[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[January 9, 2001]
[Pages 2872-2874]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the People of Chicago
January 9, 2001

    Thank you. You know, I thought we should come over here to sort of 
finish the circle of my political history in Illinois, and I didn't know 
if anybody would show up. [Laughter] Apparently, the lobby's full, too. 
Let me say to all of you how grateful I am to the people of Chicago and 
Illinois. I thank the mayor for his great 
leadership and for giving me a chance to be a good President for 
Chicago; if I didn't have a great mayor, I couldn't have been.
    I asked Rich, when Bill was up here talking, I said, ``You get your brother to 
introduce you very often?'' He said, ``No, but I love it every time he 
does it.'' [Laughter] I want to thank Bill Daley for his exemplary 
service as Secretary of Commerce. He was brilliant. I think he did a 
brilliant job in leading Vice President Gore to victory myself.
    Let me just remind you, when he went over there as the chairman of 
that campaign, we were way behind. And then we had a great convention, 
and we got ahead a little bit. Then they got ahead again. Daley kept them on track. We started out, they were 
whizzing--we were way behind when Daley took over. They thought the 
election was over, the Republicans did. By the time it was over, our 
candidate had won the popular vote, and the only way they could win the 
election was to stop the voting in Florida. He did a great job.
    I want to thank my great friend Alexis Herman. I did not know until she started talking that her 
grandfather once worked here. But I appreciate it, and since she said 
that, in a minute I'm going to tell a family story. I want to thank 
Bobby Rush and your great Senator, Dick 
Durbin. What a great job he's done. Our 
treasurer, Mr. Hynes; and his daddy, Mr. 
Hynes, thank you for being here, Tom. Good 
to see you. And Secretary Riley, our 
Secretary of Education, and the best Secretary of Education we ever had, 
thank you. And if I have forgotten anybody, I apologize.
    I also bring you greetings from the newest United States Senator 
from New York, Hillary. I told 
Dick, ever since Hillary won that election 
in New York, you should just consider that Illinois has two Democratic 
Senators again. She told me to tell everybody hello.
    You know, this place has a special place in my heart, and I just 
want to briefly review the history for you. When I ran for President in 
1992, I knew I had to do pretty well in New Hampshire. And when I 
started out, I was running fifth. But it was a small State of tough-
minded but fairminded people, and I thought if I could just get up there 
and stir around, I could do all right. They were good to me, and I love 
them, and they voted for me twice. So I got out of it alive, anyway. 
Then I got through all the rest of that stuff.
    Then we had Super Tuesday, and I won them, but I was supposed to 
because it was in the South. But I knew that to be nominated, I had to 
do well on Saint Patrick's Day in Illinois and Michigan.
    And I knew some things about Illinois other people didn't know. 
First, I had a wife from

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Chicago; that didn't hurt. [Laughter] Second, I knew southern Illinois 
was south of Richmond, and I spent a lot of time down there, which other 
guys didn't know, but when I was a Governor. And the third thing I knew 
was that half the people from Chicago had kinfolks in Arkansas, which 
nobody knew but me. [Laughter]
    So I figured if I sort of sidled around here, I could do pretty 
good. So I showed up here in 1991, and in this very room we had a 
meeting of all the State Democratic chairs, and I tried to make a fairly 
presentable impression. And I had been thinking about what we ought to 
do as a country for a long time, and I put my ideas out. And then we 
went over to the Navy pier, and I announced that David Wilhelm of Chicago would be my national campaign manager. He 
did a great job, and you should be very proud of him.
    And then--so we rocked along and everything went according to plan, 
and it was time to stand and deliver in Illinois. And on the election 
night and the primary--it was Saint Patrick's Day, 1992--now, I remember 
marching in the Saint Patrick's Day parade in Chicago. It was an 
interesting experience. [Laughter] Most people were waving all five 
fingers. Think about it. [Laughter] And on election night, a majority of 
the people in Illinois gave me their votes in the primary over my 
opponents. And I knew then it was just a matter of time. And the people 
in Michigan were very good to me. We won there by 10 points, but by more 
in Illinois. And ever since then, I have known that I could count on 
Illinois, that when the chips were down, Chicago and the State of 
Illinois would be there for the Clinton/Gore ticket. And I am profoundly 
grateful.
    We had the party that election night downstairs in the lobby, where 
the overflow crowd is, and I'm going to go down there and see them in a 
minute. And every day for 8 years, in my little private office, right 
off the Oval Office, every single day for 8 years, I have looked at the 
picture of Hillary and me standing with the confetti, the green 
confetti, coming down in the lobby of this grand old hotel, on Saint 
Patrick's Day.
    So I wanted to come here to say goodbye and to say thank you. But 
let me tell you what else I want you to know. I have a--look, I've got a 
Senator to support, that's what I've 
got--and I'm not really saying goodbye. I'm just saying goodbye as 
President.
    But let me tell you, I also have another picture of this hotel, 
which I don't think I've ever told anybody in Illinois. I have another 
picture that I have seen every night for the last 4 years--for the last 
8 years, excuse me. It is a picture of my mother in early 1946, and my 
father, who were living here, when my mother went home to Arkansas to 
have me and my father was killed in a car wreck driving home. And right 
before that happened, they were here in this hotel with another young 
couple having what my mother told me was one of the happiest nights of 
her life. And she gave me that picture when I was a young man. And I put 
it up on my desk in the White House in the Residence, and I looked at 
this hotel in that picture twice every day for 8 years--once on Saint 
Patrick's Day, 1992, and once when my mother and father were here before 
I was born. This is an important place for me, and you're important 
people to me. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
    Now, here's the second thing I want to say. Now, I want to say two 
things, seriously. Number one, this is a different, a stronger, a more 
united, and a better country than it was 8 years ago. The ideas we had 
worked. They worked. And let me just take you on a little walk down 
memory lane here.
    Eight years ago, we had high unemployment; the deficit was $290 
billion; the debt of the country had been quadrupled in the previous 12 
years. Now we have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest 
female unemployment rate in 40 years, the lowest minority unemployment 
rate ever recorded, 22.5 million new jobs. The deficit has been turned 
into the biggest surpluses in history, and when this year is over, my 
last budget will have paid down $500 billion on the national debt. We 
can be out of debt in 10 years, for the first time since 1835.
    Now, in addition to that, Bobby Rush said I wanted to be President 
for the little people; I did. I didn't know the difference in little and 
big people. I was so naive when my predecessor referred to me in rather 
derisive terms as the Governor of a small southern State--I was so 
naive, I thought he was paying me a compliment. [Laughter] And I still 
do. [Laughter]
    People ask me what was my Presidency about. It was about those 22.5 
million people that have jobs now that didn't, about the 25 million 
people that took advantage of the family and medical

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leave law, about the 13 million people that took advantage of the HOPE 
scholarship tax credit and the other tax credits to go on and have 
family members in college, about the 90 percent of kids under 2 who are 
immunized against serious childhood diseases for the first time, about 
the 3.3 million children who have been covered with health insurance for 
the first time under the Children's Health Insurance Program. We got the 
uninsured population going down for the first time in 12 years. That's 
what it's about--about the 1.3 million kids in after-school programs 
with Federal funds for the first time. And I could go on and on.
    It's about people--600,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers couldn't 
get handguns because of the Brady bill. How many people are alive 
because of that, because of the 100,000 police on the street? That's 
what this was about. It was about trying to bring America together, to 
create more opportunity for every responsible citizen, to make our 
diversity a blessing instead of a source of division, to be a force for 
peace and freedom and democracy and decency around the world. And I am 
proud of where America is today.
    I'm also proud that we did have an urban policy, an urban policy 
that gave 15 million families a family tax cut because the people 
weren't making enough money working full time to get their kids out of 
poverty, and now they can, because of the earned-income tax credit; an 
urban policy in which the Vice President ran an empowerment zone program 
that brought billions of dollars of new investment into cities all 
across America; an urban policy which cut the welfare rolls in half, 
which diversified public housing--and Chicago is leading the way in 
that--which gave people a sense that we could go forward together again.
    Now, this was about people, putting them first, preparing them for a 
new century and a whole new era in human affairs. Look how much more 
diverse Chicago is now than it was 10 years ago, racially, religiously. 
Look how we're learning to live together across all the lines that have 
previously divided us. That's what I want for America: one America, 
going forward together, helping each other, making the most of what we 
can do.
    You know, politics and public life is a lot like athletics. It's a 
team sport. I don't care how good the quarterback is or the center. If 
you don't have a good team, you're nowhere. You were my team and we won 
for America.
    So whether you're old or young, white, black, or brown or whatever, 
straight or gay, abled or disabled--we're all disabled some way or 
another--I thank you, because you were my team, and we won for America. 
And I want you to know--the second thing I want to say is this: America 
is always about becoming. It's always about new beginnings. It's always 
about tomorrow. The reason we're still around here after over 220 years 
is that we've always had a focus on the future. We always thought we 
could do better. We always thought we had a moral obligation to do 
better. We always thought we could widen the circle of opportunity and 
deepen the meaning of freedom and strengthen the bonds of our community 
and be better neighbors around the world. We always thought that.
    I still believe that. And you cannot let any disappointment you may 
feel in this last election take away any pride you feel in what Al Gore 
and I and our team were able to accomplish with you these last 8 years. 
And you cannot let--you cannot let anything deter you from your 
determination to be the best citizen you can be, to make Chicago and 
Illinois and America as great as they can be.
    I'm telling you, there are still a lot of big challenges out there, 
but I'm leaving this country in good shape and the best is still to be. 
You just rear back, stay together, and keep fighting for tomorrow.
    God bless you. Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 6:50 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the 
Palmer House Hilton Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Richard 
M. Daley of Chicago; Illinois State Comptroller Daniel W. Hynes and his 
father, Thomas C. Hynes, member, Democratic State Central Committee; and 
David Wilhelm, former national chair, Democratic National Committee.