[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 51 (Monday, December 27, 1999)]
[Pages 2643-2645]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Dinner

December 17, 1999

    Thank you very much. Let me, first of all, say how profoundly 
grateful I am to be ending 7 years in the Presidency with the support of 
people like you, in the home of my great friends Terry and Dorothy, with 
allies like Patrick Kennedy and Dick Gephardt. This is a holiday season, 
and it's most important for us to express our gratitude. And I am 
grateful, and I want to say thank you.
    I also will give you a gift--a brief speech. [Laughter] All of you 
heard it before, anyway. [Laughter] That reminds me of a great moment in 
my political education. In the mideighties, Tina Turner came to Little 
Rock to give a concert; she was making her comeback. And she had just 
put out that ``Private Dancer'' album. And she had a saxophone player 
who was a weight lifter--I don't know if you remember that--the guy 
could bench press me on a cold day. [Laughter]
    So I went to this concert, and I took a bunch of friends of mine. 
And I was sitting on the front row because the guy that ran the place 
knew I liked her. So she sings all her new songs, and she does real 
well, and the crowd goes crazy. And in the end, the band starts playing 
her very first hit, ``Proud Mary.'' And she comes up to the microphone, 
and the crowd goes crazy, and she said, ``You know, I've been singing 
this song for 25 years, but it gets better every time I do it.'' 
[Laughter] So maybe you'll put up with this speech one more time. 
[Laughter]
    I wanted to say very briefly why I'm here. I'm not running for 
anything; I'm here because none of the things that our administration 
has been able to do for America would have been possible if it hadn't 
been for the support of the Democrats in the Congress. Whether in the 
majority, when we passed the economic plan of '93 without a single vote 
from the Republicans, when we passed the crime bill in '94 with just a 
few votes; or when we were in the minority in the Congress, but because 
they stuck with me--if the Republicans didn't want me fixing them 
Christmas dinner, they had to make a deal with us and continue to move 
this country forward. None of it would have been possible without them.
    I'm here because of what Dick Gephardt said. I'll say it in blunter 
terms. I think I owe him. We would never have lost the House of 
Representatives if they hadn't had to vote alone on an economic plan 
that revitalized this country. We'd never have the balanced budget; we'd 
never have the surplus; we'd never have the low interest rates and the 
high investment and the economic growth if we hadn't announced, and then 
they hadn't ratified by voting for, that economic plan in 1993. And they 
did not deserve to lose the House because of the deliberate 
misrepresentations about what was in the plan and what it would do to 
America that the people on the other side made before--to be fair to the 
voters--they could know one way or the other whether it was going to 
work; they weren't feeling it.
    I'm here because they had the guts--including a lot of Congressmen 
from rural areas--to say to the NRA, ``There's nothing wrong with the 
Brady bill. We ought to do background checks before we give people

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handguns; there's nothing wrong with a waiting period. We ought to get 
rid of these assault weapons; kids don't need them on urban streets so 
that country kids can take a .22 or a 12 gauge and go hunting. This is 
crazy.''
    But when they voted for it in '94 they had to go right into the 
teeth of an election with people telling them they'd voted to take their 
guns away, and before the voters could possibly know. You have no idea. 
I'm here because they were brave enough to take on with me the problem 
of trying to extend health insurance to all Americans, and then they had 
to put up with having our efforts mischaracterized. One member of the 
Democratic caucus told me the other day, he said, ``You know, they said 
if I voted for the President's health care plan, it would lead to a big 
increase in uninsured Americans; and I voted for his plan, and sure 
enough, we had a big increase in uninsured Americans.'' [Laughter] So I 
think they got a raw deal after doing a great job for America.
    But the third thing and by far the most important reason I'm here 
is, after January 20, 2001, I won't be President anymore, but I'll still 
be an American. And almost more than anybody else, because of the life 
I've lived, I have an informed opinion about what is necessary to make 
the most of the new century for these children here. And by far the most 
important reason to give the Democrats a majority; to give Jane Harman 
from California, who's here, her old seat back; and to restore them to 
the majority--you'd be amazed how many Senate seats we can win. This 
Senate thing is shaping up pretty well. Because we're going to make some 
decisions in the next 5 years that will have a big impact on the next 50 
years. And I want the members of my party, who have brought the country 
to where it is today from where it was 7 years ago, to be the leaders in 
making those decisions.
    Now, little Mary was sitting here a minute ago. I've told this story 
a lot, but I've never fingered her before, so I'm going to finger her 
tonight. [Laughter] Terry and Dorothy and their kids came up and spent 
some time with us in the weekend after Thanksgiving. And we were all 
playing and having a big time. And little Mary looked up at me, and she 
said, ``How old are you anyway?'' [Laughter] And I said, ``Well, I'm 
53.'' And she said, ``That's a lot.'' [Laughter] And I had to admit that 
it's a lot. [Laughter]
    And I just want to echo something Dick Gephardt said. Never in my 
lifetime--never, not once, ever--has our country had the combination of 
economic prosperity, social progress, national self-confidence with the 
absence of an internal crisis or an external threat. We have, in other 
words, the best chance we have ever had--maybe in our history, but 
certainly in my ``that's-a-lot'' 53 years--to shape the future of our 
dreams for our kids.
    Are we going to give all of them a world-class education, or not? 
Are we going to take the burden of the baby boomers' retirement off 
their shoulders by fixing Social Security and Medicare, or not? Are we 
going to help all these working people who aren't as fortunate as those 
of us who can be here tonight balance work and family so they can 
succeed at home raising their kids and succeed at work, or not? Are we 
going to prove that we can grow the economy and preserve the 
environment, or not? Are we going to prove that we can continue to 
integrate the world's economies and expand trade but put a more human 
face on it so that everybody is benefited, or not? Is America going to 
continue to lead the world for peace and freedom, or not?
    I'll just give you one example, and I hope you agree with me. I'm 
really grateful that in 1999 the United States led our NATO Alliance and 
all of our European Allies in stopping cold the ethnic cleansing in 
Kosovo and letting over 800,000 people go home. I'm grateful for that.
    The other day I heard one of the candidates, prominent candidates 
for President on the other side said, ``Well, boy, if he got elected, 
they surely wouldn't be using American military resources to fool around 
in trivial, insignificant places.'' I think standing against ethnic 
cleansing, racial cleansing, religious cleansing, standing up for human 
rights is not trivial. I also think, to my Republican friends, well, 
it's good economics in the long run. It's morally right, but it happens 
to be good economics; because if you put the fire

[[Page 2645]]

out when it starts to burn, before the house has burned down, you're way 
ahead.
    But these are big questions. And what I want you to do for the next 
year is not just to come to these parties where we're all preaching to 
the saved, but every one of you has a span of influence, a circle of 
friends, people that you meet in nonpolitical context. And you ought to 
tell them, first of all, that 7 years ago--people actually don't 
remember; it's been so good so long people don't remember--you've got to 
remind them that in 1992 we were facing economic distress, social 
decline, political division, and government was discredited. And now 
we've got the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years and the lowest 
welfare rolls in 32 years, the lowest poverty rates in 20 years and the 
lowest crime rate in 25 years, the lowest minority unemployment rate 
ever recorded, the lowest female unemployment rate in 40 years, the 
lowest single-parent household poverty rate in 46 years. And the air is 
cleaner; the water is cleaner; the food is safer, and we've put aside 
more land than any administrations in the history of America, except 
those of Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt. We've got 150,000 young people 
who have served our country in AmeriCorps, and 90 percent of our kids 
are immunized for the first time against serious illness, and over 2 
million children now have gotten health insurance under our Children's 
Health Insurance Program. And that's just half the story--and that we 
are asking the right questions, and we're the people to answer them for 
the future. They need to remember what it was like, what we've done, 
but, more important, what we think this election is about and why we're 
all running.
    I'll tell you, I knew Dick Gephardt before I became President. He 
was my neighbor. He'd been to the Governor's Mansion to see me in 1988, 
when he was running for President. We were both less health conscious 
then--remember, we sat and ate french fries from McDonald's. [Laughter] 
Dick spoke at this Democratic event where he was competing with an in-
State basketball rivalry on television that night and he still did a 
good job. And he didn't eat, and so we sat in my big kitchen at the 
Governor's Mansion, and we stayed up half the night talking. He is a 
profoundly good human being.
    The thing that I am so impressed about is that he continues to grow 
every year as a leader. You know, once you reach a certain age and you 
realize that physically you're not going to get any stronger and you've 
got to keep working just to keep up, it's easy to stop growing 
personally. It's easy to stop growing in your interpersonal skills, in 
your leadership skills, in what you know and what you think about. This 
guy just keeps on going and keeps on growing. He has been indefatigable. 
And I trust him with the future of this country.
    So I want you all to think about this. And I want you to be able to 
go out, every one of you, and say, ``Remember what it was like? Here is 
what they've done. Here is what they're going to do.'' Elections are 
determined by three things: the quality of the candidates; whether 
you've got enough money to be heard--it's okay if the other guys have 
more, you just have to have enough; and, third, and most important, once 
those two baseline things are satisfied is what do the voters think the 
election is about, what is the subject of the election?
    If the subject of the election is whether America is going to use 
this once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet the big challenges of the future, 
we will win because you've given us the resources to be heard and he's 
found the candidates to run. And believe me, you owe it to these little 
kids in this room and people like them all across this country.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 8:35 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Terence and Dorothy McAuliffe and 
their daughter Mary; and former Representative Jane Harman. This item 
was not received in time for publication in the appropriate issue.