[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 30 (Monday, July 31, 2000)]
[Pages 1705-1709]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Reception for Representative Richard A. Gephardt

July 27, 2000

    Thank you very much. [Applause] That's the way it will be on January 
20th. [Laughter] Just one hand left, that's all. [Laughter]
    Let me say first of all, I'm glad to see you all here. I'm delighted 
that you have contributed so much money to our cause, and I thank you 
for that. I want to thank Chevy Chase and Jayni for being here. They've 
been great friends to Hillary and me. I always tell everybody that I 
knew that I would be friends with this guy for life in our first two 
encounters. I mean, our first two meaningful encounters.
    You may remember that I gave a very ill-fated speech in 1988 at the 
convention. [Laughter] I'm still looking for the chance to finish it. 
I've just never--[laughter].
    And so everybody's making fun of me. And that summer I went up to 
Long Island, and I went to this charity softball game they have up there 
every summer between writers and artists. And the guy that was calling 
the game--they asked me to be an umpire. So I said, ``Okay, I'll do 
that. I know how to play ball.'' And by then, I thought I was finished 
anyway, so I didn't mind making all those writers mad at me. [Laughter] 
``Strike,'' you know. [Laughter]

[[Page 1706]]

    And so the guy starts ragging me about this speech I gave at the 
convention, and between innings, this big tall guy gets up out of the 
stands, walks down. I looked up, and I said, ``Lo and behold, it's Chevy 
Chase.'' And he comes to me, and he says, ``To hell with them all. I 
liked the speech.'' [Laughter] Now, only my mother said that to me 
before he did. [Laughter]
    The second time I saw him was--to really have an encounter, was June 
2d, 1992. A great night--I won the California primary, the Ohio primary, 
the New Jersey primary. It was the first time I knew for absolutely sure 
I'd be the nominee of the Democratic Party on the first ballot.
    The whole story in the press that night was, ``We did all these exit 
polls. Nobody's for Clinton. He's in third place. They really want 
Perot. He's dead.'' It's the first time anybody ever got nominated who 
was dead meat before he was even nominated. He came to my suite in Los 
Angeles, at the Biltmore Hotel, and said, ``To hell with them. I'm still 
for you.'' [Laughter] I will never forget that as long as I live.
    Now, he is, however, a terrible golfer. [Laughter] ``Caddyshack'' 
was not only a comedy; it was a fraud. [Laughter] But I can tell you 
truthfully, it's only because he never made an effort. He was actually 
quite extraordinary when he took a little instruction. [Laughter]
    What is he doing back there, anyway? [Laughter]
    Let me say on a more serious note, anything I have been able to do 
for our country would have been impossible without the leadership in the 
Congress--in the Senate, over these last 7\1/2\ years, that's George 
Mitchell and Tom Daschle, and in the House with Dick Gephardt.
    I was sitting here looking at Dick and Jane tonight thinking about 
the time he came to Arkansas to give a speech in 1988, and I brought him 
back to the Governor's mansion, and we ate french fries. Do you remember 
that? It's really unhealthy--11:30 at night and we're eating french 
fries on the kitchen counter at home. And I really liked him.
    But I have to tell you that I hope that in some way I have grown in 
this job I have had, because we're supposed to grow with the experiences 
we have in life. I can tell you, I have never seen anybody--he was good 
when I first met him. But he's probably the best leader we have ever 
had, certainly in the 20th century, certainly in any of my experience 
and knowledge.
    And if ever anybody deserved to be the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives and earned it, he did. He didn't quit the Congress. He 
didn't do something else. He didn't turn away. He didn't get bitter. He 
didn't get cynical. When we got beat in '94, he just kept working. And 
we worked together. We learned some things about how to work together 
from our defeat, and we got more effective. We picked up seats in '96.
    Then we picked up seats in '98, the first time that we'd won in the 
mid-term of an incumbent President since the thirties, the first time in 
the 6th year of an incumbent President since 1822. Dick Gephardt did 
that with his leadership and the unity of our Democratic caucus.
    And we're just five little seats away now. And soon, I think, it 
will become apparent that we have an excellent chance of winning, thanks 
in no small measure to your support. One of the people that I expect to 
help make up our new majority is here tonight, and he is the Congressman 
from a district that includes a little town in which I was born, and I 
want you to make him welcome, State Senator Mike Ross from Arkansas. 
Mike, come up here and weigh in. He's a good candidate, and if you want 
to write him an extra check, it will be all right with me. [Laughter]
    Now, let me just say a few words--and I realize I'm preaching to the 
saved tonight. But it's very important that every one of you recognize 
that in all probability this will be a close race for the Presidency, 
for the House, and for the Senate. We have an excellent chance to win 
the House. We have a realistic chance to win the Senate. And I have 
always believed we would win the White House when the American people 
understood what the issues were and what the choices were. You have to 
make them understand that.
    There are just three things you need to know about the 2000 
election--only three. It is a huge election. We are deciding how to use 
our prosperity, and it is a stern test

[[Page 1707]]

of our character and judgment. And a lot of Americans don't believe that 
yet. The biggest problem we've got--a lot of them think that we couldn't 
mess this economy up if we tried. Everything is going along all right. 
You know, maybe we're electing a President of the student body. 
[Laughter] I'm telling you, it's a serious thing.
    You have got to go out and remind people that how a nation handles 
its prosperity is, if anything, a sterner test of its judgment, its 
values, and its character than how you handle adversity. We all talk 
about, you know, what a miracle '92 was. I'll never forget President 
Bush derisively referring to me as the Governor of a small southern 
State. I was so naive, I thought it was a compliment. [Laughter] And I 
still do. [Laughter]
    But you know, the country knew we had to change. They knew we--we 
didn't have an economic policy that worked. We didn't have a social 
policy that worked, from education to welfare to crime. We didn't have a 
political theory about how we could pull the country together. We didn't 
really have a clear vision about what our national role was going to be 
in the world. We knew we had to change.
    The worst thing that can happen to the Democrats this year is if 
people think this is an election without consequence. So I'm just 
telling you, the first thing you've got to do is convince everybody you 
know anywhere in America that this is a profoundly important election. 
I've waited all my life to see my country in a position to paint a 
picture of the future, to realize our dreams for our children.
    We've got that chance now. I don't know if it will ever come around 
again, and neither do you. And it may not happen in your lifetime. It is 
a big election. If people think that, we're halfway home.
    The second thing you need to know about this election is, there are 
real and profound differences between the two parties and our candidates 
for President, Senate, and Congress, differences on economic policy, on 
crime policy, on health care policy, on education policy, right across 
the board.
    The third thing you need to know--and this is all you need to know--
is only the Democrats want you to know what those differences are. What 
does that tell you about who you ought to vote for? [Laughter] I never 
thought I'd live to see it. All over America, these Republicans are 
moaning, crying these big crocodile tears about how mean and negative 
the Democrats are. These are people that brought us over the last 20 
years the most vicious era of personal-destruction politics in modern 
American history, and what is it they're crying about? Is it because 
we're doing what they did? No. We're telling the voters how they voted. 
And they say, ``Oh, this is so mean. It's so negative. How dare you tell 
people back home how I voted and what my positions are?'' [Laughter]
    Do you think I'm kidding? Just look at any race involving a 
Republican incumbent, and that ought to be sobering to you, because the 
only reason they have a chance to get away with this is because times 
are going so good, people are doing well. People are optimistic, and 
they're upbeat. And goodness knows, one of the best things about America 
is we always want to believe the best about people.
    Well, I don't think we have to believe the worst about people. I 
don't want anybody saying anything bad about these folks. I want us to 
say that we assume they're honorable, good, and decent people, and they 
mean exactly what they say; they intend to do what exactly what they 
say. But they shouldn't be able to hide all they have done and said, 
starting at that Republican Convention and going all the way to 
November. And it's your job to make sure people know what the 
differences are, because they don't want you to know.
    If we run ads in a State to say they voted against the Patients' 
Bill of Rights, they come back with ads that say, ``How dare they say 
that. I voted for a Patients' Bill of Rights.'' There is a big 
difference between ``a'' and ``the,'' all the difference in the wide 
world. And I could go on and on.
    Now, I want you to think about this. And I want to say a word about 
the Vice President. I always tell everybody there are four reasons you 
ought to vote for him, and all but the first applies to all the rest of 
the Democrats.

[[Page 1708]]

    The first is, never in the history of the Republic has anybody held 
the office of Vice President to such great effect with so much influence 
and so much impact. I noticed the other day that the prospective nominee 
of the Republican Party said he'd be a more conventional Vice President; 
Al Gore had done too much. Well, I don't want anybody working for me 
that's not trying to do too much. I thought that's what we hired on for. 
Did you hire us to take vacations?
    I'm telling you, from breaking the tie on the economic plan in '93, 
which broke the back of the deficits and the big debts in this country 
and got us going again, to his leadership on technology, on energy, on 
empowering poor communities, there has never been anybody in this job 
that did so much good. There have been a lot of Vice Presidents that 
made great Presidents, but no one as Vice President who ever did 
remotely as much as Al Gore. He's the best qualified person to be the 
President of the United States, to run in my lifetime, and you ought to 
make sure every American voter knows that.
    The second thing I want to tell you is that if you want to keep 
making enough money so you can afford to come to fundraisers like this--
[laughter]--you should vote for us--[laughter]--because we'll keep this 
prosperity going. Their proposal--last year they passed this big old tax 
cut, and I vetoed it. And they went out in the August recess, and they 
tried to stir up the folks, and it turned out the people agreed with us. 
So this year they did something smarter. They did a salami tax cut. They 
just slashed it a little bit along. And every one of them sounds great. 
It's like going to a cafeteria, you know? If you pick everything off a 
tray that sounds good and looks good and you want to eat it all, by the 
time you eat it all, you're really sick--[laughter]--even though it was 
all good.
    They have passed in this Congress, in the last 12 months, tax cuts 
totalling almost $2 trillion, the entire projected surplus: no money to 
lengthen the life of Medicare and Social Security; no money to invest in 
our children's education; no money to do what we need to do in health 
care to provide Medicare prescription drugs; never mind the environment 
or medical research or any emergencies that will come up along the way. 
They want to spend right on the front end our whole projected surplus.
    Now, let me ask you this. This is like one of those--did you ever 
get one of those letters in the mail from Ed McMahon? [Laughter] ``You 
may have won $10 million.'' Did you go out the next day and spend $10 
million? If you did, you should support Governor Bush and the 
Republicans. [Laughter] If not, you better stick with us and keep this 
economy going.
    Now, this is serious. There was an article the other day in one of 
the major papers saying the voters saw no difference in the economic 
policies of the two candidates and the two parties. And I said, ``You 
know, they keep saying I'm a good communicator. I must have totally 
flubbed here.'' [Laughter] It's just because things are going well.
    They had the White House for 12 years, and they quadrupled the debt 
of this country--4 times what we've run up in 200 years before. And they 
want to go right back to the same policy and convince you that things 
are so good, they couldn't mess it up if they tried.
    You've got to make sure people know that. If the American people 
want that, if they want to read the Ed McMahon letter and say, ``I'm 
going to spend that $10 million right now. I hope it comes in''--
[laughter]--then that's fine. It's a free country. It's a democracy. 
People ought to be able to get whatever they want.
    But they don't want that, and you know it. So if they vote against 
our nominees from President to Senator to Congress, it's because they 
don't understand that that's a choice. You know that by two to one they 
will agree with us. You know they will.
    If I ask you what you were going to make over the next decade--what 
are your projected earnings? Every one of you just think about it. Just 
think about it. What do you think you're going to make for 10 years?
    Now, I'm going to set up a chair here and a desk, and I've got a 
notary public, and I want you to come up here right now and sign a 
contract spending it all. [Laughter] If you'd do that, you ought to vote 
for them; if not, you better stick with us. Now, that's a pretty clear 
choice.

[[Page 1709]]

    The second thing I want to say to you is, we have differences over 
social policy that I think are profoundly important. We're for a 
Patients' Bill of Rights that's real, and they're not. We're for a 
Medicare prescription drug benefit that all of our seniors can buy who 
need it and our disabled Americans, and they're not. We want to close 
the gun show loophole, and they don't. The head of the NRA says they're 
going to have an office in the White House if they win the next 
election. They won't need it; they'll have their way, anyway.
    Now, I'm not saying anything bad about them. That's the way they 
are. [Laughter] No--they believe that. They believe that. You don't have 
to be a bad person to have a difference of opinion. But it's very bad to 
try to obscure the difference of opinion and hope the voters don't know.
    If the voters want, by a majority, to have a Congress that won't 
close the gun show loophole, that won't provide a genuine Medicare 
prescription drug benefit for our seniors, that won't pass a real 
Patients' Bill of Rights, that won't help our schools with new building 
and hire more teachers, and do these things that need to be done, they 
have a right to choose that. But they must know what the choice is. And 
if they don't, it's our fault, because if I were them, I wouldn't tell 
them either. [Laughter] They know if anybody finds out where they stand, 
they're sunk. So they have to paint these pretty pictures.
    And the last and most important thing I want to tell you, more 
important than anything else, is that Al Gore and Dick Gephardt and our 
crowd, we want to take everybody along for the ride. That's why we're 
for hate crimes legislation. That's why we're for employment 
nondiscrimination legislation. That's why we support strong civil rights 
enforcement. That's why we want to extend the benefits of this economic 
prosperity to everybody in every corner of this country. That's why we 
want to raise the minimum wage. That's why our tax cuts are targeted 
toward helping people send their kids to college or pay for child care 
or pay for long-term care for the elderly and disabled. That's why we 
want to give a big income tax cut to low wage working people with three 
or more kids, because we think the people that are here working in this 
hotel tonight that could never afford to pay a ticket to come to a 
fundraiser like this deserve the same chance we do to send their kids to 
college and to live the American dream. That's who we are, and that's 
what we are.
    So if you believe that we ought to keep the prosperity going and you 
want to extend it to everybody, if you believe that we're right in 
trying to do the sensible thing on health care policy and crime policy 
and environmental policy, and if you think we ought to take everybody 
along on a great ride in the 21st century, you need to make sure that Al 
Gore is the President and that Dick Gephardt is the next Speaker.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 7:17 p.m. in the State Room at the 
Mayflower Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to comedian Chevy Chase and 
his wife, Jayni; Representative Gephardt's wife, Jane; former Senator 
George J. Mitchell; Gov. George W. Bush of Texas; Ed McMahon, 
spokesperson, Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes; Wayne LaPierre, 
executive vice president, National Rifle Association; and Republican 
Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney.