[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[September 27, 2000]
[Pages 1967-1974]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a ``Texas Tribute for President Clinton'' in Houston
September 27, 2000

    Thank you very much. I appreciate what Mayor Rendell said, once 
again illustrating the complete accuracy of Clinton's third law of 
politics: Whenever possible, be introduced by someone you've appointed 
to high office. [Laughter] But I loved it.
    I want to thank all of the people who are responsible for this 
wonderful evening tonight. Jess and Betty Jo, thank you so much; Bill and 
Andrea. Thank you, Garry. I thank my friend of nearly 30 years, Billie 
Carr, for being here tonight. And I thank all 
the State legislators and party officials, and especially 
Representatives Max Sandlin and Sheila Jackson 
Lee, who make my life so much easier in 
Washington.
    I thank Lloyd and B.A. Bentsen for being here tonight. I want to tell you, 
I just was with another group over at John Eddie and Sheridan William's 
house, and I said, people are always asking me--we had all this great 
economic news, and they're talking about how brilliant my economic 
advisers were, how brilliant Lloyd Bentsen was, and how brilliant Bob 
Rubin and all the others were, and they 
said, ``What great new innovation did they bring to Washington?'' I 
always say, ``What they brought to Washington was arithmetic.'' 
[Laughter]
    Lloyd and I tell them, ``Where we came 
from, we weren't very smart, and we thought the numbers had to add up, 
or it wouldn't work.'' [Laughter] Sure enough, it worked out all right, 
and the prosperity our country enjoys today is in no small measure 
because of the service that Lloyd Bentsen rendered to our Nation. And I 
thank you so much.
    I want to thank my longtime friend Governor Mark White for being here. We were colleagues together back in the 
long ago, when we were working on improving our schools, and I think the 
children of Texas are still benefiting from a lot of the work you did, 
way back then. And I thank you for being here tonight, Mark.
    And I want to thank the entertainers. I have special feelings about 
all of them. Red Buttons and I were together in 
Los Angeles at an event that we did for Hillary right before the Democratic Convention started. He was 
funny then; he was funnier tonight. And I was thinking, I wonder if I 
can tell those jokes when I'm not President anymore--[laughter]--or will 
I have to wait until I'm 81? [Laughter] But he was great. I loved it. 
The last time he spoke, I wrote down some of the jokes. Tonight I didn't 
even bother to write them down. I know I can't tell them until I get out 
of office. I let it go. [Laughter]
    I want to thank my friend Mary Chapin Carpenter for being here. What an immense talent she is. And 
she's been so generous to me and to our party over these last 8 years. 
I'm very, very grateful to her.

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    And I want to thank Billy Ray Cyrus. I, 
too, will never forget the day we were on the train together going from 
West Virginia to Kentucky. He told me his father was a local Democratic 
official and that, even though he'd enjoyed some success in life, he had 
not strayed from the path his father blazed. We had a great day on that 
train, and I'll never forget it. And I did ask for that song. Every time 
Billy Ray Cyrus sings ``Achy Breaky Heart,'' it reminds me of one thing 
I heard Tina Turner say one time, singing ``Proud Mary,'' which was her 
first hit. When she sang it to us in Arkansas, it was about 25 years 
after she recorded it, and the crowd was cheering. And she said, ``You 
know, I've been singing this song for 25 years, but it gets better every 
time I do it.'' [Laughter] That's the way I feel about him. He was great 
tonight. Let's give them all a hand. [Applause]
    There are people in this room tonight that I first met nearly 30 
years ago. There are people in this room tonight that I haven't yet met, 
and I hope to shake your hand. Most of the people in this room tonight I 
met 28 years ago, plus, probably--almost 29 years ago--are probably 
immensely surprised my life turned out the way it did. [Laughter]
    But we have been friends all this long time. And fate had it that 
the first time I ran for President, I had to run against two guys from 
Texas. And now here I am going out with another nominee of the 
Republican Party from Texas. And throughout it all, I have really 
treasured the people who have supported me and Hillary and Al and Tipper 
Gore and what we tried to do--there's a very large number of Texans who 
have actually participated in our administration and served in one 
capacity or another--and the warm welcome I've always received here.
    So the most important thing I could say to you tonight is a simple 
thank you. I have loved it every time I've been here. I'm grateful, and 
I'm glad we tried to win it, even when we couldn't. It's been a joy, and 
I thank you for that.
    Now, I want to amplify a little on what Ed Rendell said. I'm working as hard in this campaign as I ever have, 
and I'm not running for anything. For the first time since 1974, I'm not 
on the ballot. Most days I'm okay about it. [Laughter] I tell everybody, 
now that my party has a new leader and my 
family has a new candidate, I'm the 
Cheerleader in Chief in America, and I'm glad to do it.
    I'd just like to take a couple of moments tonight to ask you to 
think about the future. I am very grateful that our country is better 
off today, by virtually every measure, than it was 8 years ago. And I am 
grateful for whatever role I and our administration had in it. But I am 
quite sure that the stakes in this election, though very different in 
2000 than 1992, are every bit as high, perhaps higher. And if you'll 
just give me a couple of minutes, I'll try to tell you why, because I 
want to ask you to do something about it, even beyond the contribution 
you've made tonight.
    When I ran for President, I know the American people took a chance 
on me. My opponent, the incumbent President, used to refer to me as, 
after all, just the Governor of a small southern State. And back in '92, 
I was so naive, I thought it was a compliment. [Laughter] And you know 
what? After all this time, I still do. So I can imagine how many people 
in 1992 went into the polling place saying, ``My God, can I really vote 
for that guy? He's 46 years old and may not be old enough to be 
President. He's just been the Governor of that little bitty State, 
wherever it is. All the Republicans just say terrible things about it, 
and every now and then the media helps them along a little bit. Maybe I 
shouldn't do this. Oh, it's a big chance.'' I just wonder how many 
people went in there and said, ``Oh, heck, I'm going to do it anyway.''
    But come on, it wasn't that big a chance, because the country was in 
a ditch. I mean, we knew we had to change, right? [Laughter] Now, it's 
different. Now we have peace and prosperity, the absence of internal 
crisis or looming, looming external threat to our existence. And people 
sort of feel like they're free to do whatever they want with this 
election.
    I don't agree with that. I think I can say that, maybe with greater 
conviction and credibility because I'm not a candidate. I can't say it 
much better than I did out in Los Angeles, but I want you to know that 
all my life I have hoped that my country would be in the position it's 
in now, with prosperity and peace, where we're coming together, not 
being driven apart; and where we're not up to our ears in debt anymore; 
and we've actually got the chance to build the future of our dreams for 
our children. When Al Gore says, ``You ain't seen nothing

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yet,'' I know it seems like a campaign slogan, but I actually believe 
it. I believe it, because it took a good while for us to turn this 
country around.
    I announced today that this year we'd have a surplus of $230 billion 
this year, the biggest in the history of the United States; that by the 
end of the year, when I leave office, over the last 3 years we will have 
paid down $360 billion on the national debt. We will have reduced the 
debt by that much. Now, if I had come here in 1992 and said, ``I want 
you to vote for me, and we'll balance the budget in 1997. And then in 
'98, '99, and 2000, we'll run surpluses, and by the time I leave, we'll 
pay off $360 billion of the national debt.'' Keep in mind, that year the 
deficit was $290 billion, projected to be $455 billion this year. We had 
$4 trillion in debt. We were spending almost 14 cents of every dollar 
that you pay in taxes just paying interest on that debt. So if I said, 
``Hey, vote for me, and I'll begin to get us out of debt,'' you'd say, 
``You know, he seems like such a nice person. It's too bad he's 
imbalanced.'' [Laughter] Nobody would have believed that. Arithmetic.
    Now, we also know that, as the study showed yesterday, poverty's at 
a 20-year low. Now all income groups' incomes are increasing more or 
less the same percentage terms. Last year we had the biggest drop in 
poverty every recorded for Hispanics and African-Americans. We had a 34-
year--the largest poverty drop for children in 34 years. Two million 
people moved out of poverty this last year alone. Median income for 
Americans exceeded $40,000, for the first time in history. In real 
dollar terms, after inflation, the average family's income has gone up 
$6,300 since 1993.
    Now, this is not just about money. You heard Ed Rendell talking about it. It's not just about money. One of 
my other laws of politics is: Whenever you hear a politician tell you 
this is not a money problem, 5 will get you 10 they're talking about 
somebody else's problem, not their problem. What do I mean by that? Work 
and a decent income gives dignity to life, structure to families, pride 
to children, and the room, the emotional as well as the financial space 
to do the other things that we really care most about in life.
    So I want to say that I don't think all these things that have 
happened were an accident. We had a different economic policy, a 
different education policy, a different environmental policy, a 
different health care policy, a different crime policy, a different 
welfare policy, a different foreign policy, and we had a different 
policy about what kind of country we were going to be and whether I was 
going to bring this country together across the racial and religious and 
other lines that divide us or keep on playing the politics of divide and 
conquer. And I choose unity, and I think it was the right decision. 
That's the Democratic decision.
    So here we are, all dressed up, and where are we going to go? I want 
to just say two things about it. Number one, even though there is no 
apparent internal threat and external crisis, there are big challenges 
out there. And we can now meet them, because we're in shape to meet 
them. We were handcuffed from meeting them 8 years ago. I'll tell you 
what some of them are and what we can do.
    We've got the biggest and most racially, ethnically, religiously 
diverse group of school kids in the history of our country. We can give 
them all a world-class education. We actually know how to do it, and 
there are examples in virtually every State where it has been done, 
against all the odds. But if we want it, we have to have what I would 
call a standards-plus approach. We've got to have high standards and 
accountability. But we've also got to be able to invest in modern 
schools, in Internet connections, in smaller classes, in well-trained 
teachers, and after-school programs for the kids that need it.
    But if we're willing to do it and have accountability, we can get 
there. We have to decide. I think we'll pay a terrible price if we don't 
do it. If we do it, we will be the country of all those in the world 
best prepared for the global information age, because of our diversity.
    Second thing, we've got to get ready for the aging of America. You 
live to be 65 in America today, your life expectancy is 82, highest in 
the world. Pretty soon, the fastest growing group of people in the 
world--Lloyd's going to live to be 120, but--
fastest growing group of people in the world--in America are people over 
80, in percentage terms.
    The young people in this audience that have not had their children 
yet, when you have your children, if you have them over the next 10 
years, starting within a couple years, young mothers will bring home 
from the hospital with their babies a little genome card that will be 
the inevitable result of the sequencing of the

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human genome, which I'm very proud was completed during my tenure. And 
I'm proud of the support we gave it, although a lot of countries worked 
on it and it's been worked on for years. But anyway, this little card 
that will say, now, your little girl or your little boy has the 
following genetic makeup, and there are the following problems in the 
gene map of your baby's body which may, for example, make it more likely 
for your child to develop Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's or breast 
cancer. But if you do the following 10 things, you can cut the risk by 
80 percent. That's going to happen. And then, pretty soon after that, 
they'll figure out a way to fix the broken parts of the gene, so that it 
won't be any time before the young people here, when they have their 
babies, will be bringing home children who have a life expectancy at 
birth of 90 years. Now, that's the good news.
    But when the baby boomers retire, there's only going to be two 
people working for every one person drawing Social Security. And I think 
I can speak for my generation when I say, one of our nightmares is, we 
don't want our kids to go bankrupt or be unable to raise our 
grandchildren because of our retirement. So we have to protect and save 
and extend the life of Social Security and Medicare and add that 
prescription drug benefit, so that old age will be good and full and 
active as possible, but not a burden on our children and grandchildren--
huge challenge. Every advanced economy in the world's facing it.
    What are we going to do about global warming, and how are we going 
to keep getting enough energy to do what we have to do? Will we have to 
have more energy in the world? Of course, we will. Will we have to 
conserve more? You bet we will. Can we do both and protect and improve 
the environment? Absolutely.
    I'll give you one example. We've been funding research at the 
Agriculture Department on how to make ethanol energy efficient. The 
problem with all these biofuels is, it takes 7 gallons of gasoline to 
make 8 gallons of ethanol. But we're right on the verge of a chemical 
breakthrough that is the equivalent of what happened when crude oil was 
cracked chemically so that it could be refined and turned into gasoline 
or heating oil. And when that happens, you'll be able to make 8 gallons 
of biofuel off any Texas farm from one gallon of gasoline. And when that 
happens, it will be like getting 500 miles to the gallon. We're also 
very close to fuel cells, to alternative energy sources, which will 
dramatically change the future of transportation.
    So, can we grow the economy, have enough energy, and improve the 
environment at the same time? You bet we can, but not by accident. We'll 
have to decide. Now, those are just three issues. I could mention a 
zillion more. But we have to decide.
    And the thing that has bothered me about--it bothers me about all 
elections, but it really bothers me now, because people have got to 
really think about this. Everybody kind of knew what the deal was in 
'92. So if you had a lot of that kind of smoke-and-mirrors coverage and 
it was this issue this week, underlying it, everybody knew what the deal 
was. Were we going to change or not? And in '96 everybody knew what the 
deal was. Has Bill Clinton done a good enough job for us to extend his 
contract? That was the issue. Were we going to build a bridge to the 
21st century we could all walk across?
    Here we are in the 21st century. We all walked across it. Now where 
are we going, now that we're on the other side and we have the freedom 
to decide? And I will say again, sometimes it's harder to make a good 
decision when times are good than when they're bad. There's not a person 
in this room tonight over 30 years old who has not made a doozy of a 
mistake at least once in your life, not because your back was against 
the wall but because things were going so well for you, you thought you 
didn't have to concentrate. That is a condition of age; I can say that 
everybody's been there. Countries are no different. We have to decide 
what we are going to do with this moment of prosperity.
    Last point: There are real differences. We don't have to bad-mouth 
the Republicans, and they don't have to bad-mouth us. They might feel 
like they do, but they don't. And I'll say again what I said in Los 
Angeles. I wish we could just all stand up and say, ``Look, why don't we 
say between now and November 7th, we will posit that our opponents are 
good, patriotic, God-fearing people, who love their families and love 
their country and will do what they think is right? And why don't they 
posit the same things about us, so that we could get about the business 
of making an intelligent choice which requires us to understand what the 
differences are?''

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    Here's where you come in. There are real differences here, and 
they'll affect the lives of everybody in this room and especially the 
young people. And they will determine whether we will make the most of a 
kind of a chance a country gets maybe once every 50 years to build the 
future of our dreams for our kids.
    Look at the economic choice. Do you like where we are and what we're 
doing? The Democratic plan is to have a tax cut that's focused on long-
term care, child care, college education deductions, and retirement 
savings, that's small enough to let us invest in education, health care, 
and the energy and national defense and other issues we have to deal 
with, and still get this country out of debt in 12 years, so we can keep 
interest rates coming down, keep the economy going.
    Their plan is to spend three-quarters of the non-Social Security 
surplus, and we all agree that we shouldn't ever spend the taxes you're 
paying for Social Security again, except for Social Security. That's 
what they say. They want to spend three-quarters of it on a tax cut that 
a lot of you here would get more money out of than ours; otherwise--if 
you could afford to pay the ticket tonight, you'd get more money.

[A portion of the President's remarks were missing from the transcript 
released by the Office of the Press Secretary.]

    They also want to partially privatize Social Security, which, if 
you're good in the stock market and you're under 40, might be good for 
you. But they say, if they're going to give you back 2 percent of your 
payroll to invest as you see fit but they're going to guarantee 
everybody who's 55 or over--which next year will include me--and they're 
going to give us what we'd be entitled to anyway. Well obviously, if you 
take the money out, you've got to put it back in, right? So there's a 
$1.6 trillion tax cut. Then there's a $1 trillion payback to Social 
Security. Okay, you've already spent all the non-Social Security surplus 
and some of the Social Security tax. And this is before you factor in 
Government spending going up at not only inflation but inflation plus 
population growth, which is done for 50 years; before you change the 
rules so that upper middle class people don't have their income taxed 
away by something called the alternative minimum tax, just by raising 
their income. That costs another couple of hundred billion dollars--
before you allow for any emergencies--and we spent $30 billion on the 
farms in the last 4 years, because the farm prices have been so low. In 
other words, they're taking us back to deficits.
    But the good news is, you get a nice quick hit, if you're in an 
upper income group, of a nice tax cut, and then 3 or 4 years later, you 
say, ``Oh, my goodness, we're back in the soup again.'' And then what 
happens? Interest rates will be higher. My Counsel of Economic Advisers 
says that our plan will keep interest rates a point lower, every year 
for a decade. Do you know what that's worth to an average person--10 
years worth? It--$390 billion in lower home mortgages, $30 billion in 
lower car payments, $15 billion in lower college loan payments, from 
lower interest rates. Never mind what it does for business--more loans, 
more jobs, more investment, and a better stock market.
    So you've got to decide if you want the money now. If you want to 
take the money and run now, you should be for them. If you like what's 
happened in the last 8 years, you want us to take advantage of this to 
deal with the big challenges, to give a tax cut we can afford, and get 
this country out of debt for the first time since 1835, you should be 
with us. But no American should be under the illusion that there is not 
a stark, clear choice that will affect the lives of our children. And 
that's what this election ought to be about.
    You take health care. We're for a Patients' Bill of Rights. At least 
for me, not because I'm against managed care; I was for managed care. 
When I became President, inflation in medical costs was going up at 3 
times the rate of normal inflation. It was going to bankrupt the 
country. But the problem with any management system is, sometimes it 
forgets--any system--why you organize it in the first place. The point 
is not to make the most money you can. The point is to make the most 
money you can and spend the least money you can, consistent with the 
real objective, which is the health of the American people covered in 
the health care plan.
    Now, this is a big deal. You know how many people in America today 
have health care their doctors recommend for them delayed or denied, 
every year? Eighteen million people. Now, if we pass a law that said, 
you've got a right to see a specialist if your doctor says so; if you 
get hurt, you've got a right to go to the nearest emergency room, not 
one clear across town that happens to be covered by the HMO; if you

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change jobs, but you're undergoing a cancer treatment or you're 
pregnant, you can stay with the same doctor until your treatment's over; 
if you get hurt by a bad decision, you've got a right to sue--that's our 
Patients' Bill of Rights. And it covers everybody.
    Their Patients' Bill of Rights leaves about a 100 million people 
out, and they have fought the right to sue. Well, without the right to 
sue, it's a patients' bill of suggestions, not a Patients' Bill of 
Rights. So we're for it. They're not.
    Why aren't they for it? Well, the health insurance companies don't 
want it, and they're trying to scare us by saying that it will cost a 
lot of money. The problem is that their own Congressional Budget Office 
says it costs less than $2 a month for insurance policy. Wouldn't you 
pay $1.80 a month to make sure that if she gets hit by a car going out 
of here tonight, she can go to the nearest hospital? And a month later, 
if the doctor says she needs a specialist and an accountant says she 
doesn't, she gets to see the specialist? I'd pay $1.80 a month for that. 
It's the right thing to do.
    But we're different. We're different on this Medicare drug issue. 
Don't you be fooled by all the smoke and mirrors here. Let me tell you 
what--our position is simple. People are living longer. The older you 
get, the more medicine you get. If you get the right medicine and right 
amounts at the right time, you live longer, and you live better, and 
eventually you save money because you stay out of the hospital.
    Their position is--their stated position is, ``We can't afford to 
have a Medicare drug program that's voluntary but available to all 
seniors on Medicare. So we want to pay for people up to 150 percent of 
the poverty line and help other people by insurance, health insurance 
for medicine. And the Democrats just want a big Government program.'' 
Well look, Medicare is not a big Government program, right? We financed 
it. The doctors are private. The nurses are private. The health care is 
private, and the administrative cost is under 2 percent. It works.
    Now, what's the real difference here? Their program would not help 
half of the seniors who need to be in this program because they can't 
afford to buy the medicine the doctor says they're supposed to have. Why 
are they really against it? Because the drug companies don't want it. 
Now, that doesn't make any sense, does it? Why wouldn't the drug 
companies want to go and sell more medicine? Most people in business 
like to increase their sales, not restrict them. Why is that? Because 
they believe that if the Government has this health insurance that 
covers medicine, that we'll buy so much of the medicine that we'll be 
able to use our market power--this is not price controls, our market 
power--to keep the price of the medicine down. And they charge a lot 
more for medicine--made in America--in America, than they do in Canada 
or Europe or anyplace else.
    And the Republicans want to say they want to help everybody, so they 
say, ``Well, you can get insurance if you're over 150 percent of the 
poverty line.'' The problem is--and here's--with all the fights I've had 
with the health insurance companies, I take my hat off to them. They 
have been scrupulously honest in this. The health insurance companies 
have told the Republicans in the Presidential race and in the Congress 
that they cannot write a policy that people can buy, that this is not an 
insurable thing, and that in order for them to write a policy they can 
justify, the premiums would be so high, nobody would buy it.
    Now, the State of Nevada--the amazing thing about the Republicans 
is, they keep pushing this, in the face of all the evidence. I kind of 
admire that. Evidence has no impact on them. [Laughter] You know, this 
is about conviction. Never mind the evidence. ``Yes, the Democrats got 
rid of the deficit, but we still want to cut these taxes until there's 
nothing left.''
    This is really serious. The State of Nevada passed a plan just like 
this. You know how many insurance companies have written insurance for 
medicine for seniors in Nevada since they passed the plan that the 
Congress and their Presidential nominee 
recommend? Zero. Not one. Why? Because the insurance companies know this 
is not an insurable deal. That's why it ought to be done under Medicare.
    Now, why don't they really want to cover everybody? Because they 
want to keep the prices up. Now, let me be fair; I'm not trying to 
demonize them. There's a reason they want to keep the prices up: because 
it costs a lot of money to develop these drugs. We spend a lot of your 
tax money developing medicine, and they spend a lot of money. And they 
know that if they can recover 100 percent of the cost of developing 
these drugs from you, then they can sell them cheap in Canada and Europe 
and still make a profit, and they won't let them charge that much over 
there.

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    Now, I'm sympathetic. I'm proud of our pharmaceutical companies. 
They do a great job. But I'll be darned if I think they ought to be able 
to keep American seniors, who need medicine to stay alive and lengthen 
their lives and improve the quality of their life, away. And it's a big 
difference in these two parties, and I think we're right and they're 
wrong. And the American people ought to understand that difference, and 
you ought to help them understand it between now and the elections.
    So these are just three examples: the economy; the Patients' Bill of 
Rights; Medicare drugs. There are significant and important differences 
on education, where we favor putting 100,000 teachers in the classroom 
to lower class sizes. We favor a school construction program to help 
lower the cost of building new schools and repairing old ones, and 
they're opposed to it. Both sides favor accountability, but ours is 
accountability-plus. There are differences on every single issue like 
that.
    There are big issues. The next President's going to appoint between 
two and four Justices on the Supreme Court. These people--assume they're 
good people, and they believe what they say. They believe very different 
things about how the rights of the American people should be defined. 
And since they're both honorable, we have to assume that they will make 
appointments to the Supreme Court consistent with their convictions. It 
would be wrong to assume anything else.
    So what does all this mean for you? It means you have got to go out 
of here; every one of you has got friends that live in Max Sandlin's 
district or one of these other districts where there's a tough fight in 
Texas. Every one of you has friends who live in States that could go 
either way in this Presidential election, and every one of you knows a 
lot of people who have every intention of voting but have never come to 
a fundraiser, have never come to a political event, have never met the 
President or anybody running for President. But they want to be good 
Americans, and they're going to show up on election day. But they follow 
all this static that goes back and forth. I mean, I can hardly keep up 
with it, you know?
    One week we're being told that Governor Bush has done something dumb and bad, and blah, blah, blah, and 
then we're being told, ``Well, maybe the press is getting too tough on 
him.'' So the next week they really dump on Vice President Gore, and they give it to him. And then the American 
people are told, ``Oh, he's done something terrible, blah, blah, blah.'' 
And the Democrats and Republicans, they jump whichever way the press is 
going. They're happy or sad, so they all jump in. And the truth is, most 
of it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. The stuff I'm talking to you 
about is where the rubber hits the road. There are real differences that 
will change the lives of the people in this country, depending on the 
choices made.
    So I can't do this to everybody, but you can. And if you made up 
your mind--you look at how many people are in here--if you made up your 
mind that every day between now and the election you were just going to 
talk to one person and explain why you were here, why you feel the way 
you do, and what a phenomenal opportunity we have, it would be 
breathtaking.
    In our lifetime, we'll see babies born with a life expectancy of 90 
years. We will see people cure Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and maybe 
even get to reverse Alzheimer's. We'll find out what's in the black 
holes in outer space and the deepest depths of the ocean, which may be 
even more surprising to us. People will be driving cars that get 80 to 
100 miles a gallon or maybe even more if the biofuel thing works out.
    We'll figure out how to deal with these frightening prospects of 
terrorists with chemical and biological weapons, allied with 
narcotraffickers, and all the problems. The problems will still be 
there. But I'm telling you, the main thing is, we ought to stick in this 
election and fight for clarity because we have a candidate for 
President and Vice President, we have candidates for Congress. We have a party 
with a record of 8 years proving two things above all: We understand the 
future, and we'll fight for it. And it's more important to us than 
anything else that we go forward together.
    We believe everybody counts; everybody ought to have a chance; we 
all do better when we help each other. I was raised on that, and as 
modern as the Internet world is, it's still the best lesson you can take 
into politics, every single day. If you get clarity out there in this 
election, I'm not a bit worried about how it's going to come out. You 
make sure everybody understands it as well as you do, and we'll have a 
great celebration on November 7.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

[[Page 1974]]

Note: The President spoke at 7:52 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. In 
his remarks, he referred to Edward G. Rendell, general chair, and Jess 
Hay, former finance chair, Democratic National Committee; Mr. Hay's 
wife, Betty Jo; Bill White, former chair, and Billie Carr, executive 
council member, Texas State Democratic Party; Mr. White's wife, Andrea; 
former Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro; former Secretaries of the 
Treasury Lloyd Bentsen and Robert E. Rubin; Secretary Bentsen's wife, 
Beryl Ann (B.A.); John Eddie Williams, Jr., managing partner, Williams 
and Bailey law firm, and his wife, Sheridan; former Gov. Mark White of 
Texas; entertainer Red Buttons; musicians Mary Chapin Carpenter and 
Billy Ray Cyrus; and Republican Presidential candidate Gov. George W. 
Bush of Texas. A portion of these remarks could not be verified because 
the tape was incomplete.