Remarks in Longview, Washington

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 23, 1996

Thank you, Wow! Thank you way back there in the back. Can you hear? [Applause] Oh, thank you for waiting for us. Thank you for making us feel so welcome in this stunningly beautiful community. What a wonderful place you have to live.

I want to thank right here at the outset the people who have provided our music, the R.A. Long and Mark Morris High School bands. Thank you, bands, thank you. And the Checkers - thank you. And I understand that the R.A. Long football team is undefeated and down here somewhere. Congratulations. Thank you.

I'd also like to say a special word of thanks to Axel Swanson, the student body president at R.A. Long. Now, you just think about it, he got up here in front of this big crowd, and unlike me, he doesn't do this all the time. And I though he did a terrific job, and I was really proud of him. You know, when I was his age I had a chance to shake hands with President Kennedy. It made an impression on me I never forgot. But I was looking at him today and I can tell you that today he looks a lot more like a future President than I did then. I liked it, and I hope he does very well. Congratulations, Axel.

I want to thank Brian Baird for presenting himself for Congress. Ladies and gentlemen, it's hard to run for Congress these days. It's a hard and arduous task. And much to my dismay, many of these races have become so intensely negative and so difficult - often difficult to get idealistic young people to present themselves. He has, and I am confident he would do a find job representing you. I wish him well, and I hope you will wish him well and help him do well.

And to Gary Locke, let me say I was so impressed with the race that you and your other fellow Democrats ran in that primary. You won a hard-fought, clean, honest, progressive, forward-looking race. You can be proud of the race you just ran and the race you are now running. And I hope you folks will help to make Gary Locke the next Governor of the State of Washington, to keep moving forward into the 21st century.

You know, we've had a wonderful day today, and I know we're a little late, but you wouldn't believe the crowds we've seen all along the road and everyplace we've stopped. We began in Tacoma, where I believe we had over 25,000 people. We went to Koy and Yelm and Tenino and Centralia. And then of course we were just in Kelso, and we crossed the bridge - anybody here from Kelso? [Applause] You could have fooled me; I thought the whole town was along the highway back there. And I want to say to all of you, you cannot imagine what a source of encouragement it is to Hillary and Tipper and to Al and me to see you out here, loving your country, believing in its future, determined to play a role in its future.

Four years ago, when I came to Washington State, and the people of this State were so good in voting for me and giving me your electoral votes, I asked you to take us on faith. I had never worked in Washington, DC - the other Washington - before. I'd been a Governor for 12 years who ran for President because I didn't like what was happening to my country. I didn't like the high unemployment, the low job growth, the stagnant wages, the unaddressed social challenges. I didn't like the fact that we were growing more divided and that people were becoming ever more cynical about their political system. I didn't think we became the greatest country in the world and lasted for over 220 years by having those kind of problems and those kind of attitudes. And I wanted to change.

I wanted to lead this country into the 21st century with the American dream alive and well for every single American willing to work for it; with this country coming together, bridging our divisions and mutual respect, not diving; and with our country still the strongest force for peace and freedom and prosperity in the world. And I can tell you that after 4 years, we're in better shape than we were 4 years ago and we're on the right track to the 21st century.

I welcome this debate with our opponents over the next 6 weeks and 5 days because it will be a clear picture of starkly different approaches. You could hardly find two different platforms, two different programs, two different records that were more opposite in their views of what our purposes are as a people and what our role in Washington is. You see, we really do believe that it takes a village; we don't think you're on your own. We think here - Longview looks like a pretty good village to us. We think you help each other to make the most of your own lives. We really do believe we must build a bridge to the future; we can't build a bridge to the past. We really do believe that at this moment in history, if we do the rights things, if we build the right kind of bridge, we can make it possible for more people than ever before in history to live out their dreams and live up to their God-given potential. But we have to do the right things.

It is not an accident that the unemployment rate is down, that the deficit has been reduced by 60 percent, that we have an all-time high in exports from Washington State and the United States, that America's auto industry is number one again, that we have 10 1/2 million jobs, that we have 10 million people about to get a pay increase when the minimum wage goes up on October 1st. That is not an accident. It is not an accident.