Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner in Atlanta, Georgia

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 8, 1999

October29, 1999

Thank YOU so much. Well, first; Larry and Carol, thank you for opening your home. This is a beautiful tent. I was complimenting Larry on the tent, and he said, "Well, it covers the parking lot." [Laughter] And I said, "Well, maybe you ought to just leave it up then." [Laughter] It's wonderful, and we could probably, most of us, be back tomorrow night if you'll have us here. [Laughter] This is really, really beautiful.

And I want to compliment you, too, Doctor, on your short speech, where you said everything that needed to be said. And maybe we'll get a chance to vote for you someday; if you give speeches like that, you'll be elected to anything.

I want to thank our DNC chair, Joe Andrew, for coming down with me tonight and for his leadership, and my good friend Andy Tobias and your State chair, David Worley. Thank you, David. I also want to acknowledge our finance director, Fran Katz, who is here. And her sister's family is here tonight. And I think this is Fran's last event. She has been magnificent for us, and thank you, Fran, for all the work you've done.

I want to thank my longtime friend Senator Max Cleland and tell all of you that in my opinion, at least--I may be a little biased because we've been friends a long time, and I, was the happiest person in America outside Georgia when he got elected in 1996. But he is doing a wonderful job for you, and you should be very proud of him.

I want to thank Senator Charles Walker, the majority leader of the Senate, for being here; and Mike Thurmond, your labor commissioner; and all the other officials that are here--my longtime friend Michael Hightower, the Fulton County executive. Thank you all for coming.

I will try to make a fairly brief speech tonight, but it occurred to me you have so many new people here tonight that don't normally come to these things, and two of them I see are from Arkansas. I don't know if the others have any excuse or not. [Laughter] But it occurred to me that if people were asking you why you were doing this, that tomorrow, people might ask the rest of you why you were here. And I would like to give you a few reasons, because they're why I'm here.

And Joe Andrew's right. I guess I don't have to be here; I'm not running for anything. I kind of hate it; I wish I could. [Laughter] But that's the system we've got and--every time I see a debate, I wish I were part of it. When the Republicans were debating in New Hampshire the other night, I wish I had been part of it, you know. [Laughter] I'm always convinced I could turn just one more, you know.

I come here tonight because I believe in what we have done these last 7 years, because I believe the choices before the American people are stark but also marvelous. And because I believe that we are now in a position to do something that in my whole lifetime--in my whole lifetime--which now spans 53 years, we have never been able to do as a country before. We are, for the first time in my lifetime, economically and socially and politically strong enough and free enough of external and internal debilitating crises that we actually have a chance to write the future of our dreams for our children.

And I'd like to tell you how I think that came to be and what I think the choices are. And tomorrow I hope you'll be able to tell people why you came.

When I came to Georgia in 1991 and 1992, the United States was in a period of economic distress, social division--we had a big riot in Los Angeles, remember?--political drift, where the so-called vision thing was derided and government itself had been discredited. Even liberals thought government would mess up a two-car parade. And I came before the people of Georgia, and I said, "Look I have some new ideas. It's time to put people back at the center of our politics. It's time to work for unity, not division. It's time to build a country with a goal of opportunity for every citizen and responsibility from every citizen and a community of all of our people--meeting our responsibilities at home, but also our responsibilities to lead the world for peace and freedom and prosperity."

And Georgia was good to me. I remember when I ran in the Georgia primary, all the Washington experts said that "Governor Clinton heads south to Georgia in deep trouble. If he doesn't get at least 40 percent in the Georgia primary, he's toast." It was by then I'd already been declared dead three times. Now it's happened so often, I'm going to open a tombstone business when I leave office. [Laughter] But anyway--and the people of Georgia in the primary gave me 57 percent of the vote in 1992 and sent me on my way. And I'm very grateful for that.

And then I remember, we had a rally in a football stadium outside Atlanta, in the weekend before the election of '92. You remember that, Max? And we filled it. And I think Buddy Darden was there. We filled the rally. And I remember Hank Aaron was there, and there were over 25,000 people there. And we won the State by 13,000 votes. So everyone who spoke at that rally can fairly claim to have made me President of the United States, since there were twice as many people there as we won the State by. But we made it, and the rest is history.