[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 48 (Monday, December 6, 1999)]
[Pages 2506-2508]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Dinner Honoring Mayor Edward Rendell in Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania

December 2, 1999

    Thank you so much. Thank you, David, Bill, Mr. Mayor, ladies and 
gentlemen. It's a great honor for me to be here tonight. You know, I'm 
preparing for what it will be like a year from now when I am just a 
member of the Senate spouses club--[laughter]--when I have to know my 
place more. And I thought that there could be no better preparation than 
to come be the warm-up act for Ed Rendell tonight. [Laughter]
    Let me say, in all seriousness, I am profoundly honored to be here. 
I'll never forget the first time I met Mayor Rendell here in 
Philadelphia in 1992 when I was running for President. And we were 
walking down the streets of a neighborhood where he had an anti-crime 
program going. And we shot a few baskets. We made very few, but we shot 
more. [Laughter]
    And I thought that this--I have met a kindred spirit, because not 
only did we agree on so many of the same philosophies on crime, on 
welfare, on the economy, but we agreed on how public life should be 
conducted. I have thought about it so many times since, but I got into 
the political race for President in 1991 at a time when not just 
Philadelphia but the whole country was facing economic distress and 
social division, political drift, and then kind of the whole 
discrediting of the enterprise of government.
    And I was really frustrated, as the Governor of what my 
distinguished predecessor used to refer to as a--of a small Southern 
State, when I would see all these people in Washington just sort of 
throwing brickbats at each other and, you know, struggling to get their 
15 seconds on the evening news, which they know they could always get if 
they repeated the same thing over and over again and made sure there was 
a real wedge dividing the American people in all kinds of ways.
    And it struck me that if we ran our business life or our family 
lives or our personal lives the way we were running our national 
political lives, the country would just run off the tracks entirely. And 
I was determined to try to go to the American people with a unifying 
theory of how we ought to do our common work, to create opportunity for 
everybody responsible enough to work for it, to build a community of all 
Americans amidst all the differences among us, and mostly, to get to 
work on our common challenges. And I went to Philadelphia.
    I had no idea how I'd do here or whether I would be embraced here, 
but I liked it, and I liked Ed Rendell, and I knew that he was committed 
to turning this city around and to moving it forward. And we're walking

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down the street having a discussion, not so much about politics but 
about what it would really take to get the crime rate down, what it 
would really take to give people on welfare the dignity of work without 
forcing them to sacrifice their responsibilities as parents, what it 
would take to bring genuine economic growth back into urban America.
    Ed always says, well, you know, he couldn't have done it without you 
and then he says he couldn't have done it without me, and he talks about 
the Vice President and I putting the empowerment zone here and the 1,000 
police and all that. That's all true. But the success that we have 
enjoyed here in this country would not have happened had it not been for 
leaders like Ed Rendell. And there is nobody in America--nobody--who 
does it better.
    Along the way, we've become very good personal friends. He's always 
been there to try to help raise financial support for me and the Vice 
President, for our party. At a time when he might have been taking at 
least a breath, he agreed to our request to become chairman of the 
national Democratic Party. He has always been there. And I've thought 
about it. Near as I can figure, all I've done in return is make his wife 
a Federal judge, so she can't even campaign for him anymore. [Laughter] 
So I have disabled him as he has empowered me. It doesn't really seem 
fair.
    I would just like to say one other thing. You know, in this 
wonderful life that you have made it possible for me to enjoy--and no 
city in America has been any better to me than Philadelphia, and the 
State of Pennsylvania has been very good to me and the Vice President 
and to Hillary and to Tipper. I have had the enormous privilege to get 
up and to work every day and try to make something good happen in 
America. But I have never been under any illusion that I could do 
anything other than create the conditions and provide the tools for the 
American people who really make this country go every day.
    Today in this country, the most innovative, the most effective 
public servants are the best mayors, because they understand our common 
humanity and our limitless possibility and because people like you hire 
them to get things done. And I just hope that we can continue to do that 
sort of thing in Washington. People ask me all the time--they say, 
``Well, you know, it's amazing how well the country is doing, and you 
must be a great politician.'' I said, ``Well, a lot of it was we just 
showed up for work every day.''
    There's a lot to be said for just showing up for work every day and 
keeping your eye on the prize and remembering who the customers are and 
believing in the potential of this country. Philadelphia is at the heart 
of everything that's important about America, our history, our founding 
documents, our spirit. And it is altogether appropriate that in this 
remarkable time for our country, no city was better led, made more 
progress, or proved to be a better partner than the city of 
Philadelphia.
    So I have a lot to be grateful to Ed Rendell for. Most important of 
all, from your point of view, is he proved that the ideas we shared 
would work with hard work and good will. And the results are here for 
all to see, embodied in this beautiful film. He helped to sustain our 
common political efforts, but most important to me, in the good times 
and the dark times, he was always there as a real friend. And when all 
is said and done, that counts most of all.
    Thank you, and God bless you.
    Don't sit down. This is going to be brief. But you see, you can tell 
which one of us is not really term limited. He tried to charge up here 
to the microphone and was going to deprive me of my one little role here 
of introducing him. But I still have a little capacity to pull rank. 
[Laughter] So this is my job.
    Ladies and gentlemen, the person we all came here to honor tonight, 
Mayor Ed Rendell.

Note: The President spoke at 8:42 p.m. at the Pennsylvania Convention 
Center. In his remarks, he referred to David Cohen, former chief of 
staff to Mayor Rendell, and H. William DeWeese, minority leader, 
Pennsylvania State House.

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