Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Dinner in Chicago, Illinois

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 11, 1998

Thank you very much. Well, first, let me - a lot of things have already happened here tonight that I didn't intend to happen. [Laughter] And I feel that I should quit while I'm still not too far behind. [Laughter] It's not often that a man in his declining years can demonstrate a loss of hearing, a loss of memory, and a loss of the muscles necessary to play a saxophone all in one fell swoop. [Laughter] But even when I was a kid, when I was a teenager and I could play pretty well, there was one unbroken rule that all of us who actually played and tried to earn a little money - never, never walk into a strange place and pick up a strange horn. [Laughter] And if you do, always have your own mouthpiece. [Laughter] And if you disregard both rules, you deserve whatever happens to you. [Laughter] But I had a good time. And the musicians and Shelley covered my sins pretty well. You were terrific. Thank you, Bill and Shelley for having us here. [Applause] Thank you.

I want to thank Bill and Shelley and Jim and all the people who worked on this dinner tonight. I thank all of you for coming. I thank Dick Durbin for his great service in the Senate and for his good humor. I wish I'd written down those cracks; they were pretty funny. [Laughter]

Thank you, Mayor Daley, for everything you do, and everything they said about you, I agree with, and then some. I'd like to also thank Bill Daley for being a truly terrific Secretary of Commerce and doing a great job for us. I'd like to also tell you that another Chicagoan whose parents are here tonight, Todd Stem, who served for sometime as basically the White House secretary - he organized all the affairs of my life, virtually - has now taken on a huge responsibility to lead our administration's effort at complying with the climate change treaty we signed onto, to try to figure out how we can make our contribution to fight global warming and continue to grow the American economy. We were out in California today illustrating just exactly how we intend to do that. And so, he has done a great job.

You know, I love to come to Chicago. I am so indebted to Chicago - for my wife, for a great convention, for two elections. I still have the picture on my wall in my private office in the White House where Hillary and I were together at the hotel here in Chicago on St. Patrick's Day in 1992. It was on that night when the votes from Illinois and Michigan came in, in the primary that I knew I would be the nominee of my party. And I owe Illinois a very great deal in this great city.

I want to just take a couple of minutes - you know, you're all here; you've made your contributions; you're warm; and you want to go home. [Laughter] And you had to put up with our music, and I thank you. But I'd like to ask you to leave and ask yourselves, why did I go there tonight, and if somebody asked me tomorrow morning, what answer will I give - somebody I know who had never been to a fundraiser, asked me tomorrow morning why did I go there, what answer will I give? It certainly can't be that you wanted to hear me play the saxophone. [Laughter]

In 1992, and indeed, in '91, I ran for President because I thought our country was moving into a dramatically different era, the way we work, the way we live, the way we relate to each other, the way we relate to the whole rest of the world would be challenged and would have to change.

And at every great time of challenge in this country's history, we have always met the challenge by throwing off the dead hand of the past in terms of policies and finding new ways that were consistent with our oldest and deepest values. We've always found a way to deepen the meaning of our freedom, to widen the circle of opportunity, to come together as one country.

And a lot of people said to me, "That's not going to be possible in a global economy. Our country is just going to be pulled apart by all these economic forces moving through the world. And we're not going to get closer together, we're going to get more divided, because we're becoming simply too diverse." It's all very well to talk about it, but you've got county after county after county with people from more than 100 different racial and ethnic groups. The school district across the river from the White House that I can literally see when I walk to work every morning has children in it from 180 different racial, national, and ethnic groups, speaking over 100 different languages in one school district.

And people have said to me, but look at this deficit - you're a Democrat, you'll never be able to do anything positive because you've got this big deficit. And I believe we could do better. And for 5 1/2 years, with the help of the two people who just spoke before me, we've been working at it steadily.

So the first thing I'd like you to think about is, we're all very fortunate tonight and no one can claim full credit for it, but we live in a country that has its lowest unemployment rate in 28 years, its lowest inflation in 30 years, its highest consumer confidence in 30 years, its highest homeownership ever, its lowest welfare rolls in 27 years, its lowest crime rate in 24 years - as a nation. And we should be grateful for that.