[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 43 (Monday, October 30, 2000)]
[Pages 2569-2572]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

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

October 22, 2000

    Thank you very much. I want to thank Susie who has been such a 
wonderful friend to Hillary and me for so many years now. And I want to 
thank Amy and Jeffrey and Harvey and all the others who spearheaded

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this event tonight. It's a beautiful testimonial to Hillary, and I'm 
delighted that it could be in this wonderful old theater.
    I want to thank Sir Elton John for being good enough to come and be 
with us tonight and congratulate him on his smashing success in the last 
few days. This will be the second time he has performed during the 
Clinton administration; the first was at the state dinner for his Prime 
Minister, Tony Blair, where he and Stevie Wonder commemorated a truly 
historic night of Anglo-American partnership.
    I want to say, too, very briefly, because we are all here basically 
to have a good time and see each other--and I hope that Hillary and I 
can visit with all the rest of you before you leave--because there are 
so many of you here who have been not only important political 
supporters of ours but very good friends over the last 8 years and, in 
some cases, from long before.
    Hillary and I are delighted that her mother and Chelsea could be 
here tonight. This is sort of a family day we've had in New York, and I 
have been to Binghamton and Watertown and Alex Bay today in my capacity 
as Cheerleader in Chief in this election. [Laughter]
    And I just want to tell you a couple of things very briefly. First 
of all, I believe on November the 7th, Hillary will be elected, and I 
believe Al Gore and Joe Lieberman will be elected. And I think a lot of 
you are asking me what you're supposed to say, and I think you should 
say three things about the national election.
    First of all, if you want to keep the prosperity going, you only 
have one choice, because our team wants to give the folks a tax cut they 
can afford, keep investing in education and health care, and get rid of 
the national debt, which will get interest rates down. Their side is 
promising everybody the Moon: a huge tax cut, a huge privatization of 
Social Security, and a lot of spending, and it doesn't add up. The 
numbers don't add up. And if we go back into debt, we tried it their way 
for 12 years. You remember that? We quadrupled the national debt. That's 
why I got elected President.
    So if we give them one more chance, they might give us a whole 
generation of Democratic Presidents, but it's not worth it to do to the 
country. And you need to tell people this. We tried it our way for 8 
years. We tried it their way for 12 years. Our way works better. If you 
want to keep it going, you better vote for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman and 
Hillary.
    The second thing you ought to say is, ``If you want to build on the 
social progress of the last 8 years, you've got to vote for Al Gore and 
Joe Lieberman and Hillary.'' What do I mean by that? The crime rate is 
at a 26-year low; the murder rate is at a 33-year low; the gun violence 
rate is down by 35 percent because of the Brady bill, the assault 
weapons ban, putting 100,000 police on the street.
    Now, you all know where they are on the Brady bill and the waiting 
period. That's why Charlton Heston has a starring role in this election. 
Did you hear what he said yesterday? The most important election for gun 
owners since the Civil War. Some guy said they ought to lynch Gore. He 
said he'll supply the rope. Look, this is serious. It isn't true that Al 
Gore and Joe Lieberman want to take anybody's guns away, but they don't 
want kids and criminals to have guns. That's what this is about. It's 
also about, they want to get rid of 100,000 police. We're trying to put 
100,000 teachers in the classrooms. They want to get rid of them.
    We have given the American people cleaner air, cleaner water, safer 
food, more land set aside than in any administration except for Theodore 
Roosevelt. They want to weaken the air rules and relax the protections 
I've given to public lands. See, it's not like you don't have a clear 
choice here. We proved you can clean up the environment and improve the 
economy. They want to reverse that policy.
    Same thing in health care, and Hillary will talk a little more about 
that. We've got a decline in the number of people without health 
insurance for the first time in a dozen years because of our Children's 
Health Insurance Program. But all the things that we want to do to build 
on that, they're not for.
    So if you want to build on the progress of the last 8 years, if you 
like the fact that we're a safer country, that we're an environmentally 
cleaner country, that education is improving, that health care is 
getting better,

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you don't have any choice, you've got to vote for Gore/Lieberman and 
Hillary.
    And the third thing, and the most important thing to me, is if you 
believe as I do that the most important mission of any society is to 
build a unity, an affirmation of our common humanity, beneath all the 
lines that divide us, all the diversity in this society that makes it an 
interesting place to live, you really have to vote for Gore/Lieberman 
and Hillary. Whether it's equal pay for women or the hate crimes bill or 
the employment nondiscrimination bill or preserving a woman's right to 
choose or just preserving a philosophy on the Supreme Court that the 
National Government ought to be able to protect the basic health and 
welfare of the American people.
    The next President is going to get two appointments. Roe v. Wade is 
hanging by one vote. And a majority on this court has already voted to 
invalidate the ability of Congress to pass the Violence Against Women 
Act if it requires the States to do anything. That's a theory that 
prevailed 70 years ago in the 1930's.
    Now, you've got to go out and talk to people and make sure they 
understand this. If you want the economy to keep growing, if you want 
this society to keep making progress and if you want America to keep 
coming together instead of being driven apart, you only have one choice.
    And this should be a very happy election. The country's in good 
shape, and the best stuff is still out there. Yes, we have problems. 
There will never be a time on Earth when people are around that we don't 
have problems, because we all have imperfections, so there will be 
problems. But we will never have another chance in our lifetime like 
this.
    Which brings me to my appointed duty. When Hillary was approached--
when Senator Moynihan said he would not seek reelection, and Hillary was 
approached by a number of members of the New York congressional 
delegation over a year ago now to think about running for the Senate 
seat once held not only by Senator Moynihan but by Robert Kennedy, and 
then a lot of other people in New York started to call her, she said, 
``Do you think we ought to consider doing this?''
    And so first I gave--we went through the same drill that I go 
through when a young person comes to me and says, ``I want to run for 
State legislature,'' or something. I said, ``Can you stand losing? Are 
you prepared to win, to do what it takes to win? And do you know why you 
want the job, for some reason or another bigger than yourself?'' And she 
had good answers to that. And then I said, ``Well, are you prepared to 
give up what could be our last--what will be our last year in the White 
House, when we could have a good time, we could take all these trips 
together? We could do all these things together--memories of a 
lifetime.'' And ``Get up to upstate New York and find out what's wrong 
with the economy. Get out to Long Island and find out why they're 
worried about some of their health care problems.''
    And we debated it, and I said, ``I think you should not think about 
how you'll feel the day we leave the White House. You ought to think 
about how you'll feel a year after we're gone,'' because public service 
has been her life.
    And one other point I would like to make, a lot of you who have 
known her a long time will identify with this. I don't get--you know, I 
feel nothing anymore when somebody attacks me. I'm sort of callused 
over. I can even stand it, normally, when somebody attacks Hillary now. 
But I am enraged when I hear somebody say that she wouldn't be up here 
running for Senator for New York if she weren't First Lady. If she 
hadn't spent the last 30 years of her life working for children and 
families and charitable causes and other candidates, mostly me, she 
could have been doing this 20 years ago.
    And what I want to say to you is, I am very proud of the race she 
has run. I am proud what she has done in the White House, to advocate 
for children, for families, for women's health, to build the largest 
historic preservation movement in our country's history around the 
millennium celebration, to visit more countries, to work for peace in 
the Middle East, peace in Northern Ireland, to support our troops in the 
Balkans when they stood up against ethnic cleansing and took the first 
critical steps that were pivotal to the eventual elimination of Mr. 
Milosevic

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from the political scene over there. I am very proud of all that.
    Of all the people I have known, the hundreds and hundreds of people 
I have known in public life, she has the best combination of brains and 
heart and consistent dedication and the ability to get things done of 
any person I have ever known, anywhere in public life. She will be a 
worthy successor to Senator Moynihan, Senator Kennedy, and a great 
partner for Chuck Schumer.
    Come on up, Hillary, and give them a speech. Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10:36 p.m. at the Hudson Theatre. In his 
remarks, he referred to reception host Susie Tompkins Buell; 
entertainers Elton John and Stevie Wonder; Prime Minister Tony Blair of 
the United Kingdom; Dorothy Rodham, the President's mother-in-law; 
Charlton Heston, president, National Rifle Association; and former 
President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 
(Serbia and Montenegro). A tape was not available for verification of 
the content of these remarks.