[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 36 (Monday, September 11, 2000)]
[Pages 2000-2001]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Reception for Hillary Clinton in Cazenovia, New York

September 2, 2000

    Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. I want to thank Christine 
and Patty and Les and Sandy and Sarah and everyone else who had anything 
to do with this event. But especially, I thank our hosts for welcoming 
us to this beautiful, beautiful home, and we should give them a big 
hand, I think. [Applause]
    Thank you, Kelly. And the madrigals were great. Let's give them 
another hand. And thank you, Kelly. You were great. [Applause] Thank 
you.
    Well, we have had a great day. We just came from the State Fair, and 
there were tens of thousands of people. And after the other candidate 
for the Senate refused to eat a sausage sandwich there, this one did 
not. Let's get right down to the basic issues in this election. 
[Laughter]
    Let me say, I want to be very brief because I want Hillary to make 
the speech tonight, but I want to just make a couple of points. First of 
all, we are very grateful to the people of New York State for being so 
good to us and to Al and Tipper Gore these last 8 years. New York has 
always been there for us. And I hope that you feel that America is 
better than it was 8 years ago and that it's worked out pretty well for 
us.
    The second point I would like to make is an abbreviated version of 
what I said in Los Angeles at the Democratic Convention. This country is 
in very good shape. But how a country uses its prosperity is just as 
stern a test of its judgment, its values, and its vision as how you deal 
with adversity. And I'm old enough to know now that we may never have 
another time like this in our lifetime. And in my lifetime, we have 
never had a time like this before, when we have at once so much 
prosperity and so little internal stress and external threat.
    So we really have a chance to do some things we've never done 
before, including bring economic opportunity to places in upstate New 
York that aren't part of our prosperity yet, including giving all of our 
children a world-class education, including dealing with our long-term 
challenges from the aging

[[Page 2001]]

of America, the long-term environmental challenges of the country.
    I want Hillary to talk about all of this, but I tell you, how 
elections come out--I've been involved with them since I was--the first 
election I ever worked in, I was 8 years old, passing out cards at the 
polling place for my uncle who was running for State legislature. They 
had 2-year terms, and his wife made him quit after one term because she 
didn't like politics very much. [Laughter] But the lesson did not spread 
to our branch of the family. [Laughter]
    But I'll tell you what I've learned in all that long time: The 
winner is often determined by what the people believe the election is 
about. And I can tell you that for 30 years, from the first time I ever 
met Hillary, the first thing she ever talked about to me--the welfare of 
children, and how families cope with work and having kids and succeeded 
in both ways. I've watched her for 30 years work on foster care, on 
adoptions, on health care for kids.
    And during the period when I was Governor, because of the adversity 
we faced in our home then in Arkansas, she went on a bunch of big 
corporation boards; she went out working on how to find--get jobs into 
places that had been left behind. And when I ran for President, as 
Governor, the whole thing had turned around, in no small measure because 
of a lot of the work she had done in the rural areas and the small 
towns, in the left-behind areas of our State.
    So I'll tell you two things. If you want somebody that understands 
how to try to create economic opportunity in places that have been left 
behind and if you want somebody that has spent a whole lifetime always 
sticking up for kids, for families, and for the proposition that every 
child matters, she's the best person in America New York could send to 
the U.S. Senate.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 5:30 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Leslie and Patty Woodcock, and 
their daughter, Christine Woodcock Dettor, who introduced the President; 
dinner cochairs Sandy Souder and Sarah Nichols; and Kelly McDonald, who 
sang a song for the President.