Remarks at a rally in Los Angeles, California

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 14, 1994

November 4, 1994

Thank you very much. Senator Feinstein, Senator Boxer, Kathleen Brown, distinguished Members of Congress and candidates on our State Democratic ticket, to all of you who are here, thank you for making me feel, as always, so very welcome in Los Angeles and California. I want to say a special word of thanks to the gospel group, Charity, that entertained us so well. They were great. Thank you. I want to thank Marlee Matlin for her fine comments before; thank you for being here with us. Again let me say, there are very few States who could boast a slate of candidates for State office and for the Congress as outstanding as those who have already been introduced here tonight. But I just want you to know, I am proud to be here with all these nominees of my party and your party that you will elect on Tuesday. I thank them, and I thank you.

I want to talk tonight just for a minute about what's really at stake in this election. And I want you to think about why--I was looking at Dianne Feinstein tonight, and I was thinking, I have been following public life in America for a long time now. I never lived in Washington as an elected official until 21 months ago, but I've kind of kept up, like most of you. In my lifetime, there has never been, ever, not one time, a United States Senator who, in his or her first 2 years in office, sponsored three major legislative initiatives that will change the life of America for the better, the assault weapons ban, the zero tolerance for guns in schools, and the largest wilderness bill in the history of the United States, the California desert bill.

Now how could we not give her a 6-year renewal? We have to do it. What is the argument of her opponent? It is the argument they're all making, really. It is that Government is inherently bad, it's inherently irrelevant, it doesn't make any difference, "Who cares what I say or do, it doesn't make any difference." You look at these children behind me and the children in this crowd; it does make a difference to their future, and Dianne Feinstein will make a difference. He said, "What difference does it make if we pass any laws in Washington; they've been up there passing laws for 200 years." He's the first person ever to seek the United States Senate to run not only against Washington, he's now running against George Washington. [Laughter] Folks, I don't know about you, but I think what Abraham Lincoln did in the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments made a pretty big difference in the life of this country. I don't know about you, but I think when we had one in four Americans out of work and President Roosevelt came in and lifted us up out of the dumps and got us going forward, it made a difference in this country. It's not a partisan thing. When President Eisenhower signed the bill for the interstate highway system or President Nixon signed the bill for the Environmental Protection Agency, it made a difference in this country. This guy is the only person who thinks that none of this matters. You have to say no to people who say it doesn't matter, yes to Dianne Feinstein. It does matter. California matters. She matters. Reelect her on Tuesday.

Look at--consider the candidacy of Kathleen Brown. I don't want to be presumptuous, but I know something about being a Governor; I used to be one. And on the tough days in Washington, I think it's the best job I ever had. [Laughter] It is a joy. But it is only a joy if every day you get up and you try to build. The Governor's office is not a place for blamers; it's a place for builders. It's a place for people who take responsibility and bring out the best in us and bring us together and move forward.

When I thino of what you have been through in this State, with the recession, with the defense cutbacks. The unemployment rate in California when I took office was 9.4 percent. I have done everything I could do to bring it down to 7.7 percent, to get those 400,000 jobs, to get this State going again. But I need a partner here, someone who wants to work for California, not point the finger of blame.

You know, I want to say two things about your slogan here. The one is, I want to talk about 187. But the first thing I want to do--I've got plenty to say about that, but the first thing I want to do is to ask you this: You're going to vote on 187, and I hope to goodness you're going to beat 187. But after the election somebody is going to be Governor with 4 years of hard work to do. Will you have a job? Will your schools get better? Will your streets get safer? Will your air get cleaner? Will your State move forward? That is the question.

We don't know what the incumbent wants to do, but we know Kathleen Brown has a plan, a good plan, that will make California a better place, a building place. How did California become the symbol of America's future? By building, not by blaming, by bringing together, not by tearing apart. Why does California have a chance to lead our country into the 21st century? Because of our diversity, not in spite of it, because our diversity opens the world to us.