[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[October 14, 2000]
[Pages 2191-2198]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Reception for Governor Gary Locke in 
Seattle
October 14, 2000

    Thank you so much. I am really glad Gary decided to have the event 
in this Washington.
    I want to say, first of all, thanks to your wonderful attorney 
general. Christine, you have been a 
great attorney general. You have been

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a leader for the whole Nation, and I could have listened to you give 
that cheerleading speech all night long. I think you have a limitless 
future, and I wish you well. And I thank you for being here and for all 
you've done.
    I want to thank Gary and Mona Locke for 
being such good friends to Hillary and me and for the example they set 
by their leadership. I also think they've set a good family values 
example by having those two beautiful children since they've been in 
politics. I think that's a very good thing.
    Mayor Schell, it's great to be back in 
Seattle, and I want to thank your State party chair, Paul 
Berendt. And I want to introduce one person I 
think has not been introduced tonight, maybe. And maybe before I got 
here, he was. But our national Democratic chair, Ed Rendell, from Philadelphia, is here. Thank you, Ed.
    And I believe one of our candidates for Congress, Rick 
Larson, is here. If he is, let's give him a big 
hand. [Applause] And I want to say a special word of appreciation and 
gratitude, and I want to say a little more about her later, but I want 
to say a special word of appreciation to Maria Cantwell. I am grateful that she has run for the Senate, and I 
hope you will make sure she wins.
    Now, as perhaps most of you know, after I finish my rounds in 
Washington tonight, I'm going to red-eye back to the other Washington 
and give my crew a little rest. I had intended to spend the night here 
and go to Portland in the morning and on down to California, but I am 
going to fly to the Middle East tomorrow.
    Last week was an amazing week for our crowd. It was heartbreaking 
when we lost those sailors on the U.S.S. Cole. I talked to the 
captain of the ship and others in the chain 
of command and thank them on behalf of the American people and say that 
our prayers are with the families. And Wednesday we will have a memorial 
service for them on the East Coast. Those who were killed and those who 
are wounded are being brought home, starting today.
    And we've had these terrible turn of events in the Middle East which 
has been heartbreaking for me. I was at the airport earlier, and a man 
came up to me and asked me to sign the remarks I made on September 19, 
1993, when Mr. Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed the peace accord, 
committing themselves to a process that would lead to peace. I have seen 
so much progress in the last 7\1/2\ years, so it's been a very difficult 
and painful experience.
    But I also want to say, last week when the number two leader in 
North Korea came to see me, after the President 
of South Korea had gone to North Korea and 
justifiably won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing so and for a lifetime of 
courageous standing up for democracy and freedom, I was thinking that 
when I took the oath of office in January of 1993 and I got all my 
security briefings starting from the time I was elected, everybody said 
the most dangerous place in the whole world is North Korea. ``You've got 
to really worry about this. You know, they've got a nuclear program. 
It's going to be terrible. You've got to do something about it.''
    So first we got the nuclear program shut down, and then we began to 
deal with them and insist that they had to deal with the South. And then 
our former Defense Secretary, Bill Perry, went to see them and said, 
``Look, you know, you're still making all these missiles. Our 
relationship has got to get better or worse. It can't just stay the 
same.'' And Kim Dae-jung got elected President, and he said, ``It's time 
we bury the hatchet and try to find ways to live in peace.'' And the 
rest is history. So what I thought would be the most dangerous problem 
for our children and grandchildren 8 years ago may not be now, if, God 
willing, we can keep it going.
    And then the people of Serbia elected a new President. And I knew if the United States had not stood 
against ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo and kept those economic 
sanctions on, that the moment would not have arrived for the people to 
do right. And so I was very grateful last week, too. And it's a sober 
reminder that we have to keep plugging away at the things we believe in.
    And I wanted to come out here today because I've missed 3 or 4 days 
of work already traveling the country in this season. And I wanted to 
come here, if for no other reason, to just have one more chance to say 
thank you to the people of Washington for being so very good to me and 
Hillary and Al and Tipper Gore these last 8 years, for giving us your 
electoral votes twice, and I hope you're about to make it three in a 
row.
    And I also wanted to say why it is so important that you spend every 
minute you can in your very busy lives talking to other people

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about this election between now and election day, because every one of 
you has a lot of friends who have never been to an event like this. 
Isn't that right? You have a lot of friends. You work with them. You 
worship with them. You socialize with them. They never go to things like 
this. But they'll vote because they love their country. And it's 
important that they understand what the issues are.
    In an amazing way, in this election I can tell you that there is 
such clarity of difference, even though the other side often tries to 
muddy it up. And I don't blame them, because if everybody figures it 
out, they'll lose, and we'll win. [Laughter]
    But I've learned--you know, I was a Governor for a dozen years 
before I became President. I loved it. I don't think I would have ever 
gotten tired of it. And I know that no matter how good the economic 
policy of the country is, no matter how good our educational policy is, 
our health care policy, our environmental policy--the way America works, 
the people of this State cannot fully benefit from it unless you have a 
good Governor and good leadership. And if you do, you can do better, 
even, than the rest of us are doing.
    And I've really had the opportunity over the last several years to 
get to know Gary and Mona. I'm crazy about 
them, personally. I think they're wonderful people. They embody my idea 
of where we're going as a country.
    Indeed, all Washington State does. You are today, and you are 
tomorrow. You are the most connected State to the global economy and one 
of the most wired States in America. [Laughter] And you are one of the 
most diverse States in America. And part of your diversity is, you also 
have a lot of people of European heritage who still live in little, 
rural towns and make a living on the farm.
    And so you represent today and tomorrow. You're doing so well. Part 
of the reason you're doing so well is, you've got a great Governor, and 
you need to keep him.
    Now, I also would say that no one in America understands any more 
clearly than I do how important every single Senate seat and every 
single House seat is. And I said something about Maria 
Cantwell before. I was thrilled when I met 
her when I became President. Here is a person who really is a New 
Democrat, a person who understands the economy but wants it to work for 
everybody, a person that believes in fiscal responsibility and is 
actually, unlike most politicians, actually willing to do something 
about it, not just talk about it.
    And I want to say, one of the amazing things to me is that her 
opponent is still trying to attack 
her for voting for the '93 economic plan by 
picking out one little piece of it that he can make look unpopular now, 
without pointing out that we cut taxes for 10 times as many people as 
paid taxes and higher taxes, and that most of the people that paid 
higher taxes were in Maria's income bracket. [Laughter] And she voted 
for it anyway.
    And you know, her opponent and all those 
Republicans, they voted against it, every last one of them. And they 
said if my economic plan passed, the world would come to an end; we 
would have a recession; people would lose their jobs; the deficit would 
get bigger. Time has not been kind to their predictions.
    I'll say this, you've got to give it to the Republicans; they are 
never deterred by the facts and the evidence. [Laughter] They are 
shameless. You know, they'll just go right on just like nothing ever 
happened. [Laughter] And I say that because if she hadn't been willing to put her entire political career 
on the line, one vote, we wouldn't have passed that plan. And if you 
think Washington State is in better shape today than it was 8 years ago, 
then you have an obligation to tell every person you know between now 
and November 7th to vote for Gary Locke and for this great candidate for 
the United States Senate, Maria Cantwell.
    In the parlance of my home region, I know I'm preaching to the saved 
tonight, but I want to say a few things. [Laughter] First of all, I want 
to say congratulations to the Mariners. But I hope you'll understand, 
since I have more than a passing interest in the Senate race in New 
York--[laughter]--why this may be the only issue in 8 years I don't side 
with you on. [Laughter]
    Look, I want you to listen a minute. I want you to think about this. 
I want you to think about all the people who you'll see between now and 
the election. And if they ask you, ``Why should I vote for Maria 
Cantwell? Why should I vote for Gary Locke? 
Why should I vote for Al Gore and Joe 
Lieberman,'' can you give them an 
answer?
    Here is what I want you to understand. Clarity is our friend. And 
there are big differences with real consequences to the American people,

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to every single family in Washington State. We have a different 
philosophy. We believe that everybody who is responsible ought to have 
an opportunity to be a part of the American dream. We believe we ought 
to all be part of the same community and that we should go forward 
together. We believe in Government that gives people the tools and the 
conditions to make the most of their own lives. We believe that you can, 
as Gary said and as Christine said, be pro-economic growth and pro-
environment, pro-business and pro-labor. That's what we believe.
    We believe that in order for people to succeed at work, you have to 
help them succeed in raising their kids and balancing work and family. 
And we think all this diversity of ours is the greatest thing in the 
world, that it's a more interesting country if we respect our 
differences and if we reaffirm our common humanity. That's what we 
believe, and so far, it has worked out pretty well.
    What does that mean in practical terms? It means if you want to keep 
the prosperity going, you've got a clear choice here. Now, Gary wants to 
be effective, as well as reelected, and he wants Washington to keep on 
having a great economy. You've got a big choice here, and you heard it 
in these two debates. It was sort of buried in the weeds and, for 
reasons I'll never understand, not very well publicized.
    But in the first Presidential debate, the Republican candidate admitted that he had a tax cut of about a trillion 
and a half bucks and that it would cost another trillion to partially 
privatize Social Security. And then there are hundreds of billions of 
dollars in spending promises. So you're already back to deficits. But if 
you're in a high-income group, you can get a bunch of money out of it 
right now.
    Our leader, Al Gore, says, ``Look, I'd like to tell you the same 
thing, but it's not responsible. So I want to pay off the debt, keep 
interest rates coming down, save some money to invest in education, 
health care, and the environment and defense, and give you a tax cut we 
can afford.''
    Now, you've got a choice. You know, we've tried it our way for 8 
years, and we tried it their way for 12 years. And you ought to go out 
and tell people, if they want to go back to deficits and higher interest 
rates and a weaker economy, they've got a clear choice.
    But it's not like--we can't pretend there's no choice here. We can't 
pretend there's no difference here. There is a record. There is 
evidence. There is a difference.
    And let me say, a lot of the things I've heard are just flat bogus 
on the economy. You know, they say, ``We trust you with your money. They 
want Government to run your lives.'' You know? That's their new shtick, 
you know? That's basically a sort of modernized, more--a kinder, gentler 
version of what they've been saying since 1980.
    Now, here are the facts, okay? Fact number one: Under the leadership 
of Al Gore, we have reduced the size of the 
Federal Government to its lowest point since 1960, when Eisenhower was 
President--fact number one. Fact number two: Government spending as a 
percentage of our national income is the lowest it's been since 1966. 
Fact number three--here's the biggest one--fact number three: If Al Gore 
wins the Presidency, in 4 years Government spending will be a smaller 
percentage of national income under a Gore Presidency than under the 
alternative, even though we're going to spend more on education and 
health care.
    How can that be? You need to think about it. You need to talk to 
people about this. How can that be? Because he's going to keep paying off the debt, and that will make 
interest rates lower. That will make the stock market higher, making all 
of you that own Microsoft happy and everything else. [Laughter] It will 
make the stock market higher. It will mean lower costs for business 
loans, and it will mean everybody will pay lower mortgage rates, lower 
credit card rates, lower college loan rates, lower car payment rates. In 
other words, everybody will get that tax cut in lower interest rates. 
And because the third-biggest item in the Federal budget is interest on 
the debt--after Social Security and defense, interest on the debt is the 
third-biggest item in the budget--as we pay it down, even though the 
Democrats will spend more on education and health care and send it to 
Governor Locke so he can be more effective for you, Government will 
actually be a smaller percentage of the economy than it will if you pass 
this big tax cut, privatize Social Security, and run a deficit again.
    You need to explain that to people. I think people like it our way, 
and they want to keep changing in that way.

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    Now, but you only get it if you vote for Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, Maria 
Cantwell, your candidates for Congress, and 
Gary Locke. You'll only get it--you know, you do have a choice. You 
don't have to have this good future. [Laughter] You know, you can vote 
with them and go back to the way it was. But don't let your friends 
pretend there's not a choice and there are no consequences.
    Look at health care. Washington passed a Patients' Bill of Rights. 
Good for Washington. Good for Washington. But he'll be the first to tell 
you that because of the way Federal law works, if all the States passed 
a good Patients' Bill of Rights, there would still be a lot of Americans 
who weren't covered. So if you want every American, including every 
person in Washington State, covered with the protections of the 
Patients' Bill of Rights you have, you've got to vote for Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, 
and Maria Cantwell. Why? Why? Because we're 
for it, and they're not. [Laughter]
    And now, they've got something that they say is a Patients' Bill of 
Rights, but 300 health care organizations are for ours and not for 
theirs. Why? Because the health insurers don't want our Patients' Bill 
of Rights, because they don't want to be sued, and they don't want to 
cover everybody, and they say it's going to run your health costs up. 
Well, if you've checked lately, your insurance premiums are going up 
anyway. But let me just tell you what the facts are.
    I put the Patients' Bill of Rights in, by Executive order, for 
everybody the Federal Government pays health care on, Medicare, 
Medicaid, military personnel, retirees, Federal employees. Do you know 
how much it increased premiums? About $1 a month. A dollar a month to 
see a specialist when your doctor recommends it. A dollar a month to be 
able to keep the same doctor if you change health care providers in the 
middle of a pregnancy or a chemotherapy treatment. A dollar a month to 
go to the nearest emergency room if, God forbid, you get hit by a car 
when you walk out of this room tonight, instead of being carried past 
three or four hospitals to one your plan covers. A dollar a month to be 
able to file suit and get redress if you're really harmed by the failure 
to observe these rights.
    Now, even the Congressional Budget Office says it's less than $2 a 
month. I'd pay $1.80 a month to make sure you got those rights, and I 
think most Americans would. It's a clear choice. But if you want it, 
you've got to vote for Al Gore and Joe 
Lieberman and Maria. You've got to. There's no other option. You've got to 
do it.
    You take this Medicare drug thing. The Governor and Mona, they care a lot about children having health care. 
The Children's Health Insurance Program was one of the major initiatives 
of this administration. It's part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. It 
led--last year, for the first time since 1987, we had a reduction in the 
number of people without health insurance in America.
    Now, what we'd like to do, the Democrats, is give them some more 
funds to cover the parents of those kids in the Children's Health 
Insurance Program who are low-income working people. And we think 
Medicare ought to provide a prescription drug benefit that's voluntary 
to every senior that needs it.
    Now, they don't feel that way. Why? Because the drug companies won't 
let them. Now, that's a fact. And originally the drug companies wanted 
to be for nothing, and the Republicans went to them and said, ``You 
don't understand. We can't win this issue. They're going to beat our 
brains out. We need to muddy this up, so give us a bill we can be for.''
    And that's why they say, ``Okay, we'll give it to people up to 150 
or 175 percent of the poverty line, but everybody else gets to buy 
insurance.'' Now, I will say this about the health insurance companies. 
They have told us, they said, ``Hey, there is no insurance policy you 
can write for this problem. We can't write you an insurance policy that 
you can afford that has decent coverage.'' Nevada passed the Republican 
plan and not a single, solitary health insurance company has offered 
insurance to people who need this medicine. And over half of the seniors 
who need affordable medicine are above 150 percent of the poverty line--
over half of them.
    Now, what is the deal here? [Laughter] Did you ever meet anybody in 
a business that didn't want more customers? Have you ever asked 
yourself, why are the drug companies against this thing? They get more 
customers. They sell more medicine. Did you ever meet a politician that 
didn't want more votes? [Laughter] You never hear this. I just want you 
to know. You've got to talk to people about this.
    The reason is--and you don't have to demonize the drug companies. 
We're fortunate to have

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these drug companies in our country. They provide wonderful jobs for 
tens of thousands of people. They find lifesaving drugs every day. But 
here is the issue. It costs a bunch of money to develop the drugs. They 
spend a lot of money to advertise them. And they want to sell them all 
over the world, but they can't recover the development or the 
advertising cost any place but America, because everybody else fixes 
prices.
    Once they get us to pay the development and the advertising costs, 
then it just costs a pittance to make another pill or two, so they can 
sell them and make a killing in Canada or Europe or anywhere else, even 
with price controls, because you've already paid for all the advertising 
and development. And to be fair to them, they know that if Medicare is 
the buyer for millions of people, they'll have enough market power to 
get lower prices so that Americans will buy drugs made in America almost 
as cheap as they can buy them in Canada. And they're worried that their 
profits will go down, and they won't be able to spend enough money to 
develop drugs or to advertise them. Now, that's a legitimate problem. 
Nobody ever talks about this. You haven't heard any of this in the 
debate, have you? That's what the real deal is.
    Now, here's my issue. Surely to goodness the answer to their problem 
is not continuing to deny the elderly people of America the right to 
have the medicine they need to stay alive and improve the quality of 
their lives.
    Now, so let's fix the people's problem. If you live to be 65 in 
America today, your life expectancy is 82 years, and it's going to go 
up. And with the human genome project--there are young women in this 
audience who have yet to have their first children. Within the next 10 
years, they'll start having babies with a life expectancy of 90 years. 
You mark it down. It's going to happen.
    Now, if that's going to happen, we've got to think about what life's 
going to be like. The answer to the drug companies' problem is not to 
deprive our seniors of the ability to buy affordable prescription drugs. 
This is crazy. This is wrong.
    So what I say is, vote for Al Gore and 
Joe Lieberman and Maria and our crowd and take care of the seniors. And those 
folks have a lot of money and influence, in case you hadn't noticed. And 
even though we don't let them tell us how to vote, we're not against 
them, and we'll figure out how to solve their problem. There's got to be 
a solution to their problem that does not require us to punish the 
seniors of America by depriving them of the medicine they need.
    I could give you the same arguments on education. We're for 100,000 
teachers, smaller classes, modernizing our schools, preschool and after 
school for every kid who needs it, and accountability and choice through 
charter schools, which the Democrats brought to America. We had one 
charter school in the whole country when I was elected. We got 1,700 
now, and Al Gore wants to triple the number 
of them. That was our initiative.
    They're for accountability, but they don't want to invest in the 
specific things that the educators and the research tells us works. And 
let me tell you, it's a big myth that you can't turn these public 
schools around. In the last 8 years, the dropout rate is down; the 
graduation rate is up. There has been a two-thirds increase in the 
number of our kids taking advanced placement tests, 300 percent increase 
in Hispanic kids taking advanced placement courses, 500 percent increase 
in African-American kids taking advanced placement courses, all-time-
high college-going rate. You can turn these schools around.
    I think our plan is better than theirs. And I think Gary Locke can 
do more with what the Democrats will do, plus which, we'll invest more. 
So if you want the education for your children that is most likely to 
really work, you've got to vote for Gary Locke and for Maria and for Al Gore and Joe 
Lieberman. There is a difference. There 
is a difference.
    Now, I could give you a lot of other examples. Just listen to this. 
We're for a real hate crimes bill, and they're not. If you heard the 
second debate, you know that. Oh, there was a little shoveling around. 
And I want to put it on the table. It wasn't clear from the debate what 
was going on. The reason the Republicans are not for our hate crimes 
bill and the reason that James Byrd's family in Texas was shut out of 
getting the hate crimes bill they wanted in Texas is that they don't 
want to make their rightwing mad by including gays in protection against 
hate crimes. Now, that's what is going on.
    We had an event in Washington with the police commissioner from 
Wyoming who had to supervise the investigation in the Matthew Shepard 
case. And he said that it changed his

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whole life. He met that young man's family and his friends, and he 
realized how badly he needed Federal hate crimes legislation so the 
Federal Government could come in and help him work that case and develop 
it. There is a difference.
    We're for the employment nondiscrimination law, and they're not. 
We're for a minimum wage increase, and they're not. We think we ought to 
keep a woman's right to choose, and they don't. There's a difference.
    And the environment, there's been a commitment--I will say that the 
other side has been clearer on the environment. The Republican nominee 
has said if he's elected, he will reverse my order setting aside 43 
million roadless acres in the national forests. The Audubon Society said 
it was the most significant conservation move in 40 years. He says they 
will review all the national monuments we have established. And they 
will relax some of the air standards, because they're too hard on 
business.
    Look, anybody who thinks you can't--we got cleaner air, cleaner 
water, safer food. We've cleaned up 3 times as many toxic waste dumps in 
8 years as they did in 12. And the economy's doing reasonably well under 
this enormous environmental burden I have imposed, you know? But you've 
got to choose. You've got to choose.
    We've got a different crime policy. They said that--you know, we 
believe that we should finish putting our 150,000 police on the street. 
And their party is committed to repealing that. It's not just a gun 
issue. They don't believe that we were right to put--we've already put 
over 100,000, and we're on our way to 150,000 police on the street. And 
we've got the lowest crime rate nationally in 26 years and the lowest 
murder rate in 33 years.
    They don't believe in the 3-day waiting period, even though the 
Brady law--which led to the defeat of some of the Congressmen that we 
lost in Washington State in 1994, because they stirred up all the 
hunters and sportsmen, you know? Told them we were coming after their 
guns. You remember all that. They're doing it again now.
    Well, let's just look at the facts here. We passed the Brady bill. 
Half a million felons, fugitives, and stalkers couldn't get handguns 
because we did the background checks. And there hasn't been a single 
hunter, law-abiding hunter or sportsman in Washington State that's 
missed 5 minutes in the woods in hunting season or 5 minutes at any 
shooting contest because we said criminals should not have guns--not 
one.
    So this is bogus. Now look, these are the things you need to talk to 
people about. It will shape the future of our children and 
grandchildren. And you cannot make an easy distinction anymore between 
national and State efforts.
    We can't succeed if Gary Locke is not committed to enrolling 
children in the Children's Health Insurance Program. We can't succeed if 
the State of Washington is not committed to moving people from welfare 
to work and giving them the support they need to stay in the work place. 
We can't succeed if Washington State doesn't have a good education 
program. America can't succeed in Washington if you don't do it.
    On the other hand, what he can do will be severely limited or 
enhanced by who gets elected President and who gets elected to the 
Senate and who gets elected to the House. So I want to say to you again, 
these elections are tight. They're tight because the other guys have 
figured out they can't really do what they did in '95 and '96 and '97 
and '98, so they've got to blur the differences instead of clarify them, 
and they've got a bunch of money to do it.
    What you have to do is clarify the differences. You know the 
American people nearly always get it right. We wouldn't be around here 
after 224 years if the American people didn't nearly always get it 
right, if they have enough information, they understand what it means, 
and they have time enough to digest it.
    And I am telling you--you just think about this tomorrow when you 
get up--every one of you come in contact with people who are friends of 
yours who trust you, every day, who will never come to an event like 
this, never hear this kind of discussion. You need to tell them why you 
were here. You need to tell them what you believe they ought to do, what 
the differences are, what the consequences are.
    And let me just close with this. You know, my party has a new 
leader. My family has a new 
candidate. I'm not running for 
anything. [Laughter] I am profoundly grateful for the chance I have had 
to serve. And I have done everything I know to do to turn the country 
around, to pull us together and move us forward. But in America, our 
public life is always about tomorrow.

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    Maybe once in every 50 years a country gets a chance like we have 
now, where the economy's doing well, the social indicators are 
improving, there's a lot of national self-confidence, there's no 
overwhelming threat to our security abroad or crisis within. The world 
will never be free of problems. But once in 50 years you get in shape 
like this, where you can really imagine what you want the future to be 
like for your children and grandchildren and then go out and build it.
    We ought to be elated to have this election. It should have nothing 
to do with personal attacks. We should posit that our opponents are good 
people who love their families and love their country and will do what 
they believe. But we have to make sure people know that what we believe 
and what they believe on critical things are different, and the 
consequences are profound.
    When Al Gore says in his speeches that you ain't seen nothing yet, I 
know it may sound like a political slogan. But I'm not running for 
anything, and I believe that. I believe the best is still out there. I 
believe that you have no idea where the information revolution, where 
the biotechnology revolution, and where the globalization of not just 
commerce but societies are going to lead us.
    And the children in this audience can live in the most peaceful, 
prosperous, exciting time the world has ever known. But we have to make 
the right decisions. And now, for America and for Washington State, the 
right decisions are Al Gore, Joe 
Lieberman, Maria Cantwell, Gary Locke, and our candidates for the Congress.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 6:30 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the 
Westin Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to State Attorney General 
Christine O. Gregoire; Gov. Locke's wife, Mona Lee Locke; Mayor Paul 
Schell of Seattle; Paul Berendt, chair, Washington State Democratic 
Party; Edward G. Rendell, general chair, Democratic National Committee; 
Rick Larson, candidate for Washington's Second Congressional District; 
Maria Cantwell, candidate for U.S. Senate from Washington; Comdr. Kirk 
S. Lippold, Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Cole; Chairman Yasser Arafat of 
the Palestinian Authority; President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea; 
President Vojislav Kostunica of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 
(Serbia and Montenegro); and Special Envoy Vice Marshal Cho Myong-nok, 
First Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission of North Korea. A 
tape was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.