[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[October 31, 2000]
[Pages 2402-2403]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Reception for Hillary Clinton in New York City
October 31, 2000

    Thank you. Well, first let me say, I understand that Hillary has 
already spoken, so I really don't have to say much. [Laughter] But I 
want to say first, I'm late because the radar went out in Louisville, 
Kentucky, today, and so it took us a while to get off. Even Air Force 
One needs radar because there are incoming planes. So we found some 
innovative way to get here, and I'm glad we made it.
    Niall, thank you; and thank you, 
John. And I thank all of you for being 
here. A lot of interesting people in this crowd tonight--my friend Frank 
McCourt, thank you for being here; and thank 
you, Tom Cahill. Thank you, Gabriel Byrne, for being here. It's nice not to have to go to the 
movies to see you. [Laughter] And I thank all the rest of you for being 
here.
    I want to tell you how grateful I am that somehow, some way, when I 
first started running for President, the Irish in New York found me. It 
happened in other places, too. My friend Neal Hartigan, former attorney general of Illinois, is here from Cook 
County, Chicago. But Bruce Morrison, who 
Hillary and I had known since we were in law school, and a couple of 
other people, somehow they hooked us all up, and we started this 
odyssey. And people thought I was nuts when I said, if I got elected 
President, I would try to help in the Irish peace process. And they 
said--and then I got elected, and then all these people who had helped 
me in other contexts and were steeped in the foreign policy lore of 
America said, ``You can't do that.'' I said, ``But I told them I 
would.'' [Laughter] ``I gave my word; I've got to do this.'' And they 
said, ``But it will be terrible.'' I said, ``It won't be terrible.'' I 
said, ``I love Great Britain; I went to college there.'' I said, ``We'll 
be shoulder to shoulder with Britain on a thousand other things,'' but I 
said, ``Within 6 months, they'll be glad we did this.'' And sure enough, 
they now are.
    So I can't thank those of you enough who started out with me, who 
gave me the chance to do this. It's been one of the greatest things 
about being President, to know that the United States, the home of the 
largest Irish diaspora in the world, had played some positive role in 
bringing that long conflict to an end. Now, we're not out of the woods 
yet, but Mr. Trimble dodged a bullet this 
week, and we still have work to do. And all of you know what it is as 
well as I do. But I just want you to know, for all of you who have 
helped me to do this, I thank you.
    And the second thing I want to thank you for is when 800 of you 
showed up on the White House lawn during a rather difficult time for 
me--[laughter]--and said that the Irish-American community still thought 
that I should serve as President of the United States, which I will 
never forget. I'll never forget that.
    But most important of all to me, I want to thank you for what you're 
doing for Hillary. Because when we started this--and this is, by the 
way, a big issue in the national election, too, Presidential election--
when we started this, and Hillary--you know she went to Northern Ireland 
once without me, in addition to the two times we went together. And she 
was working with all these women in this Vital Voices group, and she 
said, ``If we can just get all these women together, they'd figure out a 
way to get over this problem.'' And I think she made an independent and 
significant contribution to the

[[Page 2403]]

Irish peace process, for which I am very, very grateful.
    And now all over the world she's had these groups of women sort of 
upsetting apple carts, in Africa and Latin America. [Laughter] It turns 
out there are troublesome women everywhere--[laughter]--who don't like 
it when troglodyte males keep wars going on when it makes no sense 
anymore, and conflicts--I mean, it's quite interesting. And I think it's 
been wonderful.
    The only other thing I would say is that I think it's quite 
important that you have come here and contributed, but I think it would 
also be quite important if every day for the last week of this election 
you tell people why you came and why you support her, because people 
need reasons.
    I think that--I'm terrifically happy that the country is in such 
good shape and that we can have an election when there is prosperity, 
when there is social progress, when there is the absence of domestic 
crisis and foreign threat. I'm happy about that. I'm glad that there is 
so much less personal venom in the atmosphere in this election than 
there has been in times past. It never made any sense, and it certainly 
doesn't now. Maybe we've just drawn out a full quota over the last 8 
years; there's none left. [Laughter] But I'm glad for that. But that 
should not obscure the fact that there are serious, significant 
differences between the candidates for the Senate, the candidates for 
President and Vice President, that will have consequences for how we all 
live and work and relate to each other and the rest of the world.
    So the only other thing I'd like to say is that the real problem 
with events like this is, in the parlance of my faith, we're always 
preaching to the saved. And every one of you have friends who will never 
come to an event like this. Isn't that right? You've all got friends--
most of your friends are not as political as you. They'll never come to 
an event like this. They'll never come to an event like this. They'll 
never hear the President give a speech directly, and they'll never do 
all these things that you do. And I just want to ask you in the last 
week to go out and tell them why you came tonight, why it matters that 
they vote, why it matters that they vote for Hillary and the Vice 
President and Senator Lieberman, and what the stakes are, what the consequences are. 
Because I can tell you, they're huge.
    You know, we're either going to build on this prosperity or reverse 
our economic policy. We're either going to keep the social progress 
going or take down the education, health care, crime, and environmental 
policies over the last 8 years. We're either going to keep coming 
together across all the lines that divide us, or walk away from things 
like the hate crimes legislation or the employment nondiscrimination 
legislation, the things that--the Supreme Court appointments that will 
promote civil rights and human rights and bringing us together.
    So these things are big deals, I think, and I just hope that, in 
addition to coming here tonight, you will go out and talk to everybody 
you can--just people you come across that will never come to something 
like this.
    The last thing I want to say is, I'm highly prejudiced about this 
Senate race. [Laughter] It's not fashionable to admit prejudice in 
America today. I've tried to make it highly unfashionable to be 
prejudiced in America. But I am completely prejudiced.
    However, having said that, this is the first time in 26 years I have 
not been on a ballot somewhere. I have had a lot of experience with 
politics and politicians; most of them are better than they got credit 
for being. And I've enjoyed knowing most of those I've known. But of all 
the people I've known, she has the best combination of brains, 
compassion, determination, and ability to get people together and get 
things done. She will be a fabulous Senator. And you need to tell people 
that for the next few days.
    Thank you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 10:35 p.m. in the lobby of the 
Fitzpatrick Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Niall O'Dowd, 
publisher, the Irish Voice; John Fitzpatrick, owner, Fitzpatrick Hotel; 
authors Frank McCourt and Tom Cahill; actor Gabriel Byrne; and Ulster 
Unionist Party leader David Trimble.