Remarks at a Reception for Representative Lois Capps in Pacific Palisades, California - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 2, 2000

September 24, 2000

The President. Thank you.

Audience member. Four more years! Four more years!

The President. In your dreams. [Laughter] No way!

The amazing thing is that Susan and Ted should be surprised that I would want to come to their backyard. I would be happy to come next Sunday, too. [Laughter] Is this a gorgeous place or what? I mean, amazing.

I want to thank you both for having us here and supporting one of the finest people I've ever known in public life. And I know when you have a family and your Sundays are precious, and I thank you for giving us this time and making it possible for all of us to come.

I want to thank all of you for being here. I thank Representatives Becerra and Sherman for coming to support Lois, and I thank Senator O'Connell and Kathleen Connell for being here. And mostly I just want to thank all of you for being here.

I want to say just a few words about Representative Capps. I got a little choked up when she started talking about my relationship with her family. I loved her husband very much. He was a special man, and we had a great rally in '96 in Santa Barbara and there were 15,000 or 20,000 people there with the Sun out and the ocean glistening, you know. And I thought we all were just going to levitate off the side of the world. [Laughter] If I had done that, it would have been the subject of another investigation. [Laughter] "How did be do that? What was behind that? What mysterious foreign entity financed that levitation?" [Laughter]

And Laura, who is standing back there, did work in the White House for many years, and she worked right behind my office, so I saw her several times a day, and she was one of the true, good souls in the White House. She kept everybody in a good frame of mind, and you couldn't act small around her, not only because she's physically big, but because she's big inside, just like her mother.

So, I'm honored to be here. But I also want to emphasize what Lois said. Now, I have worked harder in this election, I think, than any other one I've ever been in, although it's the first time in 26 years I haven't been on the ballot. [Laughter] This is something like the 140th campaign event I've done this year. And I've done these things for individual House Members and Senators and for a Senate and House committee and for the National Democratic Committee, which basically benefits directly Al Gore and Joe Lieberman. And of course, I've made a little extra effort in New York--[laughter]--where I have more than a passing interest in the outcome of the race. [Laughter]

The new joke around the White House is that, now that my party has a new leader and my family has a new candidate, my title should be changed to Cheerleader in Chief, and I'm quite happy with that. But I want you to know, first of all, I hope you remember what Lois said, and I hope you remember what Susan said about this election.

I worked as hard as I could, and Lord knows, the people of California have been good to me, from the June '92 primary to the general election in '92 to the overwhelming mandate I got here in '96. And we've worked very hard to turn this country around and to beat hack the reaction to what we were trying to do that was manifest in the Gingrich revolution and the Republicans taking over the Congress and many of the extremist things that have been done over the last 5, 6 years.

And we've had a great deal of success in actually getting affirmative things done, because, as you're about to see, when the Congress gets ready to go home, if the Democrats stick with me even though we're in the minority, we get a lot of what we want. Otherwise, nobody gets to go home. [Laughter]

So we work all year long just to sort of keep our heads above water waiting for the last 3 weeks, and then we all sit there like calm Buddhas--[laughter]--waiting for the results to come in. So watch it and see if we can pull it off one more time.

But now, the American people really do have to decide. I mean, they really have to decide whether you think they're right or we are. There will be an effort at bipartisan co-operation no matter what happens in this election, because if we win the majority, it won't be so big that we won't have to work with them. We might even win the Senate back; but if we do, it will just be by a seat or so.

I do believe that the Vice President and Joe Lieberman will be elected, and they should be, because they have a better plan and they've got a better record and they've got a better direction.

But you have to understand, I know better than anybody alive now the enormous consequences of every single seat in the House and every single seat in the Senate. And I cannot even begin to tell you, especially for the House, what a difference it makes to be in the majority. Because I can give you example after example, over the last 5 years, when we had enough Republican votes, voting with our side, to do things, and because of the way the rules work in the House of Representatives, we couldn't even get a vote on a measure, just because we weren't in the majority.