[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[November 1, 2000]
[Pages 2413-2415]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Gay and Lesbian Leadership 
Council Dinner
November 1, 2000

    Thank you very much. I will be quite brief because I want to just 
sit around and have a conversation. But I want to begin by thanking all 
of you, especially Andy for taking on this 
role with the Democratic Party. And thank you, Terry, for tonight and for so much else. And I want to thank 
all of you who have helped us along the way, particularly those of you 
who have been part of our administration in some way or another. I'm 
very grateful to you.
    I thought it was quite interesting, you made that reference to 
George Washington's speech to the Jewish community--I've read it several 
times--because it was actually quite a keen insight for a person to have 
in the 18th century, that tolerance implies that a superior group is 
abiding a group that's not equal. And I never thought much of that. I 
always tell people we ought to celebrate our diversity and affirm the 
primary importance of our common humanity, and that's the way I look at 
this.
    I want to thank you, too, for the last 8 years. It's been an honor 
to serve. I'm thrilled that it worked out as well as it did. [Laughter] 
I

[[Page 2414]]

believed 8 years ago, and I believe more strongly today, that we need a 
unifying politics and a unifying policy, which is different from 
soothing words; it has to do with the decisions we make. And for 
example, I thought that you should be part of America's community.
    But I thought it in other ways, too. I thought that we could have an 
economic policy that was pro-business and pro-labor. And, sure enough, 
this is the first time in three decades we not only have the longest 
economic expansion in history, but we've got incomes going up at all 
levels. Average incomes have increased by 15 percent since 1992, after 
inflation--real increase.
    I thought it would be possible to grow the economy and improve the 
environment, and sure enough, it turned out to be true. We have cleaner 
air, cleaner water, safer drinking water, safer food, more land set 
aside than any administration since Theodore Roosevelt, and 3 times as 
many toxic waste dumps cleaned up in our 8 years as in the previous 12, 
under the other party.
    So it seemed to me that you could be for--in education--more 
investment and for higher standards at the same time. And we've got test 
scores going up and the college-going rate at an all-time high.
    I could go through this on and on and on, but I think the point I 
want to make is, we sometimes think that we have to divide things up, 
and what we really have to do is fuse them, unite them, and move forward 
together. And it's worked. Everyone knows the economy is stronger, but I 
think it's worth pointing out, also, we have--for the first time in a 
dozen years, the number of people without health insurance is going 
down, not up. The schools are clearly getting better, and the college-
going rate is at an all-time high. The environment is cleaner. The crime 
rate is at a 26-year low. The welfare rolls are at a 32-year low. Teen 
pregnancy and teen drug abuse are down. The country is moving in the 
right direction.
    And so I think the question we have to ask ourselves--or the three 
questions--that I hope that you'll help us in the next 6 days to ask and 
get answered properly are: Do you want to build on the prosperity, or 
adopt policies that will not allow us to pay the debt down and continue 
to invest in our future but instead will take us back to deficits; do 
you want to build on the social progress, or adopt policies which 
plainly will undermine the direction in which we're going; and the third 
thing and maybe the most important is, how do we take all this effort 
toward one America a step further?
    That's really what the hate crimes bill, the ``Employment Non-
Discrimination Act,'' and the equal-pay-for-women legislation is about. 
Are we going to continue to try to build the bridges of unity and the 
bonds of common interdependent community as we go forward? And I think 
if people--the election really is about three things.
    The court appointments are a part of that one America. And it's 
about far more than just preserving a woman's right to choose. It's also 
about whether the courts will or will not continue to restrict the 
ability of the National Government to protect civil rights and human 
rights and the basic public interest. Most Americans don't know that 
just in the last year or so, a slim majority of the courts already 
invalidated a provision of the Violence Against Women Act, a provision 
of the Brady law, a provision of an anti-age-discrimination law. So 
there are big issues here.
    But when you boil them all down, are we better off than we were 8 
years ago, economically? And, if so, do you want to build on the 
economic policy or reverse it? Are we going in the right direction and 
coming together as a society? If so, do you want to build on the 
progress of the 8 years or take down the policies--the environmental, 
the crime, the education, the health care policies? And should we 
continue to try to become one America? That's what hate crimes and ENDA 
and the equal pay for women and all those initiatives and the court 
appointments are all about.
    If people understand that this is an honorable election, which I 
think should be conducted in almost a festive atmosphere because the 
country is in so much better shape than it was 8 years ago, and nobody 
has to badmouth anybody anymore--you don't have to go around--you know, 
a lot of the venom has gone out of the American political scene. 
Somebody said that's because I'd absorbed a lot of it. [Laughter] But 
anyway--and so you all supplied the serum, and so I survived. It's all 
right. [Laughter] But that's good. We ought to be festive. We ought to 
be upbeat. We ought to be happy. But we

[[Page 2415]]

shouldn't be blinded to the fact that we're actually having a very 
important old-fashioned debate here. And in some ways, we are reenacting 
the kind of debate we've had from the beginning of this country.
    Today we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the White House. John 
Adams rolled into the White House 200 years ago today at about noon. And 
so--and David McCullough, the great 
historian and biographer of Harry Truman, gave this beautiful sort of 
summary of what the White House was like 200 years ago, what Washington 
looked like, what the politics were, and the truly astonishing 
contributions of John Adams to our country's history. He had a great eye 
for talent. He nominated George Washington to be head of the Continental 
Army. And when he became President, he nominated John Marshall to be 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. And that's one reason we still have 
one country, instead of a bunch of loosely floating atoms out there.
    So we celebrated that. And in that whole 200-year history, I do not 
believe there has ever been a time when we've been able to have an 
election where we have so much prosperity, we have so much social 
progress, with the absence of domestic crisis or foreign threat to our 
existence. Are there problems out there at home? Yes. Are there real 
problems out there, potential and real, around the world? Of course. But 
this is a very good time.
    And we get to imagine the future we want to have for our children 
and our grandchildren, and then make a decision to build it. And the 
only concern I've ever had--I know I sound like a broken record because 
I've been saying this for a year and a half--the only concern I have 
ever had is that 100 percent of the people understand, first, what a 
unique moment this is--younger voters, a lot of them don't even remember 
what it was like 8 years ago and take all this for granted, which is 
something that shouldn't happen--and secondly, that they understand what 
the real differences are between the candidates for President and Senate 
and House, and what the consequences are, and they just make a choice, 
and everybody should be happy about it.
    But I think that the closeness of the race indicates, among other 
things, some uncertainty in the electorate about exactly what is at 
stake and what the differences are, which means all of us have an 
opportunity in the last 6 days to try to help bring some clarity to 
that.
    The last point I want to make is on the issue of inclusion. It's 
been an honor for Hillary and me to have done what we have done, but I 
think it is a matter of indisputable historical fact that the Vice 
President supported everything I did for 
this community and made it clear, was unambiguous, would stand up and 
never once, ever, took a pass when time came to do that. So I hope that, 
for whatever it's worth, 100 percent of your community will know that on 
election day.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 7:29 p.m. in the Colonial Room at the 
Mayflower Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to dinner chair Terry 
Watanabe; and Andrew Tobias, treasurer, Democratic National Committee.