`A New Covenant' -- Excerpts From Bill Clinton's Acceptance Speech
We meet at a special moment in history, you and I. The Cold War is over; Soviet communism has collapsed, and our values - freedom, democracy, individual rights, free enterprise - they have triumphed all around the world. And yet just as we have won the Cold War abroad, we are losing the battles for economic opportunity and social justice here at home. Now that we have changed the world, it's time to change America.
I have news for the forces of greed and the defenders of the status quo: Your time has come - and gone. It's time for a change in America.
Tonight, 10 million of our fellow Americans are out of work. Tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. The incumbent president says unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins. But unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a real recovery can begin - and Mr. President, you are that man. . . .
Tonight, as plainly as I can, I want to tell you who I am, what I believe in and where I want to lead America.
I never met my father.
He was killed in a car wreck on a rainy road three months before I was born, driving from Chicago to Arkansas to see my mother.
After that, my mother had to support us. So we lived with my grandparents while she went back to Louisiana to study nursing. . . .
My mother taught me. She taught me about family and hard work and sacrifice. She held steady through tragedy after tragedy. And she held our family, my brother and I, together through tough times. As a child, I watched her go off to work each day at a time when it wasn't always easy to be a working mother.
TAUGHT TO FIGHT
As an adult, I watched her fight off breast cancer. And again she taught me a lesson in courage. And always, always she taught me to fight.
That's why I'll fight to create high-paying jobs so that parents can afford to raise their children today. That's why I'm so committed to making sure every American gets the health care that saved my mother's life. And that women's health care gets the same attention as men's. That's why I'll fight to make sure women in this country receive respect and dignity - whether they work in the home, out of the home or both. You want to know where I get my fighting spirit? It all started with my mother. Thank you mother, I love you.
When I think about opportunity for all Americans, I think about my grandfather.
He ran a country store in our little town of Hope. There were no food stamps back then, so when his customers - whether they were white or black - who worked hard and did the best they could came in with no money, well he gave them food anyway. Just made a note of it. So did I. Before I was big enough to see over the counter, I learned from him to look up to people other folks looked down on. . . .
If you want to know where I come by the passionate commitment I have to bringing people together without regard to race, it all started with my grandfather.
I learned a lot from another person, too. A person who for more than 20 years has worked hard to help our children. Paying the price of time to make sure our schools don't fail them. Someone who traveled our state for a year studying, learning, listening. Going to PTA meetings, school board meetings, town hall meetings. Putting together a package of school reforms recognized around the nation. Doing it all while building a distinguished legal career and being a wonderful, loving mother.
That person is my wife.
Hillary taught me. She taught me that all children can learn, and that each of us has a duty to help them do it. So if you want to know why I care so much about our children and our futures, it all started with Hillary. I love you.
Frankly, I'm fed up with politicians in Washington lecturing Americans about "family values." Our families have values. But our government doesn't. . . .
I was raised to believe that the American dream was built on rewarding hard work. But we have seen the folks in Washington turn the American ethic on its head. For too long, those who play by the rules and keep the faith have gotten the shaft. And those who cut corners and cut deals have been rewarded. People are working harder than ever, spending less time with their children, working nights and weekends at their job instead of Little League or the Scouts or PTA. But their incomes are still going down, their taxes are going up and the costs of housing, health care and education are going through the roof. Meanwhile, more and more of our best people are falling into poverty - even though they work 40 hours a week.
PLEA FOR CHANGE
Our people are pleading for change, but government is in the way. It has been hijacked by privileged, private interests. It has forgotten who really pays the bills around here . . .
A president ought to be a powerful force for progress. But right now I know how President Lincoln felt when Gen. McClellan wouldn't attack in the Civil War. He asked him, "If you're not going to use your army, may I borrow it?" And so I say, George Bush: If you won't use your power to help people, step aside. I will. . . .
Now George Bush talks a good game. But he has no game plan to rebuild America from the cities to the suburbs and the countryside so that we can compete and win again in the global economy. I do.
He won't take on the big insurance companies to control health costs and give us affordable health care for all Americans. But I will.
He won't even implement the recommendations of his own commission on AIDS. But I will.
He won't streamline the federal government, and change the way it works; cut 100,000 bureaucrats, and put 100,000 new police officers on the streets of American cities. But I will.
He's never balanced a government budget. But I have. Eleven times.
He won't break the stranglehold special interests have on our elections and lobbyists have on our government. But I will.
He won't give mothers and fathers a simple chance to take some time off from work when a baby's born or a parent is sick. But I will. . . .
You know what else? He doesn't have Al Gore. But I do. And just in case he didn't notice, that's Gore with an "e" on the end.
And George Bush won't guarantee a woman's right to choose. I will. Hear me now: I am not pro-abortion. I am pro-choice, strongly. I believe this difficult and painful decision should be left to the women of America. . . . I am old enough to remember what it was like before Roe v. Wade, and I do not want to return to the time when we made criminals of women and their doctors. . . .
The Republicans have campaigned against big government for a generation. But have you noticed, they've run this big government for a generation, and they haven't changed a thing. . . .
But fellow Democrats, we have some changing to do, too. It is time for us to realize that there is not a government program for every problem. And if we really want to use government to help people, we have got to make it work again.
A REVITALIZED PARTY
Because we are committed in this convention and this platform to making those changes, we are, in the words that Ross Perot himself spoke today, a revitalized Democratic Party. I am well aware that all those millions of people who rallied to Ross Perot's cause wanted to be in an army of patriots for change. We say to them: join us - together we will revitalize America.
Now I don't have all the answers. But I do know the old ways don't work. . . .
That is why we need a new approach to government. . . . I call this approach a New Covenant - a solemn agreement between the people and their government . . .
We offer our people a new choice based on old values. We offer opportunity. We demand responsibility. We will build an American community again. . . .
It will work because it is rooted in the vision and the values of the American people. Of all the things George Bush has ever said that I disagree with, perhaps the thing that bothers me most has been how he derides and degrades the American tradition of seeing - and seeking - a better future. He mocks it as "the vision thing." But just remember what the Scripture says: "Where there is no vision the people perish." . . .
What is the vision of our New Covenant?
An America with millions of new jobs in dozens of new industries moving confidently toward the 21st century. An America that says to entrepreneurs and business people: We will give you more incentives and more opportunity than ever before to develop the skills of your workers and to create American jobs and American wealth in the new global economy.
But you must do your part; you must be responsible. American companies must act like American companies again - exporting products, not jobs. That's what this New Covenant is all about. . . .
An America in which health care is a right, not a privilege. . . .
An America in which middle class incomes, not middle class taxes, are going up. . . .
An America where we end welfare as we know it. . . . An America with the world's strongest defense; ready and willing to use force, when necessary. An America at the forefront of the global effort to preserve and protect our common environment - and promoting global growth. An America that will not coddle tyrants, from Baghdad to Beijing. An America that champions the cause of freedom and democracy, from Eastern Europe to Southern Africa, and in our own hemisphere in Haiti and Cuba. . . .
And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other. All of us, we need each other. We don't have a person to waste. And yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what's really wrong with America is the rest of us. Them. Them the minorities. Them the liberals. Them the poor. Them the homeless. Them the people with disabilities. Them the gays. We've gotten to where we've nearly them-ed ourselves to death. Them and them and them.
But this is America. There is no them; there is only us. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. . . .
But I can't do this alone. No president can. We must do it together. It won't be easy and it won't be quick. We didn't get into this mess overnight, and we won't get out of it overnight. But we can do it. With commitment, creativity, diversity and drive, we can do it. We can do it. We can do it.
TWO GREAT IDEAS
As a teenager I heard John Kennedy's summons to citizenship. And then, as a student at Georgetown, I heard that call clarified by a professor named Carroll Quigley, who said to us that America was the greatest nation in history because our people had always believed in two great ideas: that tomorrow can be better than today, and that every one of us has a personal, moral responsibility to make it so.
That kind of future entered my life the night our daughter Chelsea was born. As I stood in that delivery room, I was overcome with the thought that God had given me a blessing my own father never knew: the chance to hold my child in my arms.
Somewhere at this very moment, a child is being born in America. Let it be our cause to give that child a happy home, a healthy family and a hopeful future. Let it be our cause to see that that child has a chance to live to the fullest of her God-given capacities.
Let it be our cause to see that child grow up strong and secure, braced by her challenges, but never struggling alone; with family and friends and a faith that in America, no one is left out; no one is left behind.
Let it be our cause that when this child is able, she gives something back to her children, her community and her country. Let it be our cause that we give this child a country that is coming together, not coming apart - a country of boundless hopes and endless dreams; a country that once again lifts its people and inspires the world.
Let that be our cause, our commitment and our New Covenant.
My fellow Americans, I end tonight where it all began for me: I still believe in a place called Hope.
-- Provided by Associated Press