Remarks at a Reception for Hillary Clinton in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, August 14, 2000

August 6, 2000

Thank you. Well, first of all, I want to thank the Biondis for having us back at their home this year and for raising all this money. And I want to thank the Iscolls and the others who helped them. And I want to thank all of you for helping Hillary.

I can hardly add anything to what Carol said; I thought that was great. I hope we got it on tape somewhere. [Laughter] But I would like to say just a couple of things about Hillary and about the election in a larger sense.

It is not often that someone runs for the Senate to do work that he or she has been preparing to do for 30 years. When I met Hillary, in 1971 in the springtime, wearing a yellow shirt--that's why I wore it tonight--[laughter]--I can't believe I said that. [Laughter] Anyway, she was working on children's issues. She wrote an article when we were in law school on the best interests of the child and what they really meant--one, I might add, that the Republicans attacked her for in 1992 when I ran for President, and one I was only too happy to defend.

She took an extra year when we were m law school to work at the Yale Child Studies Center in the Yale hospital, so she could learn more about children's biological development and the nature of child development and how it would impact on the law and what we could do to better give our kids--all of our kids, including those that grew up in the most disadvantaged circumstances--a decent shot at life.

In the 8 years that I have been President she pioneered sweeping changes to make adoption easier, including adoption across racial lines, to take better care of foster kids and help them when they move out of foster care just because they're 18 years old, and before we passed the recent legislation in most States of this country, there was nothing for them. They were just out there on their own, abandoned, lost, forgotten.

She held the first conference ever at the White House on early childhood and brain development. She worked on violence against children and so many other issues that I think are central to what kind of country we're going to be. And along the way, she did a lot of other things.

On the way in here tonight, she gave a White House millennial treasures designation to the tabernacle here on Martha's Vineyard and the work that's been done there.

When we started thinking about how we ought to celebrate the year 2000, because we knew it would be our last year in the White House, Hillary came up with this idea that we ought to celebrate the millennium by honoring the past and imagining the future. So she launched this unbelievable lecture series that some of you have probably seen or logged on to your Internet site or seen publicized, on all the major topics that will dominate the 21st century, and at the same time a massive attempt to save the historic treasures of America from every little community like this one, all the way to the Star-Spangled Banner, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. And we recently announced the designation of the cottage that Abraham Lincoln and his family used at the Old Soldiers' Home in Washington, which many other First Families in the latter half of the 19th century used as a summer home.

And Dick Moe, the head of the National Historic Preservation Trust, got up and said that Hilary's millennial treasures effort was the largest single historic preservation effort in the entire history of the United States of America.

And there's 50 other things I could have said, I have forgotten, or left out. [Laughter] But the main point is that you couldn't have anybody who knows more and who cares more and who has shown more consistency in the Senate.

Now, the other thing I want to say is, as somebody who is not on the ballot this year, I've worked as hard as I know how to turn this country around from where it was in 1992--[applause]--thank you. Stop-- [laughter]--timeout--and if I might, in the metaphors of our two campaigns, to put the American people first and to build a bridge to the 21st century. But every election is about the future, and this election presents quite a stern test to the American people, because we have to decide what to do with the most momentous prosperity we've ever had, when all the social indicators are going in the right direction, when we face an absence of flaming crisis at home and glaring threat to our existence from beyond our borders.

And it is very easy at a time like this for people to believe, A, that the election is not important, and B, that it doesn't make much difference who gets elected. And differences tend to get blurred. I don't want to do anything to undermine the happy feeling the American people have now, the upbeat and the positive feeling, but you can make a huge mistake in good times by thinking there's no penalty in failing to analyze your situation and acting on what's out there.

We may never have another chance in our lifetimes to build the future of our dreams for our kids. And there are profound consequences to this election. And I'll just mention two, because I want Hillary to talk and I want you to hear from her, but I want you to think about two things that affect the Presidential race and the Senate race. I could mention 10, but I want you to focus on the 2.