Remarks at a Reception for Governor Jeanne Shaheen - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents,  Sept 25, 2000  

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

September 20, 2000

Thank you very much. Thank you. First thing I would like to say is that back when we were taking pictures, a number of you commented on my dress. I'm here to take your drink order before the movie begins. [Laughter]

Actually, this is a terrific theater, and I would like to thank the owners who are here. Our hosts are here tonight, and I think we should give them a big hand. [Applause] This is a beautiful place, a project, I might add, financed by the Small Business Administration loan.

I want to thank my friend Parris Glendening for being here. We've had a wonderful partnership with Maryland. You know, they're kind of right next door to DC here. We do a lot of things with Governor Glendening. He's done a fabulous job. He's a very generous person. He's spent a lot of his time this year trying to raise money to create other Democratic governorships and help the ones that we have get reelected, and I'm grateful.

I really wanted to come here tonight. First, I have known Jeanne Shaheen a long time, a long time before I was President, a long time before she was Governor. I went to New Hampshire the first time when Hugh Gallen was Governor. That was when I didn't have any gray hair. [Laughter]

And I went once to campaign for a man named Paul McEachern who is a very good man who didn't win. But I was glad to be there. Jeanne and I had a long talk then. I used to read about her all the time in the articles about what an important political operative she was, and if you wanted to run for President and you went to New Hampshire, you had to have her for you. And it's not easy--I can say this; I worked in politics from the time I was a teenager--it's not easy to make the transition from being somebody that helps someone else, to being a candidate in your own right, particularly in a very difficult environment.

So, I'm here because I really believe that I know her much better than most Presidents know most Governors. And everything she said about her record, everything she said about the difference between herself and her opponent, that's all true.

It's also true that she's had a lot of difficult challenges, one of which I'll say more about in a moment, that I think she's tried to meet in a forthright way, keeping her commitments to the voters, trying to do what's best for the people of New Hampshire, and not running away from decisions that are bound to make everybody a little bit unhappy just because they break so many eggs. And I admire her.

And I think that people who are strong leaders who do what needs to be done should be rewarded at election time and kept in office. So that's one reason I'm here. The second reason I'm here is, there is nobody in America, no living public figure, who owes more to the State of New Hampshire or loves it more than I do.

Hillary and I were laughing the other night about how quickly these 8 years have gone by, how busy they were, how jampacked they were, how full of pressure they were, how embarrassing it is that I can't remember some things that I'm supposed to be able to remember, or I remember some things we did, and I can't remember the year in which we did it. I used to pride myself on having a flawless memory. But I remember everything about New Hampshire in 1992. Laughter]

And a lot of you here helped me. And the people of New Hampshire, even the ones that didn't vote for me-even the Republicans helped me--because I spent a lot of time just going around talking to people and listening to them and hearing the rhythm of their dreams and hopes and frustrations and seeing the personal manifestation of the difficulties our countries faced back then.

And I think it would be good for them if Governor Shaheen was reelected. And I'm doing what I think is right by people who have done right by me, twice. I never thought a Democrat could win New Hampshire once, much less twice, for President. [Laughter] And I hope we'll make it three in a row this time.

But here is the third thing I would like to say, and I hope it causes no difficulty for the Governor. I don't think it will. But the most difficult problem she's had to face that can't make anybody happy is how to finance the schools. But what I would like the people of New Hampshire to know is that today, there are 36 States, 36 of our 50 States are in court today, not just one or two or three, 36, trying to work out the agonizing conflicts between everyone's desire to have taxes as low as possible, everybody else's desire to maintain maximum local control, and figuring out how to equalize school funding so that all kids have a chance to get a good education at an adequate level of funding.

And what I would like you to know is, there are no perfect answers. There is no perfect answer. But I have fought--one of the big reasons I have fought so hard--and we nearly doubled Federal funding for education and training while we were getting rid of the deficit and going from a $290 billion deficit to a $211 billion surplus--we have nearly doubled funding for education and training since I've been here.