Remarks in Arlington, Ohio

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 2, 1996

The President, Thank you. Thank you very much.

Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

The President. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you all for coming out. Thank you for being in such a wonderful frame of mind. Thank you for making us feel so welcome. And if you get too hot, we've got some water up here, raise your hand. We don't want anybody to collapse. We have doctors; we have nurses; we have lots of water.

Now, let me say, before I begin I'd like to thank the Arlington High School band for doing such a great, great job. I'd like to thank the other people whose names I've been given: Ms. Mary Gould, the piano player; the Paragon Barbershop Quartet; Tom Kroske and his band. I'd like to thank Mayor Lynne Orwick of Arlington; Judge Reginald Rowtson; the Mayor of Fostoria, Mr. Jim Bailey; and Paul McClain, the candidate for Congress, who spoke earlier I think. Thank you all for being here. Thank you, Mary Ellen Withrow, for doing a great job as the treasurer of Ohio and the Treasurer of the United States. I'm proud to have you in this administration.

I want to thank Senator john Glenn for being here with me on this train trip through the heartland and for his consistent, patriotic leadership for our country and for the people of Ohio in the Senate, to build the economy, to protect our interests around the world, to keep our defense strong, and to lead - lead - our party in the Congress and to help our administration in the most dramatic savings of funds in downsizing of Government in modern American history. We now have the smallest and most efficient Federal Government since John Kennedy was the President of the United States, thanks in no small measure to John Glenn of Ohio.

Thank you, David Brown, for your speech and your passion and your commitment to the families and children of this community. Everywhere I go - and I've now been in Huntington, West Virginia, Ashland, Kentucky, Chillicothe, and Columbus and a lot of little places along the way, just stopping, saying hello to people - but wherever we've had a rally, I have been introduced by a citizen, a citizen who is either doing something that is consistent with what our administration has pushed for the last 4 years or who represents what I'm trying to have happen in America.

I'm sure a lot of you saw that last week our administration became the first one in history to take very strong action to try to limit the marketing, distribution, and sales of tobacco to young people. We are doing our best, but I want to say to you, we cannot do this all by ourselves. We've got to have people in every community in this country determined to keep our kids safe from all the influences that are destructive to them. They're all our children.

And with all respect to what was said in the convention in San Diego, Reverend Brown here just got up and gave a speech which validates the title of my wife's book: It does take a village to raise our children, to raise our families, and to build a future.

I want to thank my daughter, Chelsea, for coming with me. Hillary has gone home to Chicago to welcome us, so she's not here. But Chelsea is here. We're having a wonderful time on the train ride. And we thank all of you for coming.

Audience members. Where's Chelsea?

The President. Where is she? She's right back there. Raise your hand. There she is.

Let me tell you that we're on this train, this beautiful train, recreating a trip that many Presidents before me have made, because I wanted to go through America's heartland to Chicago, I wanted to see the people in this county that I've been working for the last 4 years. I wanted to see your faces, hear your voices, and give you a report on where we are and where we're going. And I wanted you to see that this train is on track not just to Chicago; we're on the right track to the 21st century. And we're going to stay there.

Four years ago - just think about 4 years ago - when I came to the people of Ohio, on June the 2d, I was officially nominated by the Democratic Party in the primary process when the votes in Ohio were announced. At the Democratic Convention in July in New York, the delegation from Ohio made me the legal nominee of the Democratic Party. And on election night, it was when the votes of Ohio were announced that all the prognosticators said, "Bill Clinton will be the next President of the United States." Thank you, Ohio.

Now, remember what gave rise to that election. Unemployment was high. Wages were stagnant. Crime was rising. A host of unmet social challenges were plaguing us. And cynicism was on the rise in America.

Now look where we are after 4 years. We brought the deficit down with a very tough vote in 1993 that our opponents said would wreck the economy. And what happened? We got interest rates down. We got new jobs going. The deficit has been reduced 60 percent in 4 years. And my fellow Americans, there would be a surplus in your national treasury today but for the interest we still have to pay on the debt that was run up in the 12 years before I took office. Let's don't go back and make that mistake again.