Remarks at a reception for Senator Edward M. Kennedy in McLean, Virginia

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 3, 1994

September 29, 1994

Thank you so much. Senator and Mrs. Kennedy, the Kennedy family, Senator Mitchell and Members of the Senate, Congressmen, Congressman-to-be Patrick Kennedy, and Marvin Rosen, and all those who made this night possible, I thank you so much for your help for our friend. Chevy Chase, thank you for making us laugh.

I'll tell you a story about Chew Chase. I never told this story in public before. Don't get that excited, it's not that good. [Laughter] I had never met Chevy Chase in my entire life, except on a movie screen. And in 1988 or '89, I went up to Long Island in the summertime. Hillary and I were up there visiting our friend Liz Robins, who's here tonight. And every summertime there's a softball game to raise money between the artists and the writers. And they asked me if I would be au umpire in this game. And once I realized there were some members of the press there and I'd be able to give them grades instead of the other way around, I eagerly accepted. Now, at that time--a lot of you won't remember this; I hope, at least, you won't remember it, and I hope you'll forget after I tell you tonight. [Laughter] I had given a speech for Governor Dukakis at the Democratic Convention, which I intend to complete here this evening. [Laughter] Anyway--I can't believe I said that. [Laughter] The announcer for the ball game was Jim Brady, the guy that does that Brady's Bits in "Parade Magazine" every Sunday, you know? He's a delightful man, but when he saw me out there on the mound about ready to call balls and strikes, he said--he introduced me--he said, "This is Governor Clinton from Arkansas. He's up here visiting, and if he takes as long to make the calls today as he did to speak in Atlanta, we'll never get out of here." [Laughter] I really appreciated that. [Laughter] Anyway, so the game starts, and the next time the sides change, I look up in the stands, and this tall guy stands up and walks down, comes out to the pitcher's mound, shakes my hand, and says, "I'm Chevy Chase." And he said, "I may be the only person in America besides your mother who feels this way, but I liked that speech. Tell him to go to hell." [Laughter] That's verbatim what he said. [Applause] You just applauded for the next ambassador to Great Britain. [Laughter]

Ladies and gentlemen, you know we all do a lot of these events, and a lot of you are the backbone of our party. And sometimes we do them with great energy; sometimes we do them with interest; sometimes we do them because we know it's the right thing to do and we do them. I am here tonight because there is no place else in America I would rather be tonight than here in this cause for this good man.

You know, before I got here I really didn't understand how things so often came across in the country so different than they are up here. I was another alienated American, even though I was the Governor of my State. And I was terribly worried that this country was going in the wrong direction, people that were running our country were just telling the voters what they wanted to hear and avoiding all the tough problems. We had had profound social problems building up for 30 years. We'd had serious economic building up for 20 years. And we had finally come to the end of the cold war, a time when we had an opportunity to take a fresh look at both the opportunities and the difficulties of this country at this time and that we had a window here in which we could either secure the American dream for our children and our grandchildren and the strength of this country as we move into the 21st century, or we could walk away from the responsibilities of our generation.

When I talked to Hillary about running for President, I--in a very personal way, I didn't want to do it. First of all, most of my friends thought it was a fool's errand because the incumbent President was at over 70 percent approval. Secondly, things were going pretty well for us at home, with our family, our friends, and our work. But I did it because I thought that we all have an obligation to try to make a difference and that we had to change the direction of the country.

Tonight we come here to honor someone who has always fought to keep us going forward in the right direction, who has always fought for hope over fear, for reconciliation over division, to bring out the best in us instead of to bring out the worst in us. Well, when I came here I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I was determined to see that we work together to move this country forward, to address our problems, to get things done for ovdinary Americans.

Well, it hasn't been easy. There have been some tough times and some really brutal fights. But you know, we've made a good start. And now, as always happens in these midterm elections, with the issue hanging fire, the American people will have to decide whether we will continue this rigorous transition into tomorrow.

Every time we reach a point in history where we're going through big changes and the future is not clear, we fight a battle within ourselves. In that sense, our Nation is very much like a person. If you think about your own life, whenever you did anything really different and took on a new challenge, it was always with a mixture of hope and fear, when you went to school the first day or first went off to college or had your first job, or first sought elective office or married or had your first child. No matter how good a thing is, if it is really big, it is also a little scary. Countries are the same way. A delicate balance always has to be maintained between hope and fear. And every day we all get up and we see things that are happening that we don't like or we're unsure what will happen to us. And it's almost as if we have a scale inside us, with blind justice holding it, and hope is one side and fear is on the other. And each day it may take a little different balance.