[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 24 (Monday, June 15, 1998)]
[Pages 1064-1067]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Reception for Gubernatorial Candidate Barbara B. Kennelly 
in Westport, Connecticut

June 8, 1998

    The President. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me first thank 
Martha Stewart for having us here. I had a wonderful time going through 
this wonderful enterprise, and I love the food. And I know it's all 
supposed to be light, but if you eat enough of it, it's still--
[laughter]. It was a wonderful, wonderful lunch.
    I think of the great following Martha has throughout the country; 
there's no telling how much she's broadened my base today by giving me a 
chance to come here. [Laughter] There will be millions of people 
listening to me that never paid any attention to me before just because 
I came here today. And I'm very grateful. [Laughter]
    I want to thank two Members of the United States Congress from 
Connecticut, who are not up on this platform but are out in the crowd, 
for being here today and for their service for you and our Nation--
Congressman Maloney and Congressman Rosa DeLauro. Thank you for being 
here, so much, thank you. I thank our Democratic Party chair, Ed Marcus; 
your great attorney general and my old classmate and longtime friend, 
Richard Blumenthal. I thank him.
    You all know I owe Connecticut a great deal. I mean, I came to law 
school here; I met Hillary here; I worked in Joe Duffy's campaign in 
1970 and did a little work for Joe Lieberman, I've made friends that are 
still friends of mine forever. I actually have known both your Senators 
now for nearly 30 years. I knew them when all three of us were young, 
ungray, and, frankly, most of our friends would have been astonished to 
know how any of us turned out. [Laughter] And being friends with them 
has been a great experience. I've loved in later years being--
especially, serving with Joe Lieberman in the Democratic Leadership 
Council. You all know how grateful I am to Senator Dodd for chairing our 
Democratic Party at a particularly challenging time. I also appreciate 
the fact that Chris Dodd will still play golf with me since Barbara 
Kennelly no longer has time to play golf with me. [Laughter] So I'm very 
thankful for that.
    I'm going to tell you a story today. I'm going to do something 
highly impolitic involving Barbara Kennelly. This is impolitic but, as 
God as my witness, it is true. Last summer Barbara Kennelly called me, 
and she said, ``I want to talk to you about running for Governor.'' I 
said, ``Okay.'' I said, ``Do you want me to tell you what you want to 
hear, or do you want me to be honest with you?'' She said, ``I want you 
to be honest with me; we've been friends a long time.'' So Barbara 
Kennelly came to Martha's Vineyard, where Hillary and Chelsea and I were 
on vacation, and we went out and played golf together, and then Barbara 
and her son came and had dinner with Hillary and me that night. And we 
talked about this. And I said, ``Barbara, I was Governor for 12 years, 
and I loved it. A lot of people thought I ran for President because I 
was bored being Governor. I was happier on the day I left than the day I 
showed up. [Laughter] I loved the job.''

[[Page 1065]]

    But I said, ``It is almost an unwritten rule of American politics 
that if the economy is good, you can't beat an incumbent Governor unless 
he does something real dumb.'' You've virtually got to have a lobotomy, 
and you can still get reelected if the economy is good if you're 
Governor--no offense to Governor Rowland, I didn't mean that he had. 
[Laughter] I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that. [Laughter] No, I 
didn't mean that. No, I'm serious, I didn't mean that. I told her the 
truth. I said, ``This is like rolling a rock up a hill if the economy is 
good.''
    But she said, ``Look,'' she said, ``I can be reelected to Congress, 
and I love my job. But I'm concerned about my State. How many times do 
you have good times? And you should do more with good times, not less.'' 
And it made a profound impression on me. We sat there and talked. And 
like I said, this is all very impolitic, what I'm telling you, but you 
need to know the truth. She knew what she was getting into. And she 
said, ``You should do more with good times, not less. You shouldn't take 
the easy way out just because times are good, because as a practical 
matter, when times are good, if you've got the right kind of leadership 
you can get things done that you can't get done in tough times. So I'm 
going to run anyway, and I'm going to do my best to win.''
    Now, the first thing you need in a Governor is strength of 
character. Anybody who would take on those odds just because she 
believes in you and your future and what kind of future your children 
have deserves serious consideration and support from the Democrats of 
her State.
    Now I want to give you a second reason that you ought to support 
Barbara Kennelly in this race. Our country is doing pretty well now, and 
I am gratified beyond measure, that in the last 5\1/2\ years, we have 
worked hard together and worked with the American people. And we now 
have the lowest crime rates in 25 years, 16 million jobs and the lowest 
unemployment in 28 years, the lowest percentage of our people on welfare 
in 29 years, the first balanced budget and surplus in 29 years, the 
lowest inflation in 32 years, the smallest Federal Government in 35 
years, and the highest homeownership in the history of the United States 
of America. I'm proud of that. [Applause]
    What I want to say to you is it didn't happen by accident, and our 
role in it--that is, our administration and the National Government's 
role--came after the people voted in 1992 to take a different direction, 
to move out of this old debate between those that said Government was 
the problem and would mess up a two-car parade and should go away, and 
those who said we just want to defend the old status quo Government. We 
wanted to do something different.
    We had a whole different economic philosophy. We thought we could 
actually reduce the deficit and balance the budget and still invest more 
in education, in the environment, in health care, and the future of our 
people if, at the same time, we were expanding trade and creating more 
markets for American products. That was our strategy. I'd say, on 
balance, it's worked pretty well.
    But it was different. It's important that you know it was different, 
and it was extremely vulnerable to attack because it was different. And 
the first big test of the strategy was the vote on our economic plan in 
1993. My now-Treasury Secretary, Bob Rubin, who was then my economic 
adviser, and Lloyd Bentsen, the then-Treasury Secretary, came to me and 
said, ``We have talked to the financial markets; we have talked to Mr. 
Greenspan; we've talked to all these people; we believe we'll never get 
out of this recession unless we take at least $500 billion off this 
deficit so we can drive interest rates down and make investments more 
attractive and free up capital. You've got to do it, and you've got to 
make some tough decisions. And you're going to have to do some things 
that are very unpopular.''
    And we put that economic plan before the Congress. And Barbara 
Kennelly was in the Congress; so was her opponent. And everything you 
just clapped for was riding on what we did because the crime rate is 
down because of our crime bill, but it wouldn't be down this much if the 
economy weren't better. The welfare reform rates are down because of 
welfare reform, but they wouldn't have come down as much if the economy 
hadn't been better. Everything was riding on

[[Page 1066]]

it--all of our education initiatives--everything.
    It passed by one vote in the House and by one vote in the Senate. If 
Chris Dodd had said no, if Joe Lieberman had said no, if Rosa DeLauro 
had said no, and if Barbara Kennelly had said no--just one of them--all 
those numbers I just read you, that you clapped for, would probably not 
be on a list that anyone can say today.
    Everything was hanging in the balance. And everybody that got up to 
vote for it knew it was unpopular. Why? Because not a single, solitary 
member of the other party voted for it. They were terrifying people. 
They said if the President's economic plan passed, everybody's taxes 
will go up; the economy will go down; we'll have a terrible recession; 
the deficit will get bigger.
    Everybody's forgotten about all that now. Why have you forgotten? 
Because they were wrong. [Laughter] I have no more elections to run, so 
I'm not asking you to do anything for me. [Laughter] Just once, I'd like 
to see people really know what happened and reward those who were right, 
and at least hold accountable those who were wrong.
    So you know what happened in the ensuing 5 years. So what happens 
now? States all over America have more money than they had in a long 
time. And in 1994, the Republicans went out and told everybody how 
terrible we were and what an awful thing we had done, how we were going 
to bankrupt the economy. They won the Congress, and they got a majority 
of the Governorships, and they were wrong about everything. And because 
they were wrong, they've all been reelected ever since because the 
economy has been good. That's the truth.
    Now, I believe when you think about what you're going to do with 
your prosperity, you have a key decision which helped to bring about 
your prosperity, and the two people running were on opposite sides--all 
I can tell you is, when it would have been very easy to walk away, 
Barbara Kennelly stood up, stayed hitched, and Connecticut and America 
are better places today because of it. And that's a good reason to vote 
for her.
    Here's the last thing I want to tell you. This is the third reason 
to vote for Barbara Kennelly and to work for her and to talk to people. 
And again, I say this having been a Governor for 12 years. I know 
something about this job. When I read you the laundry list of 
achievements, I said we had the smallest Federal Government in 35 years. 
That's true. Part of the reason it's smaller is that we've gotten rid 
of, for example, two-thirds of the regulations the Department of 
Education imposed on States for education funds. We say, here's the 
purpose; you decide the how.
    We did a lot of that because I had been a Governor, and I realized 
the Federal Government couldn't micromanage all the House. But I always 
thought it was legitimate for them to tell me what the money was 
supposed to be spent on if they sent me the money.
    Now, because of the changes we have made and are making now, the 
next Governor of Connecticut will have unique tools to deal with some of 
the long-term challenges you face. Connecticut is one of the most 
interesting States in America. You have overall one of the highest per 
capita incomes and two or three of the poorest cities. You struggle with 
trying to build a community of people and bring people together and give 
everybody opportunity.
    Now, in the next 4 years you will have an unprecedented opportunity 
to do the following things: Because of the Balanced Budget Act passed 
last year, the next Governor will have an unprecedented opportunity to 
add children, poor children, to the ranks of those with health insurance 
because of what Congress--what the Democrats demanded to be a part of 
that balanced budget plan. So it really matters who the Governor is, 
because the Governor will decide what are the components of this effort, 
how will we do this. It matters how important it is to the Governor. And 
it matters how much of that kind of experience the Governor has.
    That's one thing. Children, whether they--often it may be the 
difference in life or death for them. It certainly may be the difference 
in how healthy they are.
    Secondly, if we pass tobacco legislation to protect our children 
from the dangers of tobacco, we will be sending back to the States 
substantial amounts of money. One of the things the States will have to 
decide to do

[[Page 1067]]

is how much money to invest in increased child care for working people 
on modest incomes. This is a huge deal.
    If you want all the folks in the lower income neighborhoods of the 
big cities of Connecticut to stay off welfare and go to work, if you 
want people to work for modest wages even in times when they don't have 
a lot extra left over at the end of every pay period, and you want them 
to be successful parents, you want to want your State to do more to help 
them have affordable, decent child care. Who do you think is more likely 
to make the right decisions about what kind of child care ordinary 
families have with their children?
    Representative Kennelly. Me! [Laughter]
    The President. I'll give you three more examples. I'm going to go 
back tomorrow--I guess it is--I think it's tomorrow--but sometime in the 
next few days I'm going to sign the transportation bill. And that 
transportation bill has a lot of money in it that will go to States to 
help move people from welfare to work--literally pay the transportation 
bills. One of the biggest problems we have in getting poor people who 
are on welfare to go to work is that very often the jobs aren't anywhere 
they can walk to, and they don't have cars, and they may not be able to 
afford or even have access to transit. There's a lot in there. So it 
really matters. If you want the welfare reform to work and you believe 
that people should work if they can, but you want them to be successful 
parents, it matters who the Governor is.
    And the last thing I can't say enough about is education. Barbara 
mentioned it. But we still have enormous challenges. She mentioned the 
Internet. I gave a speech at MIT last Saturday about how we can make 
sure we make democratic--not party, small ``d''--make democratic the 
gains of the technological revolution. We have to hook up every 
classroom to the Internet. We have to make sure that all of our children 
have access to the benefits of the technology revolution. We have to 
make sure there are smaller classes in the grades when kids start out, 
especially if they have--they don't have the support at home that they 
need.
    All these things will matter. So you've got education, welfare, 
child care, health care. If you do these things right, you can bring 
Connecticut together; you can lift the State up; you can go forward into 
the 21st century together. It will matter a lot who the Governor is.
    So I can tell you, she's got the strength of character to serve. 
When the whole future of the country's economy and Connecticut's was 
riding on the line, and we didn't have a vote to spare, she stood right 
there, toe-to-toe, knowing what a price she could pay. And when you look 
at what powers will be there for the Governors in the next 4 years and 
what you want from Connecticut, I don't think there's much of a 
question.
    Barbara Kennelly deserves your support, and I thank you for being 
here for her today.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 2:50 p.m. in the studios of the ``Martha 
Stewart Living'' homemaking television program. In his remarks, he 
referred to Martha Stewart, reception host and host of the television 
program; State Democratic Party Chair Ed Marcus; and Gov. John G. 
Rowland of Connecticut.