[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 43 (Monday, October 30, 2000)]
[Pages 2589-2595]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

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

October 23, 2000

    Thank you very much, my long-time friend Tom Manton. You know, the 
story he told you was true. I was in Manhattan. They said, ``We're going 
to the Queens Democratic Party. Congressman Manton is the chairman of 
the county party. If you do really well, they might endorse you.'' I 
said, ``Well, what happens if they don't?'' He said, ``You'll lose 
Queens in the primary.'' [Laughter] ``And we're going on the subway, and 
a television camera is going to follow you on the subway because they 
don't think anyone from Arkansas knows what a subway is.'' [Laughter]
    So properly intimidated, I haul myself onto the subway. And it was 
fascinating, because no one in New York knew who I was, and yet, here is 
this camera with this bright light filming my every move. And all these 
people are dead-tired, and they're being elbowed around by this 
energetic camera person. They probably thought I was some--you know, in 
the precursor to ``Survivor'' or something--[laughter]--just some 
anonymous guy trying to make it out of Queens, on the subway, with a 
funny accent. It was funny.
    So I was really apprehensive. We got to the meeting site, and I 
walked up the stairs, and the county committee clapped, and I walked 
down the middle of the aisle, not having a clue about what was going to 
happen.

[[Page 2590]]

And this African-American guy who was taller than me leaned over and put 
his arm around me and said, ``Bill, don't worry. I was born in Hope, 
Arkansas, too. Everything is going to be fine here.'' [Laughter] And I 
thought, ``Only in New York. This is great.'' [Laughter]
    So thank you, Tom Manton, for being my friend, for helping me get 
off to a good start as President. I wish your successor, Joe Crowley, 
could be here tonight, but he and Kasey had a baby girl today, and we're 
really happy for them, and that's why they're not here. I always say, 
the Democratic Party has to be pro-work and pro-family. So tonight is 
Joe's pro-family night. I think we can give him an excused absence.
    I want to thank the other Representatives who are here: Gary 
Ackerman, who was with me last night; and Greg Meeks; Anthony Weiner. I 
thank them for their leadership in the Congress. I thank them for their 
support of Hillary. I thank them for what they do for New York every 
day.
    You know, when things go well, the President gets a lot of credit. 
But the truth is that over and above the American people, who deserve 
the lion's share of credit for every good thing that happens in this 
country, so much of what I have done would not have been possible if it 
hadn't been for the support of the Democrats in Congress. And that 
became even more true after we were in the minority. So I want you to 
know that these men have my undying loyalty and gratitude, because they 
have been wonderful to me, along with Senator Schumer and the other 
Democrats in the delegation.
    I want to thank Alan Hevesi for being here, and your borough 
president, Claire Shulman, my long-time friend. Michael Reich, thank you 
for the work you do for the Democratic Party. And Alisa, you are great. 
You're going a long way. That was a great national anthem. And I want to 
thank Brian McLaughlin for making me feel welcome and being so kind to 
Hillary over these years and this last year of hard campaigning.
    I was thinking about how I was introduced to Queens, by having this 
guy who was born in the same State I was, welcome me. And then I was 
thinking about all the times I've spent in Queens since then. I went to 
a Greek diner not very far from here a couple of times. I had a 
wonderful time in--I bet a lot of you have eaten there. Today I spent an 
hour and a half in the Jackson Hole Diner, near LaGuardia. I broke all 
my caloric rules. [Laughter]
    While I was there, the guy that owns it--who grew up a block from 
the diner--but his manager is Vietnamese, and his mother still lives in 
Saigon. While I was there, I met this African-American guy and his 
wonderful young son named Miles, who asked me more questions about the 
White House than I could answer, so finally I just gave him a book about 
it. [Laughter] And the man said something to me that meant more to me 
than just about anything anybody could say. When I was walking out of 
the diner he said, ``Mr. President, I just want you to know that the 
whole time you were there, I felt like it was my house, too.''
    I want to say to all of you, as America grows more diverse, that 
will be more important. Claire Shulman and I were at a school in Queens 
the other day that was built for 400 and has about 800 children, 
predominantly Asian-American and Latino, the new children coming there, 
Chinese-American, Indian-American. And then tonight I showed up, and I 
looked out at all of you. Welcome to 21st century America.
    On the way out of the Jackson Hole Diner today there were two guys 
sitting outside drinking a beer, and I stopped and shook hands with 
them, and they said hello to me. And I said, ``Where are you from in 
Ireland?'' [Laughter] And they said they were both from the same little 
village in County Clare. And I said, ``Did you know each other as 
children?'' They said, ``Yes, but we didn't like each other until we 
came to America.'' [Laughter] And I thought, ``Oh, if I could just hold 
that thought.''
    There is a lady back there with a sign that says Croatian-Americans 
support Hillary. And I thank you for that.
    And I guess I would like to just start with that. There are four 
things I want you to know about this election, four reasons you ought to 
be for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman and Hillary and our side. And I'll 
start with what I usually leave for last.

[[Page 2591]]

    We are committed, all of us, led by our candidate for President--the 
Vice President--to build one America across all the lines that divide us 
and to relate to the whole rest of the world, based on our values of 
peace and freedom and opportunity. We know that the world we're living 
in, the country we're living in, and whatever communities we're living 
in are growing increasingly more interdependent. And I am very grateful 
that we've had the chance, for example, to stand against ethnic 
cleansing in the Balkans, to stop the war in Bosnia and stop the ethnic 
cleansing in Kosovo and stand with our embargo until Mr. Milosevic 
finally could be dislodged by the people of Serbia in a Democratic, true 
uprising of popular feeling.
    And I want you to know that Al Gore and Joe Lieberman and Hillary 
supported everything we ever did there. I don't know how many times 
Hillary went to the Balkans, not just with me but on her own, to support 
our troops, to meet with women who were struggling to get the Croatians 
and the Muslims and the Serbs together, across the ethnic and religious 
lines that divided them.
    There were a lot of people that came through the line where I just 
was shaking hands a few moments ago, had Irish accents. And these two 
Irish guys asked me today, said, ``Well, where is your family from?'' 
And I said, ``Well, we're from the wrong side of the line. We were from 
Roslea, County Fermanagh. But my oldest known homestead is right on the 
borderline of the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.'' And this guy 
says, ``So that's why you got involved?'' [Laughter] I said, ``Well, it 
was a reason.''
    No administration had ever tried to play a constructive role in 
resolving the difficulties in Northern Ireland before, for fear of 
interrupting our special relationship with Great Britain. I finally 
concluded that Great Britain would be better off with a minor 
interruption where, over the long run, they had a long-term settlement 
in Northern Ireland that was consistent with the interests of the people 
of the United States.
    And I'm very, very grateful that Tony Blair and, before him, his 
predecessor, John Major, came to accept that and welcome our 
involvement. And I'm grateful for the work we've done. We're not out of 
the woods yet in the Irish peace process. There is still some work to be 
done to get the police force right and to get the decommissioning 
finished. But it's a lot, lot different than it was 8 years ago, and for 
that I'm grateful. And again, as Tom Manton said, Hillary went there a 
lot on her own, not just with me, to work with women who were committed 
to reaching across the lines of division there and putting their 
children first and finding ways to grow a grassroots economy and to 
relate to one another.
    And of course, now, we're most concerned again about the recent 
tragic events in the Middle East. I promised myself when I ran for 
President that I would always be a friend of Israel, that the only way I 
could ever see that Israel could be secure in the long run would be to 
reach a fair, just, and lasting peace with its neighbors. And I had the 
great good fortune in the beginning of my term to work with Prime 
Minister Yitzak Rabin, one of the greatest human beings I ever met in my 
life. And we have made so much progress.
    And I end with Israel for a couple of reasons. First of all, because 
here again not only have I spent more time on that, I suppose, than any 
other part of the world, but Hillary has gone there a lot on her own, 
without me, at the request of Mrs. Barak and others, to just try to keep 
pushing things forward. We've done everything we know to do.
    But this is a cautionary reminder to all of us here in America. Look 
around the room at how quickly people who have even worked together for 
years can give into their fears and their misunderstandings and what 
turns out to be one bad day, turns out to be one bad week, turns out to 
be 2 bad weeks. And then all these unintended consequences flow.
    The commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is as 
strong or stronger than it has ever been. But we shall also keep trying 
to stop the killing and to give them a chance to work their way back to 
the peace table.
    And that brings me finally to something my wife said last night 
that, I must say, I identified with. She was talking about the memorial 
service we attended for the 14 young American sailors, men and women, 
who were killed on the United States Ship

[[Page 2592]]

Cole, by terrorists in Yemen, at the port of Aden.
    Those are the toughest days I ever spent as President, in 8 years, 
by far--much worse than any political setback or anything else--going 
into room after room after room, seeing the parents of people, most of 
whom are less than half my age, or their wives or their children, people 
who had died serving the United States--the Cole, Khobar Towers in Saudi 
Arabia, our two Embassies in Africa, on Ron Brown's plane, and in other 
cases. It is unbelievable.
    But I never went through one of those days without being profoundly 
grateful for these kids who get up every day and put the uniform of our 
country on and serve and do the best they can to represent us stunningly 
well, and have prevented more wars than you, even I, will ever know, and 
saved us more headaches just by going out there and putting themselves 
on the line every day than we will ever know.
    And one of the things that is so moving is, if you look at our Armed 
Forces today, they all look like this room. They're from every different 
racial and religious and ethnic group, and they work together. And just 
sending them somewhere around the world is a profound statement about 
what we Americans believe about how people should celebrate their 
diversity but affirm the primary importance of our common humanity.
    And that means, to me, two things. Number one, as Hillary said last 
night, we've all got to vote. The least we can do for those kids is 
vote. If they can put their uniform on and risk their lives, and 
sometimes give their lives, the least we can do is show up and be good 
citizens. Number two, we have to remember the lesson of who they are and 
how they worked together, as we stand for peace around the world and we 
work for one America here at home.
    So I'll get back to the main point here. This is an increasingly 
interdependent world. The more we believe that everybody counts, 
everybody deserves a chance, and we all do better when we help each 
other, the better we're going to do. The more we celebrate and find 
excitement in the differences among us but constantly reaffirm our 
common humanity, the better we're going to do.
    For the Democrats, that means significant differences in approach, 
very often, from our friends in the other party. We're for strong hate 
crimes legislation that protects people without regard to race, age, 
gender, disability, or sexual orientation. We're for it, and they're 
not. We're for that. We are for stronger enforcement of the equal pay 
laws, because we don't think it's right for women to do the same work as 
men and not get equal pay for it. We believe that. We believe that we've 
got to go forward together. That's the first thing I want to say. And 
it's a big issue for the 21st century.
    The second point I want to make is, you ought to be for Al Gore, Joe 
Lieberman, and Hillary if you want to keep this prosperity going. Just 
remember what it was like 8 years ago. You know, it may be hard to 
remember what it was like, but I do. That's how I got elected. The 
people of New York were very, very good to me in 1992, after making me 
run a gauntlet or two. [Laughter] That's just what you do--and I liked 
it, actually, once I realized what the deal was. [Laughter]
    But we've come a long way. Now, our party has a plan: Give a tax cut 
that we can afford, concentrated on the main needs of middle class 
people to send their children to college; have long-term care for their 
elderly and disabled family members; have help for child care, help for 
retirement savings; give extra incentives to invest in poor urban 
neighborhoods and rural areas that have been left behind; but have a tax 
cut we can afford so we've got some money left over to invest in 
education, health care, the environment, and pay down the debt.
    Now, you heard Tom talking about how we've turned the deficit to 
surplus. Why should the Democratic Party be for paying down the debt? 
Here's why. Because every day a trillion dollars cross national 
borders--every single day. Interest rates are set based on how 
responsible you are and how much money you need. The less money the 
Government takes, the more money is there for you, the American people, 
at lower prices.
    So if we keep paying down the debt, we'll keep interest rates low. 
Our plan, on the whole, would make interest rates about a percent lower 
every year for a decade. Do you know what that's worth to you? Just 
listen:

[[Page 2593]]

$390 billion in lower home mortgages; $30 billion in lower car payments; 
$15 billion in lower college loan payments; lower credit card payments; 
lower business loans, which means more new businesses, more new jobs and 
a higher stock market. That's what that means.
    So number one, we're the party of one America. Number two, we're the 
party that will keep this prosperity going. Number three, we're the 
party that will build on the progress of the last 8 years in every other 
area. The crime rate is at a 26-year low. The welfare rolls are at a 30-
year low. The environment is cleaner. We've got the number of people 
without health insurance going down for the first time in a dozen years. 
So you have to ask people, ``Look, all this stuff is going in the right 
direction. Do you want to build on it, or do you want to reverse 
policy?''
    And finally, you ought to ask people, what about the future? Which 
candidates are more likely to figure out how to close the digital divide 
so that every kid has access to the Internet? Which party and which 
candidates are more likely to understand the implications of this 
biological revolution with the human genome? The young women in this 
audience today, within just a few years, when they enter their 
childbearing years, the young girls here, they'll be bringing home 
babies with a life expectancy of 90 years. That's the good news.
    But all of your medical and all your financial information is going 
to be on somebody's computer. Who is most likely to understand how to 
protect your privacy and make the most of the Internet and the 
biological revolution? These are big questions. This is a serious time 
we're moving into.
    Now, look, I've done everything I could do to turn this country 
around, pull it together, and move it forward. But in America, our 
public life is always about tomorrow--always. And I can tell you, you 
need to go out and ask people which party and which candidates will 
stick up for one America and give us all a chance? Which party, which 
candidates will keep the prosperity going? Which party, which candidates 
will keep the progress going in crime, in the environment, in welfare, 
in health care, and in education? And which party and which candidates 
most nearly understand the future?
    If you can just remember to make those four points, it's going to be 
fine. And I just want to tell you, don't forget that Vice President Gore 
has been at the center of every major positive decision made in the last 
8 years by this administration. He broke the tie on the economic plan 
when nobody in the other party would vote for it. It turned this country 
around and got the economy booming. He led our efforts to reduce the 
size of Government but increase its effectiveness. We've got the 
smallest Government since 1960, doing more good for more people.
    He led our efforts to get the so-called E-rate passed about 4 years 
ago, which guarantees a discount to poor schools, so that every school 
in this country can get hooked up to the Internet. When we started this 
project, 14 percent of our schools were connected to the Internet in 
1994. Today, 95 percent are, thanks in large measure to the efforts of 
Al Gore. So I'll just tell you that.
    Everybody in New England and the Northeast is worried about home 
heating oil, the energy shortage this summer. Let me just tell you, it 
was a piece of good news 3 or 4 days ago; General Motors announced that 
they had developed a car that gets 80 miles to the gallon. Did you see 
it? That's what they announced. And they gave credit to a project most 
of you probably never heard of, called the Partnership for the Next 
Generation Vehicles.
    They said, ``We were able to do this because we were involved in 
this partnership.'' We started that partnership with Detroit and the 
United Auto Workers in 1993, and who ran it for 7\1/2\ years? Al Gore. 
Listen, we need somebody like that in the White House, who will make 
good decisions, who understands the future, who can do what needs to be 
done.
    Now, let me say a few words about Hillary. [Laughter] I mean, I am a 
completely unbiased source. [Laughter] You can bank this. I may be 
biased, but I know more about this than anybody else.
    I met Hillary almost 30 years ago. When I met her, she had already 
been involved for

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some time in her lifetime obsession with children and families, with 
education, with health care, with child care, with all aspects of early 
childhood development. She spent an extra year when we were in law 
school just so she could study child development at the Yale Child Study 
Center and the Yale University Hospital. She stayed an extra year, so 
she wanted to know for sure when she got out of law school she would 
understand the impact of every legal and public policy decision on the 
children of this country.
    And for 30 years, until she started running for this office, she has 
worked tirelessly as a citizen advocate, starting organizations, heading 
up others, working for other candidates. She never asked anybody to do 
anything for her in 30 years, except to join her in common cause, until 
she started running for the United States Senate from New York. And I 
thought it would be the hardest thing in the world for her to go out, 
ask you to vote for her, ask you to contribute to her campaign. And it 
turned out, in the beginning, it was kind of hard. She said, ``I never 
did this for myself before.'' But she has worked for 30 years on things 
that you need someone to work on for New York in Washington.
    For the last 8 years as First Lady, she has worked on a lot of 
things that had a direct, positive impact on the people of New York. She 
spoke out, as soon as we took office, for the family and medical leave 
law. It was the first bill I signed. Over 20 million Americans have 
taken advantage of family and medical leave when a baby was born or a 
parent was sick, to take some time off without losing their jobs. It's 
one of the best things we ever did in these whole 8 years.
    She brought people to the White House from all over the country to 
help us make policy on children's health, on early childhood development 
and what happens to kids' brains, what kind of things we should do more 
of. We got 90 percent of our kids immunized against serious childhood 
illnesses for the first time in history. She worked on that.
    She worked on the bill that allows people to keep their health 
insurance when they change jobs or when somebody in their family gets 
sick. She was an advocate for our Children's Health Insurance Program, 
which has now in the last couple of years brought health insurance to 
2.5 million children in lower income working families and finally--
finally--after a dozen years, got the number of uninsured kids going 
down in America, going in the right direction.
    And when we decided to celebrate the millennium, she came up with 
this idea that we ought to find a way to celebrate the turning of the 
century and the turning of the millennium by thinking about the future 
but honoring the past. And her Millennium Treasures Project is the 
largest single historic preservation movement in the history of the 
country. It has put $100 million, in public and private money, in it 
now. And a lot of the places preserved are right here in New York State, 
in places that need it economically, for tourism, for community pride: 
George Washington's revolutionary headquarters, Harriet Tubman's home, 
parts of the Underground Railroad--had a direct positive impact. It's 
the biggest thing of its kind in the history of the country. It came 
right out of her head. She thought about it.
    What's the point of all this? In 30 years, I have known hundreds, 
thousands of people in public life. And I want to tell you, most people 
who do this work are better than they get credit for most days--
Republicans as well as Democrats. I'll even say that 2 weeks from 
election. Most people I've known in public life are honest, worked hard, 
and did what they thought was right. But I have never known anybody in 
30 years that had the strong combination Hillary does of brains and 
heart and determination and imagination and ability to get things done 
and work with all different kinds of people. She will be a worthy 
successor to the great Daniel Patrick Moynihan, to Robert Kennedy, and a 
great partner for Chuck Schumer, if you will just make sure she wins on 
November 7th.
    Ladies and gentlemen, the next Senator from New York.

Note: The President spoke at 7:15 p.m. in the Electrical Industry 
Auditorium at the Union Hall. In his remarks, he referred to former 
Representative Thomas J. Manton, chair, and Michael H. Reich, executive 
secretary, Queens County Democratic Organization; Mr. Reich's daughter,

[[Page 2595]]

Alisa, who sang the national anthem; Representative Crowley's wife, 
Kasey; New York City Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi; State Assemblyman Brian 
McLaughlin; former President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic 
of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro); Prime Minister Tony Blair and 
former Prime Minister John Major of the United Kingdom; and Nava Barak, 
wife of Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel.