play games with your money.
    Now, they say we've got a $1.8 trillion, or $2.2 trillion, projected 
surplus. That sounds like a lot of money. What they don't tell you is, 
that doesn't assume that Government spending will grow with inflation 
and population, which it's done for 50 years--whack $300 billion off. 
What they don't tell you is that those of you who are upper middle class 
people, if we don't continue to raise the earnings limit on the 
alternative minimum tax, you'll start paying taxes you've got no 
business paying just because you get a pay raise. So we fix that--whack 
another $150 billion off. What they don't tell you is that we don't have 
in there continuing the research and development tax credit, which we've 
got to do if you want to develop these new cars that get high mileage--
whack another $40 billion off. You get the idea. And then the money may 
not come in. And what about the emergencies that could come up along the 
way? We've had to give the farmers $6 billion, $8 billion, $10 billion 
every year for the last 3 years because farm prices have been so bad.
    Now, so when they tell you, ``Hey, what do we care? Our tax cut is a 
trillion and a half dollars, and we'll privatize Social Security for 
young people and guarantee everybody over 55 that they'll get their 
benefits,'' and when you transfer that, it costs a trillion dollars 
more, because if you take money out of Social Security, but you leave 
everybody drawing out the same money, somebody has got to replace it, 
right? They don't ever talk about that. That's another trillion--whack 
$2.3 trillion, $2.5 trillion, $2.8 trillion. You're already back in 
deficits.
    They don't ever say that. I'm telling you, that means higher 
interest rates. That means higher interest rates. Do you know what--I 
got a study last week that said the difference in our candidate's 
economic plan and theirs, going back into deficit, into the Social 
Security Trust Fund, is one percent a year on interest rates. Do you 
know what that's worth to you? Listen to this: $390 billion in home 
mortgages, $30 billion in car payments, and $15 billion in college loan 
payments over a decade.
    In other words, if you do what Vice President Gore wants to do, in interest savings alone, you'll get the 
equivalent of a $425 billion tax cut that will go straight to the 
working families of the United States of America.
    So we've got a different--we have a different economic policy, a 
different energy policy, a different education policy. We want high 
standards, smaller classes, modern schools. We want schools to get more 
aid, but we want to turn around these schools or put them under new 
management, because we know we can turn schools around.
    I was in a school in Harlem the other day, in New York. Two years 
ago 80 percent of the

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kids--80 percent--doing reading and math below grade level; 2 years 
later 74 percent doing reading and math at or above grade level--in 2 
years. We can turn these things around. And they didn't do it by taking 
limited public funds with the largest number of schoolchildren in 
history and siphoning it off into a voucher program. They did it with 
high standards and accountability.
    If you want more choice for parents, pass a statewide school choice 
plan, have more public charter schools. But we don't have enough money 
in education now. We've got more kids than ever before. We've got all 
these facilities that are inadequate. We've got all these schools we 
still have to hook up to the Internet. We need more preschool and after-
school programs. And I'm telling you, the Gore plan is what we've been trying to build on. Just make the 
money accountable. Say, ``Okay, we'll give you the money, but you've got 
to identify the failing schools and turn them around or put them under 
new management. You don't have to put up with schools that don't work.'' 
That's what the teachers want. That's what the good principals want. And 
that's the right thing to do.
    We have a different human rights policy. We're for employment 
nondiscrimination. We're for a hate crimes bill. We're for one America. 
We have a different health care policy. We're for a real Patients' Bill 
of Rights and a real Medicare drug program.
    Now, if you want these things, and you want to achieve these big 
goals, you've got to make the right decision. What Debbie told you was right. Look, this is the first time in 26 
years I haven't been on the ballot, and most days I'm okay about it. 
[Laughter] I tell everybody; my party has a new leader; my family has a new candidate; my new official title is Cheerleader in Chief.
    But I have loved this job, and I have been honored to serve. But you 
have got to know something; you've got to believe me on this. We spent a 
lot of time, John and Carolyn and Debbie and Don 
Riegle and everybody else that served 
with me in the Congress--we spent a lot of time just trying to turn the 
ship of state around and get it going back in the right direction and 
get America coming together instead of being driven apart. And in my 
lifetime, there's never been this much prosperity and promise and 
progress.
    But anybody that's lived to be 30 years of age or more will tell 
you, there's been at least one time in your life when you've made a 
mistake, not because times were tough but because they were so good you 
quit concentrating. [Laughter] Sometimes it's harder to make a good 
decision when times are good than when they're bad. You get lulled 
along. You think there's no real consequence. You just sort of feel one 
day--one way one day and one way another day.
    And you believe stuff like this tax stuff they're saying, based on 
the projected surplus. I told somebody the other day, this projected 
surplus tickles me. This is like those letters you get in the mail from 
Publishers Clearing House. Did you ever get one? Ed McMahon wrote you a 
personal letter and told you, ``You may have won $10 million.'' You may 
have. Did you go spend the money the next day? If you did, you should 
seriously consider voting for the Republicans. But if you didn't--if you 
didn't, you'd better stick with us. I'm dead serious. The best stuff is 
still out there. When Al Gore says, ``You ain't seen nothing yet,'' 
that's not just a campaign statement. That's just not something that 
sounds good. That is the truth, but we have to make the right decision. 
You need this crowd behind you. You need them, all of them.
    Now, if you take this Senate race--down deep inside, people in 
Michigan know that. Otherwise, with all this money that has been spent 
against Debbie, the other fellow would be above 50 percent, and he's not 
there yet, not by a good stretch.
    So I'm telling you, she can win, and she has to win. Al Gore and Joe Lieberman 
have to win. But there are 47 days, and there will be a lot of twists 
and turns in this race before it's over. Respect our opponents. Say 
they're good people. Say we have honest differences. Tell people, even 
though times are good, the best is still out there. Clarify the 
differences. Get people to focus. Don't get tired. We'll have a great 
victory in November.
    Thank you. God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:20 p.m. at the Laurel Manor. In his 
remarks, he referred to Jennifer M. Granholm, Michigan State attorney 
general; Dianne Byrum, candidate for Michigan's Eighth Congressional 
District; Representative Debbie Stabenow, candidate for U.S. Senate in 
Michigan; Matt Frumin, candidate for Michigan's

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11th Congressional District; Marietta Robinson, candidate for Michigan 
State Supreme Court; former Gov. James J. Blanchard of Michigan; former 
Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr.; South African Ambassador to the U.S. 
Sheila Sisulu; former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa; and 
Republican Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates Gov. George W. 
Bush of Texas and Dick Cheney.