SPEECHES
FROM THE 2004 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION
BILL CLINTON
BOSTON, MA • JULY 26, 2004
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you,
ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. (Cheers, applause continue.)
Calm down! (Chuckles.) (Inaudible.) Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to be here with you.
(Applause continues.) I am honored to share this podium with
my senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Cheers, applause.) And
I want to thank the people of New York for giving the best
public servant in my family a chance to continue serving
the public. Thank you. (Cheers, applause.)
I am also -- I'm going to say that again, in case you didn't
hear it. (Laughter.) I'm honored to be here tonight, and
I want to thank the people of New York for giving Hillary
-- (cheers, applause) -- the chance to continue to serve
in public life. (Cheers, applause.) I am very proud of her.
And we are both very grateful to all of you, especially my
good friends from Arkansas -- (cheers, applause) -- for giving
me the chance to serve in the White House for eight years.
(Cheers, applause.)
I am honored to share this night with President Carter,
for whom I worked in 1976 and who has inspired the world
with his work for peace, democracy and human rights. (Cheers,
applause.)
I am honored to share it with Al Gore, my friend and my
partner for eight years -- (cheers, applause) -- who played
such a large role in building the prosperity and peace that
we left America in 2000. And Al Gore, as he showed again
tonight, demonstrated incredible patriotism and grace under
pressure. He is the living embodiment of the principle that
every vote counts, and this year we're going to make sure
they're all counted in every state in America. (Cheers, applause.)
My friends, after three conventions as a candidate or a
president, tonight I come to you as a citizen, returning
to the role that I have played for most of my life; as a
foot soldier in our fight for the future as we nominate in
Boston a true New England patriot for president. (Cheers,
applause.) Now this state, who gave us in other times of
challenge John Adams and John Kennedy, has given us John
Kerry, a good man, a great senator, a visionary leader. And
we are all here to do what we can to make him the next president
of the United States. (Cheers, applause.)
My friends, we are constantly being told that America is
deeply divided. But all Americans value freedom and faith
and family. We all honor the service and sacrifice of our
men and women in uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout
the world. (Cheers, applause.) We all want good jobs, good
schools, health care, safe streets, a clean environment.
We all want our children to grow up in a secure America,
leading the world toward a peaceful and prosperous future.
Our differences are in how we can best achieve these things
in a time of unprecedented change. Therefore, we Democrats
will bring to the American people this year a positive campaign,
arguing not who's a good or a bad person, but what is the
best way to build the safe and prosperous world our children
deserve. (Cheers, applause.)
The 21st century is marked by serious security threats,
serious economic challenges, and serious problems, from AIDS
to global warming to the continuing turmoil in the Middle
East. But it also full of amazing opportunities to create
millions of new jobs, and clean energy, and biotechnology,
to restore our manufacturing base and reap the benefits of
the global economy through our diversity and our commitment
to decent labor and environmental standards for people all
across the world. (Cheers, applause.) And to create a world
where we can celebrate our religious, our racial, our ethnic,
our tribal differences because our common humanity matters
most of all. (Cheers, applause.)
To build that kind of world, we must make the right choices,
and we must have a president who will lead the way. Democrats
and Republicans have very different and deeply felt ideas
about what choices we should make. They're rooted in fundamentally
different views of how we should meet our common challenges
at home and how we should play our role in the world.
We Democrats want to build a world and an America of shared
responsibilities and shared benefits. We want a world with
more global cooperation, where we act alone only when we
absolutely have to. (Applause.) We think the role of government
should give -- should be to give people the tools and to
create the conditions to make the most of their own lives,
and we think everybody should have that chance. (Cheers,
applause.)
On the other hand, the Republicans in Washington believe
that America should be run by the "right" people
-- their people -- in a world in which America acts unilaterally
when we can and cooperates when we have to. They believe
the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power
in the hands of those who embrace their economic, political
and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves
on important matters like health care and retirement security.
Now since most Americans aren't that far to the right, our
friends have to portray us Democrats as simply unacceptable,
lacking in strength and values; in other words, they need
a divided America. But we don't. (Cheers, applause.)
Americans -- Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we
all just wanted to be one nation. Not a single American on
September the 12th, 2001 cared who won the next presidential
election. All we wanted to do was to be one country, strong
in the fight against terror, helping to heal those who were
wounded and the families of those who lost their loved ones,
reaching out to the rest of the world so we could meet these
new challenges and go on with our democratic way of life.
The president had an amazing opportunity to bring the country
together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism,
and to unite the world in the struggle against terror.
Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different
choice. They chose to move that -- to use that moment of
unity to try to push the country too far to the right and
to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking in Iraq
before the weapons inspectors had finished their work --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah!
PRESIDENT CLINTON: -- but in withdrawing American support
for the climate change treaty --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right! (Applause.)
PRESIDENT CLINTON: -- and for the international court on
war criminals and from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
and from the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
(Cheers, applause.) Now -- now, at a time when we're trying
to get other people to give up nuclear and biological and
chemical weapons, they are trying to develop two new nuclear
weapons, which they say we might use first.
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No!
PRESIDENT CLINTON: At home, at home, the president and the
Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices, which
they also deeply believe in. For the first time when America
was on a war footing in our whole history, they gave two
huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top 1 percent
of us.
(Chuckles.) Now I'm in that group for the first time in
my life. (Applause.) And you might remember that when I was
in office, on occasion, the Republicans were kind of mean
to me. (Laughter.) But soon as I got out and made money,
I began part of the most important group in the world to
them. It was amazing. I never thought I'd be so well cared
for by the president and the Republicans in Congress. (Cheers,
applause.)
I almost sent them a thank-you note for my tax cuts -- (laughter)
-- until I realized that the rest of you were paying for
the bill for it, and then I thought better of it. (Cheers,
applause.)
Now, look at the choices they made, choices they believed
in. They chose to protect my tax cut at all costs, while
withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind
Act, leaving 2.1 million children behind. (Cheers, applause.)
They chose to protect my tax cut while cutting 140,000 unemployed
workers out of their job- training programs, 100,000 working
families out of their child-care assistance, and worst of
all, while cutting 300,000 poor children out of their after-school
programs when we know it keeps them off the streets, out
of trouble, in school learning, going to college and having
a good life! (Cheers, applause.)
They chose, they chose to protect my tax cut while dramatically
raising the out-of-pocket costs of health care to our veterans,
and while weakening or reversing very important environmental
measures that Al Gore and I put into place, everything from
clean air to the protection of our forests.
Now, in this time, everyone in America had to sacrifice
except the wealthiest Americans. And most of us, all most
all of us, from Republicans to Independents and Democrats,
we wanted to be asked to do our part too, but all they asked
us to do was to expend the energy necessary to open the envelopes
containing our tax cuts. (Applause.)
Now, if you like these choices and you agree with them,
you should vote to return them to the White House and the
Congress. (Boos.) If not, take a look at John Kerry, John
Edwards and the Democrats.
We've got a different economic policy. (Cheers, applause.)
In this year's budget -- in this year's budget, the White
House this year wants to cut off all the federal funding
for 88,000 uniformed police officers under the COPS program
we've had for 10 years. Among those 88,000 police are more
than 700 members of the New York Police Department who put
their lives on the line on 9/11. (Boos.) With gang violence
rising and with all of us looking for terrorists in our midst
and hoping they're not too well armed or too well dangerous
-- too dangerous, the president and the Congress are about
to allow the 10-year-old ban on deadly assault weapons to
lapse. (Boos.)
Now they believe it's the right thing to do, but our policy
was to put more police on the street and to take assault
weapons off the street -- (cheers, applause) -- and it gave
you eight years of declining crime and eight years of declining
violence. (Cheers, applause.) Their policy is the reverse.
They're taking police off the streets while they put assault
weapons back on the street. Now if you agree with that choice,
by all means vote to keep them in office. But if you don't,
join John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats in making
America safer, smarter and stronger again. (Cheers, applause.)
On homeland security -- on homeland security, Democrats
tried to double the number of containers at ports and airports
checked for weapons of mass destruction. It cost a billion
dollars. It would have been paid for under our bill by asking
the 200,000 millionaires in America to cut their tax cut
by $5,000. Almost all 200,000 of us would like to have done
that, to spend $5,000 to make all 300 million Americans feel
safer. The measure failed. Why? Because the White House and
the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives
opposed it. They thought our $5,000 was more important than
doubling the container checks at our ports and airports.
If you agree with that, by all means reelect them. If not,
John Kerry and John Edwards are your team for the future.
(Cheers, applause.)
These policies have turned a projected $5.8 trillion surplus
that we left -- enough to pay for the baby-boomer retirement
-- into a projected debt of almost $5 trillion, with over
$400 billion in deficit this year and for years to come.
Now, how do they pay for that deficit? First, by taking the
Social Security surplus that comes in every month and endorsing
the checks of working people over to me to pay for the tax
cut. But it's not enough, so then they have to go borrow
money. Most of it they borrow from the Chinese and the Japanese
government. Sure these countries are competing with us for
good jobs, but how can we enforce our trade laws against
our bankers? I mean, come on! (Laughter, cheers, applause.)
So, if you think -- if you believe it is good policy, if
you believe it is good policy to pay for my tax cuts with
the Social Security checks of working men and women, and
borrowed money from China and Japan, you should vote for
them. If not, John Kerry's your man. (Cheers, applause.)
We Americans must choose for president -- we've got to choose
for president between two strong men who both love their
country but who have very different world views: our nominee,
John Kerry, who favors shared responsibility, shared opportunity,
and more global cooperation, and their president and their
party in Congress who favor concentrated wealth and power,
leaving people to fend for themselves, and more unilateral
action.
I think we're right for two reasons. First of all, America
just works better when more people have a chance to live
their dreams. And secondly -- (cheers, applause) -- we live
in an interdependent world in which we cannot possibly kill,
jail or occupy all our potential adversaries. So we have
to both fight terror and build a world with more partners
and fewer terrorists. (Cheers, applause.)
Now we tried it their way for 12 years. We tried it their
way for 12 years. We tried it our way for eight years. Then
we tried it their way for four more. By the only test that
matters, whether people were better off when we finished
than when we started, our way works better. (Cheers, applause.)
It produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes for
the middle class, over a hundred times as many people moved
from poverty into the middle class, more health care, the
largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record homeownership,
a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized
defense force, strong efforts against terror and a respected
America in the world. (Cheers, applause.) It worked better.
More importantly -- more importantly, we have great new
champions in John Kerry and John Edwards, two good men with
wonderful wives -- Teresa, a generous and wise woman who
understands the world we're trying to shape, and Elizabeth,
a lawyer and mother who understands the lives we're trying
to live. (Cheers, applause.)
Now let me tell you what I know about John Kerry. I've been
seeing all the Republican ads about him. Let me tell you
what I know about him.
During the Vietnam War, many young men, including the current
president, the vice president and me, could have gone to
Vietnam and didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background.
He could have avoided going, too. But instead he said, "Send
me." (Cheers, applause.)
When -- when they sent those swift boats up the river in
Vietnam, and they told them their job was to draw hostile
fire, to wave the American flag and bait the enemy to come
out and fight, John Kerry said, "Send me." (Cheers,
applause.)
And then, on my watch, when it was time to heal the wounds
of war and normalize relations with Vietnam and to demand
an accounting of the POWs and MIAs we lost there, John Kerry
said, "Send me."
(Cheers; applause.)
Then, when we needed someone to push the cause of inner-city
children struggling to avoid a life of crime, or to bring
the benefits of high technology to ordinary Americans, or
to clean the environment in a way that created new jobs,
or to give small businesses a better chance to make it, John
Kerry said, "Send me."
AUDIENCE: "Send me." (Cheers; applause.)
PRESIDENT CLINTON: So tonight, my friends, I ask you to
join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story,
in promoting his ideas. Let every person in this hall and
like-minded people all across our land say to him what he
has always said to America: "Send me."
AUDIENCE: "Send me." (Cheers; applause.)
PRESIDENT CLINTON: The bravery -- the bravery that men who
fought by his side in battle, that bravery they saw in battle
I have seen in politics. When I was president, John Kerry
showed courage and conviction on crime, on welfare reform,
on balancing the budget, at a time when those priorities
were not exactly the way to win a popularity contest in our
party. John Kerry took tough positions on tough problems.
He knows who he is and where he's going. He has the experience,
the character, the ideas, the values to be a great president.
And in a time of change, he has two other very important
qualities: an insatiable curiosity to understand the world
around him -- (cheers; applause) -- and a willingness to
hear other views, even those who disagree with him. (Cheers;
applause.) Therefore, John Kerry will make choices that reflect
both conviction and common sense.
He proved that when he picked John Edwards to be his partner.
(Cheers, applause.)
Now, everybody talks about John Edwards' energy and intellect
and charisma. You know, I kind of resent him. (Laughter.)
But the important thing is not what talents he has, but how
he has used them. He chose, he chose to use his talents to
improve the lives of people like him who had to work for
everything they've got, and to help people too often left
out and left behind. And that's what he'll do as our vice
president. (Cheers, applause.)
Now, their opponents will tell you -- their opponents will
tell you we should be afraid of John Kerry and John Edwards
because they won't stand up to the terror. Don't you believe
it. Strength and wisdom are not opposing values. (Cheers,
applause.) They go hand in hand. (Continued cheers, applause.)
They go hand in hand, and John Kerry has both. His first
priority will be to keep America safe. Remember the scripture, "Be
not afraid." John Kerry and John Edwards are good people
with good ideas, ideas to make the economy work again for
middle class Americans, to restore fiscal responsibility,
to save Social Security, to make health care more affordable
and college more available, to free us from dependence on
foreign oil and create new jobs with clean energy and a cleaner
environment -- (cheers, applause) -- to rally the world,
to rally the world to our side in the war against terror,
and to make a world with more friends and less terror. (Applause.)
My friends, at every turning point in our history, we the
people have chosen unity over division, heeding our founders'
call to America's eternal mission to form a more perfect
union, to widen the circle of opportunity, deepen the reach
of freedom, and strengthen the bonds of our community. It
happened every time because we made the right choices.
In the early days of the Republic, America was divided and
at a crossroads, much as it is today, deeply divided over
whether or not to build a real nation with a national economy
and a national legal system. We chose to build a more perfect
union.
In the Civil War, America was at another crossroads, deeply
divided over whether to save the union and end slavery. We
chose a more perfect union.
In the 1960s, when I was a young man, we were divided again
over civil rights and women's rights. And again we chose
to form a more perfect union.
As I said in 1992, I say again tonight: we are all in this
together. (Cheers.) We have an obligation both to work hard
and to help our fellow citizens, an obligation both to fight
terror and to build a world with more cooperation and less
terror. Now, again, it is time to choose.
Since we're all in the same boat, we should choose a captain
of our ship who is a brave, good man, who knows how to steer
a vessel through troubled waters to the calm seas and the
clear skies of our more perfect union. (Cheers, applause.)
That is our mission. So let us join tonight and say to America
in a loud, clear voice: "Send John Kerry!" (Cheers,
applause.)
God bless you. (Cheers, applause.)
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