[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 34 (Monday, August 28, 2000)]
[Pages 1912-1916]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Dinner for Representative Debbie Stabenow
in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

August 22, 2000

    Thank you. Well, first I'd like to thank Bill and Michelle for 
letting us come into their home while it's still new. [Laughter] It 
might have been built for this event, who knows? [Laughter] It's a 
really beautiful place, and they're really good people. They've been so 
good to me and Hillary and the Vice President and Tipper. And thank you 
for helping Debbie, and thanks for being my friend all these long years. 
I'm very grateful to you.
    I want to thank all your officeholders who are here--Jennifer 
Granholm, whose husband was giving me some tips on how to be the spouse 
of a candidate. [Laughter] And I listened very carefully. I don't want 
to blow this. [Laughter] I thank Dale Kildee for being my friend and for 
working with us for 8 years for the interests of the families of 
Michigan and the United States. It's been really great.
    And I can't say enough about Carl Levin. He and Barbara rode over 
here with us, and we were talking about the last 8 years, and I was 
thinking about all the things that he has educated me on. But I can tell 
you that he is one of the handful of people that is universally 
respected in the Senate by everybody, and when he talks, everybody 
listens.
    I want to thank all of you who worked on this event. I see Peter 
Buttenweiser back there. Thank you, sir, and all the rest of you who 
helped to make this successful. And I'd like to say my special word of 
appreciation to Jane Hart for being here tonight. You know, when I was a 
young man in college, I worked for Senator Bill Fulbright, who was then 
the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and it was a very long 
time ago. But I remember vividly when I was there, one of the most 
tumultuous times in modern American history. We had big struggles over 
civil rights, big struggles over riots in the streets, big struggles 
over Vietnam. And I remember very vividly how Senator Phil Hart

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conducted himself, how he spoke, what he said, and how other people 
respected him.
    And one of the reasons that Debbie Stabenow ought to go to the 
Senate, apart from the fact that she will vote more like Phil Hart would 
have voted and speak more like he would have spoken, is that we in the 
Democratic Party have tried our best to work in good faith with the 
Republicans, and we have tried to end the politics of personal hostility 
and negativism. And I think almost as important as anything else, Debbie 
will restore, along with Hillary and President Gore and Vice President 
Lieberman, a sense of real humanity to our national political life. The 
American people will say one more time, ``We don't like that stuff. We 
sent you up there to do a job. We want you to treat each other with 
respect, and we want you to show up for work every day.'' That is the 
legacy of Phil Hart that I remember and one I will always remember. And 
I'm very honored that you're here tonight, Jane, and I thank you very 
much.
    I'd also like to say at the last meeting--I don't even know if he's 
here tonight but--if he came over here--but I saw Matt Frumin, who was 
one of the original cochairs of my Saxophone Club who is now running for 
Congress in the 11th district. [Laughter] And he's really doing a good 
job, and I hope you'll help him as well.
    Now, if you heard what I said in Los Angeles, I don't know that I 
have much more to say about--[laughter]--about what I think this 
election is all about. But I will try to be briefer and more colloquial. 
First of all, I am profoundly grateful to the people of Michigan for 
voting for me twice, by big margins, the last time by almost twice the 
margin by which we prevailed in the country. The people of this State 
have been good to me and have come to reflect the diversity and the 
success that has been the hallmark of America in these last 8 years. And 
I'm very, very grateful.
    Secondly, this is the first time in 26 years they've held an 
election when I wasn't on the ballot. [Laughter] I used to have to run 
every 2 years. And as I've often joked, most days I'm okay about it, 
because I feel--my heart is full of gratitude, and I'm really rather 
looking forward to trying to figure out what to do in the next chapter 
of my life and how to be a good citizen. I have 5 months, and I intend 
to do a great deal in these last 5 months as President. But I speak 
today also as someone who for most of his political life was a citizen 
activist.
    I was 8 years old handing out cards for my uncle who was running for 
the legislature. I spent 20 years working for other people before I 
spent 24 years scurrying around on my own behalf and also working for 
other people. And what I would like to say to you is, I have now lived 
long enough to know that sometimes you're most in trouble in political 
life when you think you're least in trouble. You're most vulnerable as a 
people when we think we're least vulnerable. And the big danger when 
things are going well is that you think you can go to sleep.
    There are a lot of young people here. Bill and Michelle and their 
wonderful kids are here. A lot of the rest of you brought your kids 
here. And they, most of them, don't know this, but anybody who is over 
30 years old has lived long enough to have made at least one whopper of 
a mistake in your life, not when times are going real poorly but when 
times were going so well you thought there was simply no consequence to 
the failure to concentrate. If you live long enough, you'll make one of 
those mistakes.
    And so what I want to say is, if the people of Michigan understand 
the difference in Debbie's voting record and her opponent, if they 
understand the difference in her positions on the issues that are 
hanging fire today and her opponent's, if they understand the general 
difference in her approach to how America should go into the 21st 
century and her opponent's, she will win the election. I don't think any 
of you doubt that.
    So wouldn't it be ironic if the big adversary of Al Gore and Joe 
Lieberman and the new candidate in my family, Hillary--and some of you 
have already helped, and for that I am very grateful--and Debbie was the 
very success that all of us have worked so hard to help the American 
people create. Now, that is what I want you to think about.
    And I don't want you to just think about it tonight; I want you to 
think about it every day between now and the election. Because, as much 
as I appreciate the money you have

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contributed to her campaign and as much as I hope you'll keep trying to 
help her and all the rest of our crowd's races, it's not enough, because 
America has to be thinking about this election in order for us to 
prevail. We can't sleepwalk through it. We can't sort of sidle into it. 
We've got to actually think, ``Oh, my goodness, there's an election, the 
only time in my lifetime we've had this much prosperity with the absence 
of domestic crisis and foreign threat. We have the chance to build the 
future of our dreams for our kids. What is this about?''
    And every one of you know lots and lots of people who are far less 
involved in politics than you are, people who are your relatives, people 
who are your friends, people with whom you work, people with whom you 
worship, people with whom you play golf or bowl or whatever you do. You 
know a lot of people that you really like and care about who aren't 
nearly as into this as you are. But they're good people, and they're 
good citizens, and they're going to show up on election day. They're 
going to vote, sure as the world. If they have to walk through the ice, 
they'll go vote. Don't you want them to know what this is about, and 
don't you want them to have at least the same framework you do?
    This is the whole shooting match, folks. We have the chance to build 
the future of our dreams for our children. It's a big election. We will 
never forgive ourselves if we sleepwalk through it. It may not come 
around again in your lifetime.
    If you heard my convention speech you heard me talking about the 
late sixties. That's the last time we had an economic run this long. And 
I'm telling you, I finished high school in the middle of it, and if 
anybody had told me that within 2 years we'd have riots in the streets 
and within 4 years Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy would be dead and the 
President that I admired so much, Lyndon Johnson, wouldn't run for 
reelection and the country would be split in two and then we'd have a 
divisive Presidential election, and then the economic expansion would be 
over, I would never have believed it. I would never have believed it.
    Now, we're more fortunate this time. We don't have that level of 
internal crisis or external threat right now, but we have to 
concentrate. And you've got to go out and tell everybody you know that 
this is an important election with the opportunity of a lifetime to 
build the future of our dreams.
    Then you've got to tell people, ``Hey, there are real differences 
here that are big and have practical consequences for the lives of the 
families in Michigan--huge difference in economic policy.'' Do you 
really believe that right now we should say, ``We've got a $2 trillion 
projected surplus, and we ought to give it all away in a tax cut right 
now?'' Right now, give it all away for the next 10 years, before the 
money comes in, before we see about the emergencies, before we set aside 
anything for education or health care or do anything to lengthen the 
life of Social Security and Medicare or give up trying to get the 
country out of debt to keep interest rates down, the stock market high, 
and growth going and jobs coming in?
    This is huge. I promise you most people don't know yet what the 
difference is in the economic policies of Debbie Stabenow and her 
opponent, and Al Gore and Joe Lieberman and their adversaries. They 
don't know. You can tell them. It's a huge deal.
    I got a report last month that said that interest rates--best case 
for the Republican plan--that is, if all this money actually comes in, 
interest rates would be a point lower every year for a decade under our 
plan. That's worth for most folks, totaled, $250 billion in lower home 
mortgages, $30 billion in lower car payments, and for those of you with 
kids in college, $15 billion in lower student loan payments. This is a 
huge deal.
    And never mind what happens if the money doesn't come in. We don't 
have to spend it if it doesn't come in, but I promise you, if they have 
a tax cut next year and give it all away, they're not going to turn 
around and raise taxes if it doesn't come in, and we'll be right back in 
the soup again. And a lot of you have heard my little joke, but it 
really does remind me--their position is like getting one of those 
letters in the mail from Ed McMahon--[laughter]--you know, the 
Publishers Clearing House, the sweepstakes letter. ``You may have won 
$10 million.'' Wow! If you ran out and spent the money the next day, you 
should seriously consider supporting her opponent in this election. 
[Laughter] But

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if you didn't, I hope you'll stick with her and with Al Gore and Joe 
Lieberman and all the people that have been a part of the enormous 
effort to give you the chance to build the America we enjoy today.
    There are huge differences in the environment. We believe you can 
improve the environment and grow the economy. I think we've got lots of 
evidence, don't you? We have 22 million jobs, cleaner air, cleaner 
water, safer food, 3 times as many toxic waste dumps cleaned up, 43 
million more Americans breathing air that meets Federal air standards, 
and the best economy in history. If you do it right, you can do it.
    Now, they've got a commitment to weaken that. This is a serious 
choice. You have to make a choice. And this Medicare drug issue, it's a 
big deal. The average 65-year-old in America has a life expectancy of 
83. People over 65 in America have the highest life expectancy of any 
group of seniors in the world. But if you want people to live longer and 
live well, they have to have access to medicine. Our plan would give 
everybody that needs it access to it. It clearly can be paid for, 
notwithstanding her opponent's attacked her over this because it costs 
so much. Let me just tell you something; they have the Congressional 
Budget Office; they give us the cost estimates. By their estimates--by 
their estimates, not ours--we can pay for the drug plan she wants to 
vote for; we can have a sizable tax cut to help people with education, 
long-term care, marriage penalty relief, retirement savings; we can 
invest in education; and we can still get the country out of debt 
because we have a cushion in case the money doesn't come in.
    Now, those are the facts. There's a huge difference here, big 
difference in the Patients' Bill of Rights. There's a big difference in 
gun safety legislation. You know, the previous administration, they 
vetoed the Brady bill. This crowd is against closing the gun show 
loophole. The congressional leadership was against putting 100,000 
police on the street and another 50,000--this ticket says they'll get 
rid of the program that I've worked so hard for.
    I mean, it's not like you don't have a test here. Crime is at a 25-
year low. If you put more police on the street, they stop people from 
committing crimes if they're smart and they do it right. If you keep 
more guns out of the hands of criminals and children, you don't have as 
many people dying. It's not like there's no test here. There's a big 
difference. You've got to make sure people understand this.
     They're committed to repealing Roe v. Wade. Al Gore is committed to 
continuing it. Debbie Stabenow will have to vote on who gets appointed 
to the Supreme Court. It's a big deal. You have to decide what you 
believe.
    So I just want to say, I'm not trying to make you--everybody wants 
to be happy now because things are going so well, and I'm happy they're 
going well. But I'm telling you--and I'd like to sort of ride off into 
the sunset singing ``Happy Trails''--[laughter]--but life doesn't work 
that way. Just because somebody's term is over, everything that needs to 
be done doesn't go away.
    We've got a chance to go out and reach these--the Native American 
reservations, these inner-city neighborhoods, these poor rural towns 
that don't have any kind of economic recovery, and give them jobs and 
businesses. It will help all the rest of us. We've got all kinds of 
opportunities out there, but I'm telling you, there are huge choices. 
You just remember what I said. If somebody asks you what's the 
difference in Stabenow-Abraham, Gore-Bush on economic policy, can you 
answer? What's the difference on the Patients' Bill of Rights? What's 
the difference on Medicare drugs? What's the difference on the 
environment? What's the difference on gun safety, closing the gun show 
loophole? What's the difference on choice? Can you answer?
    You have got to be able to talk to other people between now and 
November and tell them it may be 50 years before we have a time like 
this again, and we can't blow it. And I want to tell you something. I 
worked with this woman for years now. She is special. She is strong. She 
has a good heart, a good mind, and she's a good politician in the best 
sense. And you'll be very, very proud of her when you put her in the 
Senate.
    Thank you very much.

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Note: The President spoke at 8:53 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Bill and Michelle O'Reilly; State 
Attorney General Jennifer M. Granholm and her husband, Dan Mulhern; 
Senator Carl Levin and his wife, Barbara; philanthropist Peter L. 
Buttenweiser; and Jane Hart, widow of former Senator Philip A. Hart. 
Representative Stabenow is a candidate for U.S. Senate from Michigan.