Remarks at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Jan 15, 2001

January 9, 2001

Thank you very much. Let me say, first of all, how delighted I am to be here, to be back at Michigan State. I thank President McPherson and the board of trustees for letting me come back. I think if I were to come back one more time as President, I've been here so many times I'd owe partial tuition at least. [Laughter] I always love coming here, and I'm delighted to be here.

I also want to thank Ed Foy for coming out to meet me in 1992 and sticking with me all the way to the end. He gave a great speech, and he was a great representative of the working people of Michigan and the United States, and I thank him. I want to thank Senator Carl Levin for being my friend and being a friend to the people of Michigan. There is no Member of the United States Senate today who is more respected than Carl Levin, and you should be very proud of him.

Now, your new Senator, Debbie Stabenow, got her start--she got her start in politics when she was still a student and was elected county commissioner. So some of the rest of you might get a few ideas from that. I am delighted to welcome her to the Senate. I'm so pleased she was elected before I left office. And she's in a class of Senators which includes some other women that I'm--[applause]--I told Debbie on the way in, she and Hillary and the other Senators who were elected in this last cycle were sworn in last Wednesday. And when our daughter, Chelsea, and I were just sitting up there like all the other families in the Senate gallery, being cautioned not to lean over and put our hands on the rail--[laughter]--I was trying to be on my best behavior. I didn't whistle, shout, or jump, but it was, for me, the happiest day of my life since the day my daughter was born. And so I'll always have a special feeling about this election.

I think that Debbie Stabenow showed a great deal of courage and character in this election, and she kept on going when a lot of people thought she couldn't win. And she'll do you proud there. I've watched her in Congress, and she'll be great.

I would like to thank so many other Members of the Michigan congressional delegation who aren't here: Congressmen Levin and Conyers and Bonior, who lost his father in the last couple of days, and especially my good friend Congressman John Dingell, who's recuperating and is still up and around. All the other members of the delegation that helped me, I'm very grateful.

I thank Attorney General Jennifer Granholm for being here, and all the people from the Michigan Legislature who are here, but especially Representative Kilpatrick, who's been such a good friend of mine. Thank you. And Mayor Archer, thank you; Mayor Hollister, thank you.

And I want to say a special word of appreciation to a man who's been one of my closest allies and best friends in political life for way over a decade now, your former Governor, and a man who served as a great Ambassador to Canada in our administration, Jim Blanchard, and his wife Janet. Thank you very much.

I'd also like to say that when word got out I was coming here, everybody in my administration wanted to come with me. I keep telling them, we promised to work until the last day in office. I've still got some environmental initiatives I want to take--I've still got some other things I want to do. But because I came today to talk about the economy, what happened over the last 8 years and where we're going, and the relationship of the economy to education, I brought two people who have been with me every day since I became President: the Secretary of Education, Dick Riley, and the Secretary of Labor, Alexis Herman. Give them a big hand, will you? [Applause] Thank you.

Believe it or not, there's one person in this audience with whom I served 24 years ago in my first elected position as attorney general of my State, your former Attorney General Frank Kelley. Thanks for being here, for 24 years of friendship. Thank you.

Now most of all, I want to thank Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans for being up here with me. Usually, the national championship team comes to Washington. But I'm sort of a short-termer, you know, and nothing beats recognizing the team before 14,000 cheering fans. Also, there's a lot of sense of humor and kidding in my family, and you may know that my daughter is a senior at Stanford. So I'm going to wear that Spartan jersey tonight when I go home and see if I can provoke some conversation around the dinner table.

One of the things that I admire about this team-and I followed it very closely last year--is that there is no quit in it. I know you bad a tough game last weekend, but let me tell you, if you play any game in life long enough, once in a while somebody will sink a three-point shot, falling backwards with your hand in their face. It will happen if you play any game long enough--the equivalent will happen to you. It is not fatal. The only thing that's fatal is quitting. And you've got no quit in that team back there, and that's good.