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1992-10-14
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PRODIGY(R) interactive personal service 10/14/92 4:28 PM
Text of Vice Presidential Debate
The following is the text of the vice presidential debate
in Atlanta on Tuesday, Oct 13.
HAL BRUNO: Good evening from Atlanta and welcome to the
vice presidential debate sponsored by the Nonpartisan
Commission on Presidential Debates. It's being held here in
the Theater for the Arts on the campus of Georgia Tech. I'm
Hal Bruno from ABC News and I'm going to be moderating
tonight's debate. The participants are Republican Vice
President Dan Quayle.
(Applause)
Democratic Senator Al Gore.
(Applause)
And retired Vice Admiral James Stockdale, who is the vice
presidential nominee--
(Applause)
--for independent candidate Ross Perot.
(Applause)
Now, the ground rules for tonight's debate. Each
candidate will have 2 minutes for an opening statement. I
will then present the issues to be discussed. For each
topic, the candidates will have a minute and 15 seconds to
respond. Then this will be followed by a 5 minute discussion
period in which they can ask questions of each other if they
so choose.
Now, the order of response has been determined by a
drawing and we'll rotate with each topic. At the end of the
debate, each candidate will have 2 minutes for a closing
statement.
Our radio and TV audience should know that the candidates
were given an equal allocation of auditorium seats for their
supporters. So I'd like to ask the audience here in the
theater to please refrain from applause or any partisan
demonstration once the debate is under way because it takes
time away from the candidates. So
with that plea from your moderator let's get started.
And we'll turn first to Senator Gore for his opening
statement.
SENATOR GORE: Good evening. It's great to be here in
Atlanta for this debate where America will be showcases to
the world when the 1996 Olympics are put on right here. It's
appropriate because in a real sense, our discussion this
evening will be about what kind of nation we want to be 4
years from now. It's also a pleasure to be with my 2
opponents this evening. Admiral Stockdale, may I say it's a
special honor to share this stage with you. Those of us who
served in Vietnam looked at you as a national hero even
before you were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
And Mr. Vice President--Dan, if I may--it was 16 years
ago that you and I went to the Congress on the very first
day together. I'll make you a deal this evening. If you
don't try to compare George Bush to Harry Truman, I won't
compare you to Jack Kennedy.
(Applause)
Harry Truman--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Do you remember the last time
someone compared themselves to Jack Kennedy? Do you remember
what they said?
SENATOR GORE: Harry Truman, it's worth remembering,
assumed the presidency when Franklin Roosevelt died here in
Georgia--only one of many occasions when fate thrust a vice
president into the Oval Office in a time of crisis. It's
something to think about during the debate this evening. But
our real discussion is going to be about change. Bill
Clinton and I stand for change because we don't believe our
nation can stand 4 more years of what we've had under George
Bush and Dan Quayle.
When the recession came they were like a deer caught in
the headlights--paralyzed into inaction, blinded to the
suffering and pain of bankruptcies and people who were
unemployed. We have an environmental crisis, a health
insurance crisis, substandard education. It is time for a
change.
Bill Clinton and I want to get our country moving forward
again, put our people back to work, and create a bright
future for the US of America.
BRUNO: Okay, the next statement will be from Vice
President Quayle.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Well, thank you, Senator Gore, for
reminding me about my performance in the 1988 vice
presidential debate. This is 1992, Bill Clinton is running
against President George Bush. There are 2 things that I'm
going to stress during this debate: one, Bill Clinton's
economic plan and his agenda will make matters much, much
worse--he will raise your taxes, he will increase spending,
he will make government bigger, jobs will be lost; second,
Bill Clinton does not have the strength nor the character to
be president of the US.
(Applause)
Let us look at the agendas. President Bush wants to hold
the line on taxes, Bill Clinton wants to raise taxes.
President Bush is for a balanced budget amendment, Bill
Clinton is opposed to it. We want to reform the legal system
because it's too costly, Bill Clinton wants the status quo.
We want to reform the health care system, Bill Clinton wants
to ration health care. Bill Clinton wants to empower
government, we want to empower people.
In St. Louis, Missouri, in June of this year, Bill
Clinton said this: "America is the mockery of the world." He
is wrong.
At some time during these next 4 years there is going to
be a crisis--there will be an international crisis. I can't
tell you where it's going to be, I can't even tell you the
circumstances--but it will happen. We need a president who
has the experience, who has been tested, who has the
integrity and qualifications to handle the crisis. The
president has been tested, the president has the integrity
and the character. The choice is yours.
You need to have a president you can trust. Can you
really trust Bill Clinton?
BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale, your opening statement, please,
sir?
STOCKDALE: Who am I? Why am I here?
(Laughter and applause)
I'm not a politician--everybody knows that. So don't
expect me to use the language of the Washington insider.
Thirty-7 years in the Navy, and only one of them up there in
Washington. And now I'm an academic.
The centerpiece of my life was the Vietnam War. I was
there the day it started. I led the first bombing raid
against North Vietnam. I was there the day it ended, and I
was there for everything in between. Ten years in Vietnam,
aerial combat, and torture. I know things about the Vietnam
War better than anybody in the world. I know some things
about the Vietnam War better than anybody in the world.
And I know how governments, how American governments can
be--can be courageous, and how they can be callow. And
that's important. That's one thing I'm an insider on.
I was the leader of the underground of the American
pilots who were shot down in prison in North Vietnam. You
should know that the American character displayed in those
dungeons by those fine men was a thing of beauty.
I look back on those years as the beginning of wisdom,
learning everything a man can learn about the
vulnerabilities and the strengths that are ours as
Americans.
Why am I here tonight? I am here because I have in my
brain and in my heart what it takes to lead America through
tough times.
BRUNO: Thank you, Admiral. I thought since you're running
for vice president, that we ought to start off by talking
about the vice presidency itself. The vice president
presides over the Senate, he casts a deciding vote in case
of a tie, but his role really depends on the assignments
that are given to him by the president. However, if a
president should die in office, or is unable to serve for
any other reason, the vice president automatically becomes
president, and that has happened 5 times in this century.
So the proposition I put on the table for you to discuss
is this.
What role would each of you like to play as vice
president, what areas interest you, and what are your
qualifications to serve as president, if necessary?
In the case of Vice President Quayle, who we're starting
with, I suppose you'd tell us the role that you did play in
the first term and which you'd like to do in a 2d term. Go
ahead, sir.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Well, then I won't give you that
answer.
Qualifications. I've been there, Hal. I've done the job.
I've been tested. I've been vice president for 4 years.
Senator Gore referred to us being elected to the Congress
together in 1976. I've done the job. I've done many things
for the president.
But even as vice president you never know exactly what
your role is going to be from time to time, and let me just
give you an example of where I was tested under fire and in
a crisis.
President Bush was flying to Malta in 1989 to meet with
President Gorbachev. It was the first meeting between
President Bush and President Gorbachev. They had known each
other before.
A coup broke out in the Philippines. I had to go to the
situation room. I had to assemble the president's advisers.
I talked to President Aquino. I made the recommendation to
the president. The president made the decision, the coup was
suppressed, democracy continued in the Philippines, the
situation was ended.
I've been there. And I'll tell you one other thing that
qualifies you for being president--and it's this, Hal--
you've got to stand up for what you believe in. And nobody
has ever criticized me for not having strong beliefs.
(Applause.)
BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale.
STOCKDALE: My association with Mr. Perot is a very
personal one and as I have stood in and finally taken his
running mate position, he has granted me total autonomy. I
don't take advantage of it, but I am sure that he would make
me a partner in decision, in making decisions about the way
to handle health care, the way to get this economy back on
its feet again, in every way.
I have not had the experience of these gentlemen, but--to
be any more specific--but I know I have his trust, and I
intend to act in a way to keep that situation alive. Thank
you.
BRUNO: Senator Gore.
SENATOR GORE: Bill Clinton understands the meaning of the
words "teamwork" and "partnership." If we're successful in
our efforts to gain your trust and lead this nation, we will
work together to put our country back on the right track
again. The experience that George Bush and Dan Quayle have
been talking about includes the worst economic performance
since the Great Depression. Unemployment is up, personal
income is down, bankruptcies are up, housing starts are
down. How long can we continue with trickle-down economics
when the record of failure is so abundantly clear?
Discussions of the vice presidency tend sometimes to
focus on the crisis during which a vice president is thrust
into the Oval Office, and indeed, one-3d of the vice
presidents who have served have been moved into the White
House.
But the teamwork and partnership beforehand--and
hopefully that situation never happens--how you work
together is critically important. The way we work together
in this campaign is one sample.
Now I'd like to say in response to Vice President Quayle-
-he talked about Malta and the Philippines. George Bush has
concentrated on every other country in the world. When are
you guys going to start worrying about our people here in
the US of America and get our country moving again?
(Applause)
BRUNO: Again, I will ask the audience: please do not
applaud, it takes time from the candidates. All right, now
we have 5 minutes for discussion. Go ahead, Vice President
Quayle.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: The answer to that is very simple:
we are not going to raise taxes to create new jobs, we have
a plan to create new jobs. But that wasn't the question. The
question dealt with qualifications. Teamwork and partnership
may be fine in the Congress, Senator Gore--that's what
Congress is all about, compromise, teamwork, working things
out. But when you're president of the US or when you're vice
president and you have to fill in like I did the night of
the crisis in the Philippines, you've got to make a
decision, you've got to make up your mind. Bill Clinton,
running for president of the US, said this about the Persian
Gulf war. He said: "Had I been in the Senate, I would have
voted with the majority, if it was a close vote. But I
agreed with the arguments of the minority."
You can't have it both ways, you have to make a decision.
You cannot sit there in an international crisis--
(Applause)
--and sit there and say, well, on the one hand, this is
okay, and, on the other hand, this is okay. You've got to
make the decision. President Bush has made the decisions;
he's been tested, he's got the experience, he's got the
qualification, he's got the integrity to be our president
for the next 4 years.
BRUNO: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Admiral Stockdale,
it's your turn to respond next, and then Senator Gore will
have his chance to respond.
STOCKDALE: Okay. I thought this was just an open session,
this 5-minute thing, and I didn't have anything to add to
his. But I will--
SENATOR GORE: Well, I'll jump in if you don't want--
(Laughter)
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I thought anyone could jump in
whenever they wanted to.
BRUNO: Okay, whatever pleases you gentlemen is fine with
me. You're the candidates.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: But I want Admiral Stockdale's
time.
(Laughter and applause)
BRUNO: This is not the Senate, where you can trade off
time. Go ahead, Senator Gore.
SENATOR GORE: I'll let you all figure out the rules, I've
got some points that I want to make here, and I still
haven't gotten an answer to my question on when you guys are
going to start worrying about this country, but I want to
elaborate on it before--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Why doesn't the Democratic
Congress--why doesn't the Democratic Congress--
BRUNO: Mr. Vice President, let him say his thoughts, and
then you can come in.
SENATOR GORE: I was very patient in letting you get off
that string of attacks. We've been listening to--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Good points.
SENATOR GORE: --trickle-down economics for 12 years now,
and you all still support trickle-down to the very last
drop. And, you know, talking about this point of
concentrating on every other country in the world as opposed
to the people of our country right here at home, when George
Bush took former Secretary of State Baker out of the State
Dept and put him in charge of the campaign and made him
chief of staff in the White, Mr. Baker, who's quite a
capable man, said that for these last 4 years George Bush
was working on the problems of the rest of the world and in
the next 4 years he would target America.
SENATOR GORE (continuing): Well, I want you to know we
really appreciate that. But Bill Clinton and I will target
America from day one. We won't wait 4 years before we
concentrate on the problems in this country.
He went on to say that it's really amazing what George
Bush can do when he concentrates. Well, it's time that we
had a president like Bill Clinton who can concentrate and
will concentrate and work on the problems of real people in
this country. You know, our country is in trouble. We simply
cannot continue with this philosophy of giving huge tax cuts
to the very wealthy, raising taxes on middle income families
the way Bush and Quayle have done and then waiting for it to
work. How much longer will it take, Dan, for trickle down
economics to work, in your theory?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Well, we're going to have plenty
of time to talk about trickle down government, which you're
for. But the question--
SENATOR GORE: Well, I'd like to hear the answer.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: But the question is--the question
is--and which you have failed to address, and that is, why
is Bill Clinton qualified to be president of the US. You've
talked about--
SENATOR GORE: Oh, I'll be happy to answer that question--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: You've talked about Jim Baker.
You've talked about trickle down economics. You've talked
about the worst economy-
BRUNO: Now, wait a minute. The question was about--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: --in 50 years.
SENATOR GORE: I'll be happy to answer those. May I
answer--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Why is he qualified to be
president of the US?
SENATOR GORE: I'll be happy to--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I want to go back and make a
point--
SENATOR GORE: Well, you've asked me the question. If you
won't answer my question I will answer yours.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I have not asked you a question.
I've made a statement, that you have not told us why Bill
Clinton is qualified to be president of the US. I pointed
out what he said about the Persian Gulf War. But let me
repeat it for you. Here's what he said, Senator. You know
full well what he said.
SENATOR GORE: You want me to answer your question?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I'm making a statement. Then you
can answer it.
BRUNO: Can we give Admiral Stockdale a chance to come in,
please--
(Applause)
And again, audience--
(Simultaneous conversation)
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: (Inaudible) here's what he said. I
mean, this is the Persian Gulf War--the most important event
in his political lifetime and here's what Bill Clinton says.
If it's a close vote, I'd vote with the majority.
BRUNO: Let's give Admiral Stockdale a chance to come in.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: But he was the minority. That
qualifies you for being president of the US. I hope America
is listening very closely to this debate tonight.
STOCKDALE: And I think America is seeing right now the
reason this nation is in gridlock.
(Laughter, applause)
The trickle downs and the tax and spends, or whatever you
want to call them are at swords points. We can't get this
economy going. Over here we've got Dan whose president is
going to take 8 years to balance the budget and on my left,
the senator, whose boss is going to get it half way balanced
in 4 years. Ross Perot has got a plan to balance the budget
5 years in length from start to finish. And we're--people of
the non-professional category who are just sick of this
terrible thing that's happened to the country. And we've got
a man who knows how to fix it, and I'm working for him.
(Applause)
BRUNO: I was a little bit worried that there might not be
a free flowing discussion tonight.
(Laughter)
Let's move on to the economy. Specifically the economy
was talked about at great length the other night in the
presidential debate. Let's talk about a very particular
aspect of the economy and that is, getting people back to
work. For the average person, the great fear is losing his
or her job and many Americans have lost jobs in this
recession, which also means the loss of benefits, the loss
of a home, the destruction of a family's security.
Specifically, how would your administration go about getting
people back to work and how long is it going to take? And we
start with Admiral Stockdale.
STOCKDALE: The lifeblood of our economy is investment.
And right now when we pay $350--we borrow $350 billion a
year it saps the money markets and the private investors are
not getting their share. What we do is work on that budget
by an aggressive program, not a painful program, so that we
can start borrowing less money and getting more investment
money on the street through entrepreneurs who can build
factories, who will hire people, and maybe we'll start
manufacturing goods here in this country again. That's--
that's my answer.
BRUNO: Okay. Senator Gore.
SENATOR GORE: Bill Clinton's top priority is putting
America back to work. Bill Clinton and I will create good,
high-wage jobs for our people, the same way he has done in
his state. Bill Clinton has created high-wage manufacturing
jobs at 10 times the national average and in fact according
to the statistics coming from the Bush-Quayle Labor Dept,
for the last 2 years in a role Bill Clinton's state has been
number one among all 50 in the creation of jobs in the
private sector.
By contrast, in the nation as a whole, during the last
4 years, it is the first time since the presidency of
Herbert Hoover, that we have gone for a 4-year period with
fewer jobs at the end of that 4-year period than we had at
the beginning.
And look at manufacturing. We have lost 1.4 million jobs
in manufacturing under George Bush and Dan Quayle. They have
even--we learned 2 weeks ago--taken our tax dollars and
subsidized the moving of US factories to foreign countries.
Now don't deny it because 60 Minutes and Nightline and the
nation's newspapers have investigated this very carefully.
(Laughter.)
When are you going to stop using our tax dollars to shut
down American factories and move 'em to foreign countries
and throw Americans out of work?
BRUNO: Vice President Quayle.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Senator, don't always believe what
you see on television.
(Applause.)
Let me tell you: the media have been wrong before. We
have never subsidized any country--or any company to move
from the US to Latin America. You know full well the
Caribbean Basin Initiative, you've supported that.
SENATOR GORE: No.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: That is a program there--
SENATOR GORE: I voted against it.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: You voted for it and your record--
SENATOR GORE: No.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Okay. Well, we'll--we'll have a
lot of interesting debate after this debate. Our people will
be glad to furnish the press, if they're interested, in
Senator Gore's voting record on the Caribbean Basin
Initiative. But let's talk--you know, you keep talking about
trickle-down economics and all this stuff, about the worst
economy since Hoover. It is a bad economy. It's a tough
economy. The question isn't--it's now who you're going to
blame; what are you going to do about it? Your proposal it
so raise $150 billion in taxes. To raise $220 billion in new
spending.
SENATOR GORE: No.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: How is raising taxes going to help
small business? How is raising taxes going to help the
farmer? How is raising taxes going to help the consumer in
America? I submit to you that raising taxes will make
matters much, much worse.
(Applause.)
BRUNO: Admiral. We now throw it open for discussion.
Admiral Stockdale, it's your turn to start the discussion.
STOCKDALE: Well, we've got to re--we've got to clean out
the barn, if I may quote my boss, and start getting this
investment money on the street so we can get, and encourage
entrepreneurs to build factories. We--the program is out
there. It's a put-together thing that requires some
sacrifice, but not excessive, and we are willing to move
forward in--on a 5-year clip to put us back where we can
start over and get--get this nation straightened out.
BRUNO: Senator Gore, getting people back to work.
SENATOR GORE: Well, the difference between the Perot-
Stockdale plan and the Clinton-Gore plan is that Ross
Perot's plan concentrates almost exclusively on balancing
the budget and reducing the budget deficit, and the danger
is that if that is the only goal it could throw our nation
back into an even worse recession.
Bill Clinton and I have a detailed 5-year budget plan to
create good jobs, cut the budget deficit in half, and
eliminate the investment deficit in order to get our economy
moving forward again. We have a $20-billion infrastructure
fund to create a nationwide network of high-speed rail, for
example, and what are called information superhighways to
open up a whole universe of knowledge for our young people
and to help our universities and companies that rely on new
advances in the information revolution. We also have tax
incentives for investment in job-creating activities, not
the kind of encouragement for short-term rip-offs like the
proposal that we have had from George
Bush.
But I want to return and say one more time: you have used
our tax dollars to subsidize the recruitment of US companies
to move overseas and throw Americans out of work. In
Decaturville, Tennessee, not very far from my home, a
factory was shut down right there when they were solicited
by officials paid with US taxpayers' money, and then the
replacement workers in a foreign country were trained with
our tax dollars and then their imports were subsidized
coming back into the US.
When are you going to stop that program?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: We do not have any program that
encourages companies to close down here and to go and invest
on foreign soil. That is absolutely outrageous. Of course
American businesses do have business abroad; we've got
global competition. We want businesses to expand. Do you
realize this, Senator, that every job that's overseas
there's 3 jobs back here to support that.
But never have we ever, nor would we, support the idea of
someone closing down a factory here and moving overseas.
That's just totally ridiculous.
SENATOR GORE: It's going on right now; it happened in
Tennessee, in Decaturville, Tennessee. When George Bush went
to Nashville, the employees who lost their jobs asked to
meet with--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I want to get back--
SENATOR GORE: I talked with them. Let me tell you what
they're feeling. Some of them are in their 50s and 60s. They
want to know where they're going to get new jobs
when their jobs have been destroyed. And there are
1.4 million manufacturing jobs that have been lost because
of the policies of you and George Bush. Do you seriously
believe that we ought to continue the same policies that
have created the worst economy since the Great Depression?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I hope that when you talked to
those people you said: and the first thing that Bill Clinton
and I are going to do is to raise $150 billion in new taxes.
SENATOR GORE: You got that wrong, too.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: And the first--that is part of
your plan.
SENATOR GORE: No, it's not.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: A hundred and fifty billion
dollars in new taxes. Well, you're going to disavow your
plan.
SENATOR GORE: Listen, what we're proposing--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: You know what you're doing, you
know what you're doing? You're pulling a Clinton.
(Laughter)
And you know what a Clinton is? And you know what Clinton
is? A Clinton is, is what he says--he says one thing one day
and another thing the next day--you try to have both sides
of the issues. The fact of the matter is that you are
proposing $150 billion in new taxes.
SENATOR GORE: No.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: And I hope that you talk to the
people in Tennessee--
SENATOR GORE: No, we're not.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: --and told them that--
SENATOR GORE: You can say it all you want but it doesn't
make it true.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: --going to have new taxes. I hope
you talked to them about the fact that you were going to
increase spending to $220 billion. I'm sure what you didn't
talk to them about was about how we're going to reform the
health care system, like the president wants to do. He wants
to go out and to reform the health care system so that every
American will have available to them affordable health
insurance.
I'm sure one other thing that you didn't talk to them
about, Senator, and that is legal reform, because your
position on legal reform is the status quo. And yet you talk
about foreign competition. Why should an American company
have to spend 15 to 20 times on product liability and
insurance costs compared to a company in Japan or a company
in Germany or somewhere else? That's not right. We have
product liability reform legislation on Capitol Hill. It
will create jobs. And a Democratic Congress won't pass it.
(Applause)
BRUNO: Okay. I think it's time to move on to our next
topic. All 3 of you gentlemen have some expertise in defense
and the armed forces. Vice President Quayle and Senator Gore
both served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Admiral
Stockdale, of course, has a very distinguished military
career.
With the end of the Cold War, everyone agrees that there
are going to be major cuts. They've already started in the
defense budget. But this country has a long history of
neglecting its military needs in peace time and then paying
for it with heavy casualties when we're caught unprepared.
How much of a defense cut is safe? What happens to the
people who are forced to leave the military services, or if
they lose their jobs because they're working in defense
industries.
I think we start with Senator Gore this time.
SENATOR GORE: Bill Clinton and I support a strong
national defense. He and I have both fought for change
within the Democratic Party as well as within the country.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, the definition of strong
national defense has obviously changed somewhat. For
example, George Bush wants to maintain at least 150,000
American soldiers in Europe, even though World War II ended
50 years ago.
Bill Clinton and I agree with so many military experts
who believe that it is time for the Europeans, who are so
much wealthier now and more powerful than they were at the
end of World War II to start picking up a little more of
that tab themselves and not rely so exclusively on the US
taxpayers for the defense of Europe.
We believe that we can make savings in our defense budget
and at the same time, improve our national security.
Now, for those who are affected by the cutbacks, whether
they come from George Bush or Bill Clinton and me--the
difference is, Bill Clinton and I have a defense conversion
program so that those who won the Cold War will not be left
out in the cold. We want to put them to work building an
infrastructure and an economy here in this country for the
'90's and the next century.
BRUNO: Vice President Quayle.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: We won the Cold War because we
invested in national security. We won the Cold War because
we invested in our military. We didn't win the Cold--we won
the Cold War because we invested in national security. We
won the Cold War because we invested in our military. We
didn't win the cold--or we won the Cold War because America
had the political will and made the right decisions. Yes, we
can make the cuts in defense and we have. Bill Clinton wants
to cut defense another $60 billion. I'd say to the defense
workers in California and elsewhere, a $60 billion defense
cut is going to cut a lot of jobs out.
Yes, we are making a conversion and we can go to a civil
space rather than having defense--or the defense industry.
Well, let me say this: we would not have won the Cold War if
we had listened to Senator Gore and his crowd, and had
supported a nuclear freeze. If you would have supported that
attitude--if you would have supported that attitude, we
would not have won the Cold War. We won the Cold War because
we invested and we went forward.
(Applause.)
BRUNO: Mr.--Admiral Stockdale, please.
STOCKDALE: Yes, thanks. The numbers, in terms of the
dollar cuts, as they stand on our plans now, show us almost
the same as the vice president's. But we'd note that Mr.--
Governor Clinton's plan is almost twice as much a cut as
either one of us. I've been through the end of World War II,
and the surprise beginning of Korea, to see how we--it cost
us more money because we overcut the defense budget in the
first place. I don't say that--
(Applause.)
So I think that should be eyed with great suspicion,
people that are really kicking the props out from under our
grand military establishment prematurely.
Now there's other differences between the Perot approach
and what we see up here on either side of me, and that has
to do with we want to focus our interests, economic and
military, more to the Pacific. We figure that we are
generally going along with any sort of a troop removal from
Europe. So that's still another face of this puzzle.
BRUNO: Senator Gore, would you like to start the
discussion period on this topic?
SENATOR GORE: Yeah, I'd like to respond first to you,
Admiral Stockdale. Under the details of our 5-year budget
plan, we do propose more in defense cuts than George Bush
and Dan Quayle, but only 5 % more.
Admiral Crowe, who I think was one of your classmates in
Annapolis--
STOCKDALE: Oh, yes, I've known him--
SENATOR GORE: --has endorsed--
STOCKDALE: --50 years.
SENATOR GORE: --the military portions of our plan, even
though he was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs under George
Bush, and John White has endorsed the economic aspects of
our plan, even though I believe he was the architect of Ross
Perot's economic plan.
Now when I heard George Bush say at the convention in
Houston, that when he heard the phrase "we won the Cold
War," it made him wonder who the "we" was. Well, I want to
tell you, President Bush, the "we" is the people of the US
of America. This wasn't a partisan victory that came
suddenly, a few months after you took the oath of office.
This started with Harry Truman and it was a bipartisan
effort from the very beginning. George Bush taking credit
for the Berlin Wall coming down is like the rooster taking
credit for the sunrise.
(Applause.)
And I want to, I want to add--I want to add one other
thing, because in the debate a few nights ago, I think
President Bush made a very serious misstatement of fact in
response to Ross Perot. It was kind of a little lecture he
gave to Ross Perot when he said those SS-18s are gone, Ross,
that's done. He--he reached a deal with Boris Yeltsin to
completely remove them so we can all sleep safely without
any fear tonight.
But you know what? They thought they were going to get
that deal, but when he took the person in charge of the
negotiations out of the State Dept and put him in charge of
the reelection campaign, the deal unraveled and now there is
no START II deal at all. In fact there are serious problems.
Isn't it a fact, Dan, that every single one of those
SS-18s is still there, in the silos, and under the START I
treaty, only half of the silos are supposed to be
dismantled, and there is no deal to get rid of the other
half?
Didn't the president make a mistake there?
BRUNO: Vice President Quayle, please.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: The president does have a
commitment from Boris Yeltsin to eliminate the SS-18s. That
is a commitment to--
SENATOR GORE: Is it an agreement?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: It is a commitment.
SENATOR GORE: Oh.
(Laughter)
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Let's talk about, let's talk
about--
SENATOR GORE: Well, he said he'd--
BRUNO: Let him talk, Senator.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Lighten up here, Al.
(Laughter and applause)
BRUNO: Go ahead.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Let's talk about getting
agreements. You know, the president of the US doesn't just
negotiate with your friends in Congress; the president of
the US deals on the international scene. He's got to deal
with the president of Russia, he's got to deal with the
chancellor of Germany, the prime minister of Britain, the
president of France, the prime minister of Japan--he's got
to deal with a whole host of leaders around the world. And
the leaders sit down and they will negotiate, and they will
come to agreements with people that they trust. And this is
a fundamental problem with Bill Clinton, is trust and
character.
It is not the issue of how he avoided military service
20-some years ago; it's the fact--it's the fact that he does
not tell the truth about it. He first said he didn't get an
induction notice, then we find out that he did; he said he
didn't have an ROTC slot, then we find out he did; he said
he didn't use Senator Fulbright's office for special
influence, then we find out that he did.
These are inconsistencies. Bill Clinton has trouble
telling the truth. And he will have a very difficult time
dealing with somebody like President Yeltsin or Chancellor
Kohl or Prime Minister Major or President Mitterrand,
because truth and integrity are prerequisites to being
president of the US.
(Applause)
SENATOR GORE: I want to respond to that, I want to
respond to that. George Bush, in case you've forgotten, Dan,
said "Read my lips--no new taxes."
(Laughter and applause)
And you know what?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I didn't think I was going to hear
that tonight.
SENATOR GORE: Hold on, hold on, let me finish.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Okay.
SENATOR GORE: He also said he wanted to be the
environmental president; then he went on to say he wanted to
be the education president. Then he said that he wouldn't
raise taxes again--no, never, ever, ever. Then the next day
his spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, came out and said that's
not a pledge. Then 2 weeks ago he said that after the
election, if you win, then James Baker's going to go back to
be secretary of state; then a week later, in the debate a
few nights ago, he said, no, after the election, if we win,
James Baker is going to be in charge of domestic policy.
Which is it, Dan? Is he going to--what's your role in
this going to be?
(Laughter and applause)
BRUNO: Well, we'll have to move on to another topic.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Let me--
BRUNO: Sorry, Mr. Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I don't have time to respond to
that?
BRUNO: You'll get plenty of chance to respond, so don't
worry.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Okay, you're the moderator. I was
under the assumption that when the thing is like that that
you get a chance to respond.
BRUNO: Well, we ran out of time; according to the
agreement, it's time to move on. And I want to stick to the
agreement.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Okay. Well, you got the last word
on that, but we'll come back to it.
BRUNO: But you'll have a chance--I can see what's
happening here: we throw out the topic and then we drift.
But that's okay, because I think it's making for a healthy
exchange.
(Laughter)
The only thing I would ask of you--
SENATOR GORE: I'm enjoying it.
(Laughter)
BRUNO: The only thing I would ask of you gentlemen is
that when we get to the discussion period, whoever talks
first be considerate of the others, because you have a
tendency to filibuster.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Look over there.
(Laughter)
BRUNO: Okay, I'm not pointing any fingers. Let's talk
about the environment--we'll get away from controversy.
(Laughter)
Everyone wants a safe and clean environment, but there's
an ongoing conflict between environmental protection and the
need for economic growth and jobs. So the point I throw out
on the table is, how do you resolve this conflict between
protection of the environment and growth in jobs, and why
has it taken so long to deal with basic problems, such as
toxic waste dumps, clean air and clean water?
And, Vice President Quayle, it's your turn to start
first.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Hal, that's a false choice. You
don't have to have a choice between the environment and
jobs--you can have both. Look at the president's record:
clean air legislation passed the Democratic Congress because
of the leadership of George Bush. It is the most
comprehensive clean air act in our history. We are firmly
behind preserving our environment, and we have a good record
with which to stand. The question comes about: What is going
to be their position when it comes to the environment? I say
it's a false choice. You ought to ask somebody in Michigan,
a UAW worker in Michigan, if they think increasing the CAFE
standards, the fuel economy standards, to 45 miles a gallon
is a good idea--300,000 people out of work. You ought to
talk to the timber people in the Northwest where they say
that, well, we can only save the owl, forget about jobs.
You ought to talk to the timber people in the northwest,
where they say that--well, we can only save the owl. Forget
about jobs. You ought to talk to the coal miners. They're
talking about putting a coal tax on. They're talking about a
tax on utilities, a tax on gasoline and home heating oil--
all sorts of taxes.
No, Hal, the choice isn't the environment and jobs. With
the right policies--prudent policies--we can have both.
(Applause)
BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale.
STOCKDALE: I read Senator Gore's book about the
environment and I don't see how he could possibly pay for
his proposals in today's economic climate.
(Applause)
You know, the Marshall Plan of the environment, and so
forth.
And also, I'm told by some experts that the things that
he fears most might not be all that dangerous, according to
some scientists. You know, you can overdo, I'm told,
environmental cleaning up. If you purify the pond, the water
lilies die. You know, I love this planet and I want it to
stay here, but I don't like to have it the private property
of fanatics that want to overdo this thing.
(Applause)
BRUNO: Senator Gore.
SENATOR GORE: Bill Clinton and I believe we can create
millions of new jobs by leading the environmental revolution
instead of dragging our feet and bringing up the rear.
You know, Japan and Germany are both opening proclaiming
to the world now that the biggest new market in the history
of world business is the market for the new products and
technologies that foster economic progress without
environmental destruction.
Why is the Japanese business organization--the largest
one they have, the Ki Den Ren (phonetic), arguing for
tougher environmental standards than those embodied in US
law? Why is MITI--their trade organization--calling on all
Japanese corporations everywhere in the world to exceed by
as much as possible the environmental standards of every
country in which they're operating?
Well, maybe they're just dumb about business competition.
But maybe they know something that George Bush and Dan
Quayle don't know--that the future will call for greater
efficiency and greater environmental efficiency.
This is an issue that touches my basic values. I'm taught
in my religious tradition that we are given dominion over
the Earth, but we're required to be good stewards of the
Earth, and that means to take care of it. We're not doing
that now under the Bush-Quayle policies. They have gutted
the Clean Air Act. They have broken his pledge to be the
environmental president. Bill Clinton and I will change
that.
(Applause)
BRUNO: Okay. Discussion period now. Again, leave time for
each other, please. Vice President Quayle, go ahead.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Well, I'm tempted to yield to
Admiral Stockdale on this. But I--you know, the fact of the
matter is that one of the proposals that Senator Gore has
suggested is to have the taxpayers of America spend
$100 billion a year on environmental projects in foreign
countries--
SENATOR GORE: That's not true--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Foreign aid--well, Senator, it's
in your book. On page 304--
SENATOR GORE: No, it's not.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: It is there.
(Applause)
It is in your book. You know, Hal, I wanted to bring the
Gore book tonight, because I figured he was going to pull a
Bill Clinton on me and he has. Because he's going to disavow
what's in his book. It's in your book--
SENATOR GORE: No.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: It comes out to $100 billion of
foreign aid for environmental projects.
BRUNO: All right. Let's give him a chance to answer.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Now, how are we going to pay for
it? How are we going to pay for an extra $100 billion of the
taxpayers' money for this?
SENATOR GORE: Dan, I appreciate you reading my book very
much, but you've got it wrong.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: No, I've got it right.
SENATOR GORE: There's no such proposal.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Okay, well, we'll find--
BRUNO: Let him talk, Mr Vice President. Let the senator
talk. Go ahead.
SENATOR GORE: There is no such proposal. What I have
called upon is a cooperative effort by the US and Europe and
Asia to work together in opening up new markets throughout
the world for the new technologies that are necessary in
order to reconcile the imperatives of economic progress with
the imperatives of environmental protection. Take Mexico
City for an example. They are shutting down factories right
now, not because of their economy, but because they're
choking together on the air pollution. They're banning
automobiles some days of the week.
Now what they want is not new laser-guided missile
systems. What they want are new engines and new factories
and new products that don't pollute the air and the water,
but nevertheless allow them to have a decent standard of
living for their people. Last year 35 % of our exports went
to developing countries, countries where the population is
expanding worldwide by as much as one billion people every
ten years.
We cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend that we
don't face a global environmental crisis, nor should we
assume that it's going to cost jobs. Quite the contrary. We
are going to be able to create jobs as Japan and Germany are
planning to do right now, if we have the guts to leave.
Now earlier we heard about the auto industry and the
timber industry. There have been 250,000 jobs lost in the
automobile industry during the Reagan-Bush-Quayle years.
There have been tens of thousands of jobs lost in the timber
industry. What they like to do is point the finger of blame
with one hand and hand out pink slips with the other hand.
They've done a poor job both with the economy and the
environment.
(Applause.)
It's time for a change.
(Applause.)
BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale, you had something you wanted to
say here?
STOCKDALE: I know that--I read where Senator Gore's
mentor had disagree with some of the scientific data that is
in his book. How do you respond to those criticisms of that
sort? Do you--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Deny it.
SENATOR GORE: Well--
(Laughter.)
STOCKDALE: Do you take this into account?
(Laughter.)
SENATOR GORE: No, I--let me respond. Thank you, Admiral,
for saying that. You're talking about Roger Revelle. His
family wrote a lengthy letter saying how terribly he had
been misquoted and had his remarks taken completely out of
context just before he died.
(Laughter.)
He believed up until the day he died--no, it's true, he
died last year--
BRUNO: I'd ask the audience to stop, please.
SENATOR GORE: --and just before he died, he co- authored
an article which was--had statements taken completely out of
context. In fact the vast majority of the world's
scientists--and they have worked on this extensively--
believe that we must have an effort to face up to the
problems we face with the environment. And if we just stick
out heads in the sand and pretend that it's not real, we're
not doing ourselves a favor. Even worse than that, we're
telling our children and all future generations that we
weren't willing to face up to this obligation.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Hal, can I--
SENATOR GORE: I believe that we have a mandate--
BRUNO: Sure. We've still got time.
SENATOR GORE: --to try to solve this problem,
particularly when we can do it while we create jobs in the
process.
BRUNO: Go ahead, Mr Vice President, there's still time.
Not much, though.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I know it. We've got to have a
little equal time here now, Hal. In the book you also
suggest taxes on, gasoline taxes on utilities, taxes on
carbon, taxes on timber. There's a whole host of taxes. And
I don't just--I don't believe raising taxes is the way to
solve our environmental problems.
And you talk about the bad situation in the auto
industry. You seem to say that the answer is, well, I'll
just make it that much worse by increasing the CAFE
standards. Yes, the auto industry is hurting, it's been
hurting for a long time, and increasing the CAFE standards
to 45 miles per gallon, like you and Bill Clinton are
suggesting, will put, as I said, 300,000 people out of work.
BRUNO: Okay, let's move on now. I would like to remind
the audience of one thing. Trying to stop you from
applauding may be a lost cause. I didn't say anything about
hissing, but I do think it is discourteous, and there's no
call for that, and it reflects badly on the candidate you're
supporting. So let's knock that off.
Let's go on to health care. Health care protection has
become a necessity of life in our society, yet millions of
Americans are not ensured and the cost of medical treatment
is practically out of control.
How do you propose to control these costs and how are you
going to provide access to health care for every American?
Let's see, whose turn is it to go now?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I think it's Admiral Stockdale's.
BRUNO: I think it's Admiral Stockdale's turn to go first.
Go ahead, sir.
STOCKDALE: Well, we have excellent technical health care,
but we don't administer it very well, and the escalating
costs top any other budget danger in the--on the horizon, I
think. And what Mr Perot has suggested is that we try to re-
-to look at the incentives, the incentives that are in our
current way of doing business, are what are killing us.
There's-- there's no incentive for a hypochondriac not to go
to the--to Medicare every day. There is no incentive for a
doctor to curtail the expensive tests because he's under
threat of malpractice lawyers.
And so we--we just have a web of wrong-way incentives
that has to be changed by some people who are in the medical
profession and some other crafty people who know how to
write contracts to change incentives or get--get the--the
incentives situation under control.
BRUNO: Senator Gore.
SENATOR GORE: Bill Clinton and I believe that if a
criminal has the right to a lawyer, every American family
ought to have the right to see a doctor of their own
choosing when they need to see a doctor. There are almost
40 million Americans who work full time today and yet have
no health insurance whatsoever. We are proposing to change
that, not with a government-run plan, not with new taxes,
but with a new approach called managed competition.
We are going to provide a standard health insurance
package provided by private insurance companies and
eliminate the duplication and red tape, and overlap, and
we're going to have cost controls to eliminate the
unnecessary procedures that are costing so much money today.
There was a bipartisan commission evenly divided between
Republicans and Democrats who looked at our plan and the
Bush-Quayle proposal. They said ours will save tens of
billions of dollars and cover every American. The Bush
proposal, by contrast, will cost us tens of billions and
still leave Americans uninsured.
But what I want to know is, why has George Bush waited
for 3 and a half years during this health insurance crisis
before finally coming out with a proposal, just before the
election, and he still hasn't introduced it in Congress. Why
the long wait, Dan?
BRUNO: Mr Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Hal, President Bush has had his
health care reform agenda on Capitol Hill for 8 months. He's
had parts of it up there for years. You talk about
increasing costs that the president has had on Capitol Hill-
- medical malpractice reform legislation--for several years.
Defensive medicine and health care today cost $20.7
billion. Defense medicine defined as testing and treatment
that is only necessary in case of a law suit. Wouldn't that
be nice to take $20.7 billion that we're putting into our
legal system and put it to preventive health care or women's
health care or something else besides trial lawyers?
But no--you don't want to reform the health care system
to drive down costs through medical malpractice. What you're
doing--you are talking about a government program. Your
program is to ration health care. You said in your statement
to see a doctor when you want to see a doctor. When you
start rationing health care there's going to be a waiting
line to see a doctor unless it's an emergency.
Remember when we rationed energy in this country? Waiting
lines at the gasoline stations. The same thing would happen
when you ration health care. The president's proposal deals
with tax credits, deductions and purchasing health care in
the private sector and making health care affordable and
available to every single American.
BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale, would you like to start the
discussion period?
STOCKDALE: Well, I'm out of ammunition on this--
SENATOR GORE: Well, let me talk then because I've got a
couple of things that I want to say.
BRUNO: Go ahead, Senator.
SENATOR GORE: We still didn't get an answer to the
question of why George Bush waited for 3 and a half years--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: He didn't wait 3 and a half years.
SENATOR GORE: --during the national--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I did answer the question.
SENATOR GORE: --health insurance crisis before he even
made a proposal. And it still hasn't been submitted to
Congress in the form of legislation. I also want to respond
to the question about malpractice. Do you know which state
has the lowest malpractice premiums in the entire country?
Bill Clinton's Arkansas does--partly because he has passed
reform measures limiting the time during which malpractice
suits can be filed. In fact, tort claims generally have
fallen 10 % under Bill Clinton there.
But you know, that's not the reason for this health
insurance crisis. The reason is, we've had absolutely no
leadership. Let me tell you about a friend of mine named
Mitch Philpot from Marietta, Georgia--not far from here--who
Tipper and I met with his family in Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Their son, Brett, was in the bed next to our son and they
couldn't pay their medical bills. They used to live in
Atlanta, but they lost their house. And while they were
there, both Mitch and his wife lost their jobs because they
could not get unpaid leave.
We pass legislation to give family leave under
circumstances like that, exempting small business. How can
you talk about family values, Dan, and twice veto the Family
Medical Leave Act?
(Applause)
BRUNO: Mr Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Pass our Family Leave Act, because
it goes to small businesses where the major problem is. Your
proposal excluded small business. That's the problem.
Now, let me talk about health care and--
SENATOR GORE: Did you require it? Did you require it?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: My turn--
SENATOR GORE: Did you require (inaudible)--
(Simultaneous conversation)
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: My turn.
SENATOR GORE: It's a free discussion.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Take a breath, Al. Inhale.
SENATOR GORE: It's a free discussion.
(Applause)
Did you require family leave in that legislation? Yes or
no?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: We offered incentives to small
businesses. Yes or no--
SENATOR GORE: That's a no, isn't it?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Was small business exempted under
your proposal?
SENATOR GORE: Yes.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Yes. And that's where the biggest
problem is--
SENATOR GORE: Did you require it of anyone?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I'm going to get back to the topic
again--
SENATOR GORE: Did you require it of anyone?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: --because he obviously doesn't
want to talk about health insurance or health care, which
you address. I was absolutely--I shouldn't say that--another
Clinton. You pulled another Clinton on me because here you
go again. Medical malpractice legislation has been before
the Congress of the US and you tried to convince the
American people is for tort reform? The biggest campaign
contributors to your campaign are the trial lawyers of
America.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE (continuing): We have a letter--and
we're going to release it again to the media, if the media
is interested--where the head of the trial lawyers of
Arkansas said that Bill Clinton was basically in their back
pocket, that Bill Clinton has always opposed tort reform of
any kind. It's in the letter, we have it, we'll make it
available-- because Bill Clinton is not for tort reform.
I'd like to know where Bill Clinton stands on health
insurance. When he was campaigning in New Hampshire, he said
I am for the pay-or-play health insurance. Pay or play,
that's a 7 to 9 % payroll tax on every worker in America
that participates in this program.
SENATOR GORE: Can I respond?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: And then, all of a sudden, this
summer he says, oh, I'm not for a pay or play. Here we go
again. Bill Clinton, one day he's for pay or play, the next
day he's against pay or play. He does it in education. He
writes Polly Williams, a Democrat state legislator in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, saying I'm for choice in education;
then he goes to the NEA teachers union and says, sorry, I'm
not for choice in education because you won't let me be for
choice in education.
One time Bill Clinton says term limits--we ought to limit
terms, it's ridiculous that a member of Congress can serve
for 30, 40, 50 years, and you limit the terms of the
president-- but that's another subject.
SENATOR GORE: We're fixing to limit one.
(Laughter)
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: It's not going to be mine; it's
going to be people like you and Kennedy and Metzenbaum and
George Mitchell and the rest of that Democratic Congress on
Capitol Hill--that's who we're talking about.
(Applause)
And that's who the American people--as you well know,
you've got term limits for a president, you don't have term
limits for Congress, and I think it's absolutely ridiculous
that we don't.
SENATOR GORE: I want to respond to some of this.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Here goes Bill Clinton again: he
says, well, term limits, that's an interesting idea, I think
I might be in favor of that. Then his Democratic friends in
Congress say, no, Bill, you can't be for that.
Bill Clinton has trouble telling the truth.
SENATOR GORE: I want to respond, if I might.
BRUNO: Go ahead, Senator, quickly.
SENATOR GORE: You know, in response to my question before
that long laundry list, he said that they had their own
family leave proposal. It was just like the proposal of your
party back when Social Security was first proposed. You
said: we're for it as long as it's voluntary. Same with
Medicare. You said: we're for it so long as it's voluntary.
Civil rights--we're for it so long as it's voluntary.
BRUNO: Senator, I'm going to have to ask you to wrap this
one up.
SENATOR GORE: Family leave is important enough to be
required.
(Applause)
BRUNO: Okay, thanks. Coming out of health care, again
trying to avoid controversy, let's talk about the abortion
debate.
(Laughter)
Abortion rights has been a bitter controversy in this
country for almost 20 years. It's been heightened by the
recent Supreme Court decisions. So I'll make it very simple
in this question: Where do each of you stand on the issue?
What actions will your president's administration take on
the abortion question? Will it be a factor in the
appointment of federal judges, especially to the Supreme
Court? And I believe that Senator Gore goes first.
SENATOR GORE: Bill Clinton and I support the right of a
woman to choose.
(Applause)
That doesn't mean we're pro-abortion; in fact, we believe
there are way too many abortions in this country. And the
way to reduce them is by reducing the number of unwanted
pregnancies, not vetoing family planning legislation the way
George Bush has consistently done.
The reason we are pro-choice and in favor of a woman's
right to privacy is because we believe that during the early
stages of a pregnancy the government has no business coming
in and ordering a woman to do what the government thinks is
best. What Dan Quayle and George Bush and Jerry Falwell and
Pat Robertson think is the right decision in a given set of
circumstances is their privilege--but don't have the
government order a woman to do what they think is the right
thing to do.
We ought to be able to build more common ground among
those who describe themselves as pro-choice and pro-life in
efforts to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.
But, Dan, you can clear this up very simply by repeating
after me: I support the right of a woman to choose. Can you
say that?
BRUNO: Vice President Quayle, your turn.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: This issue is an issue that
divides Americans deeply. I happen to be pro-life. I have
been pro-life for my 16 years--
(Applause.)
--in public life. My objective and the president's
objective is to try to reduce abortions in this country. We
have 1.6 million abortions. We have more abortions in
Washington, DC, than we do live births. Why shouldn't we
have more reflection upon the issue before abor--the
decision of abortion is made. I would hope that we would
agree upon that. Something like a 24-hour waiting period,
parental notification.
I was in Los Angeles recently and I talked to a woman who
told me that she had an abortion when she was 17 years of
age. And looking back on that she said it was a mistake. She
said--she said I wished at that time, that I was going
through this difficult time, that I had counseling to talk
about the post-abortion trauma, and talk about adoption
rather than abortion. Because if I had had that discussion,
I would have had the child. Let's not forget that every
abortion stops a beating heart. I think we have far too many
abortions in this country, in this country of ours.
BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale.
STOCKDALE: I believe that a woman owns her body and what
she does with it is her own business, period.
(Applause.)
Period.
BRUNO: That's it?
(Applause.)
STOCKDALE: I don't--I, too, abhor abortions, but I don't
think they should be made illegal, and I don't--and I don't
think it's a political issue. I think it's a privacy issue.
(Applause.)
BRUNO: You caught me by surprise. Let's go ahead with the
discussion of this issue. Senator Gore.
SENATOR GORE: Well, you notice in his response, that Dan
did not say I support the right of a woman to choose. That
is because he and George Bush have turned over their party
to Pat Buchanan and Phyllis Schlafly, who have ordered them
to endorse a platform which makes all abortions illegal
under any circumstances, regardless of what has led to that
decision by a woman.
Even in cases of rape and incest, their platform requires
that a woman be penalized, that she not be allowed to make a
choice, if she believes, in consultation with her family,
her doctor, and others, whoever she chooses, that she wants
to have an abortion after rape, or incest. They make it
completely--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Senator, do you support a 24-hour
waiting period?
SENATOR GORE: --illegal under any of those circumstances.
Now they want to waffle around--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Do you support a 24-hour waiting
period?
SENATOR GORE: Let me finish this, briefly. Now--now you
want to waffle around on it and give the impression that
maybe you don't really mean what you say. But again, you can
clear it up by simply repeating I support the right of a
woman to choose. Say it.
BRUNO: Let him say it himself. Let him say his own words.
Go ahead, Mr Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Thank you. Talk about waffling
around. This issue is a very important issue. It has been
debated throughout your public life and throughout my public
life, and one thing that I don't think that it is wise to
do, and that is to change your position.
At one time, and most of the time in the House of
Representatives, you had a pro-life position.
SENATOR GORE: That's simply not true.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: In 1987, you wrote a letter, and
we'll pass this out to the media--
SENATOR GORE: That is simply not true.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: You wrote a letter saying that you
oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. Bill Clinton has the
same type of a record.
SENATOR GORE: In some circumstances.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: You're going to qualify it now.
SENATOR GORE: And I still do.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: And Bill Clinton, when he was
governor of Arkansas, also worked with the Right to Life
people and supported Right to Life positions and now he has
changed. Talk about waffling around. This is the typical
type of Clinton response. Even on the issue like abortion.
He's on both sides of the issue.
Take the NAFTA agreement--
SENATOR GORE: Well, wait--
BRUNO: Let's stick with the question, Mr Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: How long did he have--
SENATOR GORE: I know you want to change the subject, Dan,
but let's stay on this one for a while.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: How long did he have to wait-- or
how quickly did he change his position on education? He
changes his position all the time.
SENATOR GORE: Let's stay with this issue for a while.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Bill Clinton--Bill Clinton has
trouble telling the truth. 3 words he fears most in the
English language.
BRUNO: Does anybody have any view about the appointment
of judges on this?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Tell the truth.
SENATOR GORE: Yeah, I want to talk about this, because
the question was not about free trade or education. The
question--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Talk about waffling. You're the
one who brought up the--
SENATOR GORE: Now, I let you talk.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: --issue of waffling. He's waffled
on the abortion issue.
SENATOR GORE: I let you talk. Let me talk now. It's going
to be a long evening if you're like this, now.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Oh, no, it's not--
SENATOR GORE: Don't change the subject--
BRUNO: Let's get on with it. Gentlemen, let's get on with
it.
SENATOR GORE: Don't change the subject--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Well, answer my questions, then.
SENATOR GORE: What you have done--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Answer my questions. On the 24
hour waiting period--do you support that?
SENATOR GORE: I have had the same position--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Do you support that?
SENATOR GORE: I have had the same position on abortion in
favor of a woman's right to choose. Do you support a woman's
right to choose--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Do you support a 24 hour waiting
period to have--
SENATOR GORE: You're still avoiding--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: How about avoiding the question?
SENATOR GORE: --the question. Now, wait a minute. Let me
tell you why this is so important. There are millions of
women in this country who passionately believe in the right
of a woman to privacy. And they want to stack the Supreme
Court with justices who will take away the right to privacy.
Make no mistake about it. That is their agenda--
(Applause)
And if you support them, don't be surprised if that is
exactly what they want to do and that is why Dan Quayle
refuses to say this evening that he supports the right of a
woman to choose.
I agree with Admiral Stockdale and the vast majority of
Democrats and Republicans in this country. You know, one of
the reasons so many Republicans are supporting the Clinton-
Gore ticket is because they've turned over the party to this
right wing extremist group which takes positions on issues
like abortion that don't even allow exceptions for rape and
incest.
BRUNO: Senator--
SENATOR GORE: Again, can't you just say you support the
right of a woman to choose?
BRUNO: Could we give Admiral Stockdale a chance to jump
in here if he wants to, if he dares to.
STOCKDALE: I would like to get in--I feel like I'm an
observer at a pingpong game, where they're talking about
well, you know, they're expert professional politicians that
massage these intricate plots and know every nuance to 'em.
And meantime, we're facing a desperate situation in our
economy. I've seen the cost of living double in my lifetime.
A new granddaughter was born in my family--my granddaughter-
-3 weeks ago. And according to the statistics that we have--
that is, the Perot group--the chances of her seeing a
doubling of the standard of living are nil. In fact, her
children will be dead before another--this standard of
living is doubled. So what the heck! Let's get on with
talking about something substantive.
(Applause)
BRUNO: All right. Mr Vice President, you'll have a chance
to--
(Applause)
You'll have a chance in the closing statements.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: We need to get on--
BRUNO: No, let's move on to another topic.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Just 15 seconds to respond.
SENATOR GORE: Well, can I have 15 seconds also?
BRUNO: No, let's move on, gentlemen.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I'll tell you what. If--
BRUNO: Let's not--we're not horse trading. We're having a
debate. Let's go on. Let's talk about the cities. Because
that's where a majority of Americans live, in urban areas,
and they're facing a financial and social crisis. They've
lost sources of tax revenue. The aid that once came from the
federal and state governments has been drastically cut.
There's an epidemic of drugs, crime and violence. Their
streets, the schools are like war zones. It's becoming
increasingly difficult to pay for public education, for
transportation, for police and fire protection, the basic
services that local government must provide.
Now, everybody says, talks about enterprise zones, that
may be part of the solution, but what else are your
administrations really going to be willing to do to help the
cities?
Vice President Quayle, it's your turn to go first.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Well, Hal, enterprise zones are
important and it's an idea that the president has been
pushing, and there's been very strong reluctance on, with
the Democratic Congress. We'll continue to push it.
We also want, Hal, to have home ownership. I was at a
housing sub--a housing project in San Francisco several
months ago and met with people that were trying to reclaim
their neighborhood.
They wanted home ownership. They didn't want handouts.
And I was with the Democrat mayor of San Francisco who was
there supporting our idea. But when you look at the cities
and you see the problems we have with crime, drugs, lack of
jobs, I also want to point out one of the fundamental
problems that we have in American cities and throughout
America today, and that is the breakdown of the American
family.
I know some people laugh about it when I talk about the
breakdown of the family, but it's true. 6ty % of the kids
that are born in our major cities today are born out of
wedlock. We have too many divorces. We have too many fathers
that aren't assuming their responsibility. The breakdown of
the family is a contributing factor to the problems that we
have in urban America.
BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale.
STOCKDALE: I think enterprise zones are good, but I think
the problem is deeper than that. I think we are--you know,
when I was--I ran a civilization for several years, a
civilization of 3 to 4 hundred wonderful men. We had our own
laws. We had our own, practically our own constitution. And
I put up--I was the--I was the sovereign for a good bit of
that. And I tried to analyze human predicaments in that
microcosm of life in the--in the world. And I found out that
when I really got down to putting out do's and don'ts, and
lots of these included take torture for this and that, and
this and that, and never take any amnesty, for reasons they
all understood and went along with. But one of the--we had
an acronym, BACKUS, and each one of those B-a-c-k was
something for which you--you had to make them hurt you
before you did it. Bowing in public, making, making--getting
on the radio and so forth. But at the end it was US, BACKUS.
You got the double meaning there.
But the US could be called the US, but it was Unity Over
Self, Loners Make Out. Somehow we're going to have to get
some love in this country between races, and between rich
and poor. You have got to have leaders--and they're out
there--who can do this with their bare hands, with--working
with, with people on the scene.
BRUNO: Senator Gore, please.
SENATOR GORE: George Bush's urban policy has been a tale
of 2 cities: the best of times for the very wealthy; the
worst of times for everyone else. We have seen a decline in
urban America under the Bush-Quayle administration. Bill
Clinton and I want to change that, by creating good jobs,
investing in infrastructure, new programs in job training
and apprenticeship, welfare reform--to say to a mother with
young children that if she gets a good job, her children are
not going to lose their Medicaid benefits; incentives for
investment in the inner city area, and, yes, enterprise
zones. Vice President Quayle said they're important, but
George Bush eliminated them from his urban plan, and then--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Well, that's not true.
SENATOR GORE: And then, when they were included in a plan
that the Congress passed,--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: We have been for enterprise zones-
SENATOR GORE: --George Bush vetoed the enterprise zone
law, the law that included them, for one reason: because
that same bill raised taxes on those making more than
$200,000 a year.
Let's face up to it, Dan: your top priority really, isn't
it, to make sure that the very wealthy don't have to pay any
more taxes. We want to cut taxes on middle-income families
and raise them on those making more than $200,000 a year.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: What plan is that?
SENATOR GORE: And if we can take our approach, the cities
will be much better off.
BRUNO: Let's start the discussion period right here. Go
ahead.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: What plan is that that's just
going to raise taxes on those making over $200,000 a year?
You may call that your plan, but everyone knows that you
simply can't get $150 billion in new taxes by raising the
marginal tax rate to a top rate of 36 % and only tax those
making $200,000 a year. It's absolutely ridiculous. The top
2 % which you refer to, that gets you down to $64,000; then
you have about a $40-billion shortfall--that gets you down
to $36,000 a year. Everybody making more than $36,000 a year
will have their taxes increased if Bill Clinton is president
of the US.
And I don't know how you're going to go to urban America
and say that raising taxes is good for you. I don't know how
you're going to go to urban America and say, well, the best
thing that we can offer is simply to raise taxes again. This
is nothing more than a tax-and-spend platform. We've seen it
before. It doesn't work.
Let me tell you about a story.
SENATOR GORE: Can I respond to some of that?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: I've got a very good example--
SENATOR GORE: Can I respond to some of that?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: --when we talk about families
here, because I was meeting with some former gang members in
Phoenix and Los Angeles and Albuquerque, New Mexico. And
when I talked to those former gang members, here's what they
told why they joined the gang. They said, well, joining a
gang is like joining a family. I said, joining a family?
Yes, because the gang offered support, it offered
leadership, it offered comfort, it was a way to get ahead.
Where have we come if joining a gang is like being a
member of the family?
BRUNO: Senator Gore, you wanted to respond?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: And that's why I think that
families have to be strengthened, and you don't strengthen
the American family by raising taxes.
SENATOR GORE: I do want to respond to that.
BRUNO: Go ahead, Senator, Admiral.
SENATOR GORE: George Bush and Dan Quayle want to protect
the very wealthy. That is the group that has gotten all of
the tax cuts under the Bush-Quayle administration. Nobody
here who is middle income has gotten a tax cut because
middle-income families have had tax increases under Bush and
Quayle in order to finance the cuts for the very wealthy.
That's what trickle-down economics is all about. And they
want to continue it.
We're proposing to also require foreign corporations to
pay the same taxes that American corporations do when they
do business here in the US of America. George Bush has not
been willing to enforce the laws and collect those taxes. We
want to close that loophole and raise more money in that
way.
BRUNO: Senator, can we stick to the cities, sir?
SENATOR GORE: Excuse me?
BRUNO: Stick to the cities.
SENATOR GORE: All right. Well, he, he talked about ways
to raise money to help the cities. What we're proposing is
to invest in the infrastructure in cities and have targeted
tax incentives for investment right in inner city areas. The
enterprise zones represent a part of our proposal also, and
strengthening the family through welfare reform. And you
know the Bush administration has cut out--has vetoed family
leave, they have cut childhood immunization and college aid.
If you don't support parents and you don't support
children, how--how can you say you support families?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: How about supporting parents and
the right to choose where their kids go to school, Al?
(Applause.)
Do you support that?
SENATOR GORE: We--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Let the parents--let the parents--
SENATOR GORE: Do you want me to answer?
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: --public or private schools?
SENATOR GORE: Want me to answer?
BRUNO: Go ahead.
SENATOR GORE: We support the public school choice to go
to any public school of your choice. What we don't support--
and listen to what they're proposing--to take US taxpayer
dollars and subsidize private schools. Now I'm all for
private schools, but to use taxpayer dollars, when the
people who get these little vouchers often won't be able to
afford the private school anyway, and the private school is
not--
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Al, I think, I think it's
important--
SENATOR GORE: --under any obligation to admit them, that
is a ripoff of the US taxpayer.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: That's important. This is a very-
-this is a very important issue. Choice in education is a
very important issue.
BRUNO: Let him respond.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: And he said that he was not for
choosing--giving the parents the right to choose to send
their children to public schools. But it's okay for the
wealthy to choose to send their kids to private schools, but
it's not okay for the middle class and the working poor to
choose where they want to send their kids to school.
I think that it's time that all parents in America have a
right to choose where they send their kids to school to get
an education.
(Applause.)
BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale, would you like to have the last
word in this period?
STOCKDALE: I--I come down on the side of freedom of
school choice. The--and there's a lot of misunderstandings
that I've heard here tonight, that I may have the answer to.
The-- starting at, you know, for the last, almost a decade,
we've worried about our schools officially through
Washington, and the president had a meeting of all the
governors, and then they tried the conventional fixes for
schools, that is, to increase the certification of--
requirements for the teachers, to lengthen the school day,
to lengthen the school year and nothing--this is a very
brief overview of the thing--but nothing happened. And it's
time to change the school's structure. In schools,
bureaucracy is bad and autonomy is good. The only good
schools--
(Applause.)
--we have are those run by talented principals and
devoted teachers, and they're running their own show. How
many times have I thrived? You know, the best thing I had
when I ran that civilization, it succeeded, and it's a
landmark. The best thing I had going for me was I had no
contact with Washington for all those years.
(Applause.)
SENATOR GORE: Could I respond?
BRUNO: We have to go on. What I'm about to say doesn't
apply to the debate tonight; it applies to the campaign
that's been going on outside this auditorium. With 3 weeks
to go, this campaign has at times been very ugly, with the
tone being set by personal negative attacks.
As candidates, how does it look from your viewpoint? And
are these tactics really necessary? Admiral Stockdale--it's
your turn to go first.
STOCKDALE: You know, I didn't have my hearing aid turned
on. Tell me again.
(Laughter)
BRUNO: I'm sorry, sir. I was saying that at times this
campaign has been very ugly with personal negative attacks.
As a candidate, how does it look from where you are and are
these tactics really necessary?
STOCKDALE: Nasty attacks--well, I think there is a case
to be made for putting emphasis on character over these
issues that we've been batting back and forth and have a
life of their own. Sure, you have to know where you're going
with your government, but character is the big variable in
the success. Character of the leads is the big variable in
the success--long term success--of an administration.
I went to a friend of mine in New York some years ago and
he was a president of a major TV network and he said, you
know, I think we have messed up this whole--this election
process--it was an election year--by stressing that--putting
out the dogma that issues are the thing to talk about, not
character.
He said, I felt so strongly about this, I went back and
read the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Read those debates. How do
they come down? Douglas is all character. He knows all of
the little stinky numbers these guys do. Abraham Lincoln had
character. Thank God we got the right president in the Civil
War.
But that is a question that is a valid one, and you know,
I would like to brag about the character of my boss.
BRUNO: Okay, Senator Gore.
SENATOR GORE: This election is about the future of our
country, not about personal attacks against one candidate or
another. Our nation is in trouble and it is appalling to me
that with 10 million Americans out work, with the rest
working harder for less money than they did 4 years ago,
with the loss of 1.4 million manufacturing jobs in our
nation, with the health care crisis, a crisis of crime and
drugs and AIDS, substandard education, that George Bush
would constantly try to level personal attacks at his
opponent.
Now, this, of course, just reached a new low last week
when he resorted to a classic McCarthyite technique of
trying to smear Bill Clinton over a trip that he took as a
student along with lots of other Rhodes Scholars who were
invited to go to Russia. It's a classic McCarthyite smear
technique. I think the president of the US ought to
apologize. I think that he insulted the intelligence of the
American people and I'm awful proud that the American people
rejected that tactic so overwhelmingly that he decided he
had made a mistake. Do you think it was a mistake, too, Dan?
BRUNO: Okay. Vice President Quayle.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Let me answer the question.
BRUNO: Go ahead.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Hal, you said--and I wrote it down
here--"personal negative attacks." (Laughs) Has anyone been
reading my press clippings for the last 4 years?
(Applause)
But I happen to--I agree with one thing on--with Senator
Gore, and that is that we ought to look to the future, and
the future is, who's going to be the next president of the
US. And is it a negative attack and a personal attack to
point out that Bill Clinton has trouble telling the truth?
He said that he didn't even demonstrate--he told the people
in Arkansas in 1978. Then we find out he organized
demonstrations. You know, I don't care whether he
demonstrated or didn't demonstrate. The fact--the question
is, tell the truth. Just tell us the truth.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE (continuing): Today, Bill Clinton--
excuse me--yesterday in Philadelphia on a radio show,
yesterday on a radio show, he attacked--Admiral, he attacks
Ross Perot saying the media is giving Ross Perot a free
ride. The press asked him when the klieg lights are on, said
what do you mean by Ross Perot getting a free ride? He says
I didn't say that at all.
I mean, you can't have it both ways. No, I don't think
that is a personal attack. What I find troubling with Bill
Clinton is he can't tell the truth. You cannot lead this
great country of ours by misleading the people.
(Applause)
BRUNO: All right, gentlemen, the control room advises me
that in order to have time for your closing statements,
which we certainly want, there simply is not going to be
time for a discussion period on this particular topic.
So let's go to the closing statements. You have 2 minutes
each. And we'll start with Admiral Stockdale.
STOCKDALE: I think the best justification for getting
Ross Perot in the race again to say is that we're seeing
this kind of chit-chat back and forth about issues that
don't concentrate on where our grandchildren--the living
standards of our children and grandchildren. He is, as I
have read in more than one article, a revolutionary; he's
got plans out there that are going to double the speed at
which this budget problem is being cared for. It was asked
how, if we would squeeze down so fast that we would strangle
the economy in the process. That is an art, to follow all
those variables and know when to let up and to nurse this
economy back together with pulls and pushes.
And there's no better man in the world to do that than
that old artist, Ross Perot. And so I think that my closing
statement is that I think I'm in a room with people that
aren't the life of reality. The US is in deep trouble. We've
got to have somebody that can get up there and bring out the
firehoses and get it stopped, and that's what we're about in
the Perot campaign.
BRUNO: Thank you.
(Applause.)
Senator Gore, your closing statement, sir.
SENATOR GORE: Three weeks from today, our nation will
make a fateful decision. We can continue traveling the road
we have been on, which has led to higher unemployment and
worse economic times, or we can reach out for change. If we
choose change, it will require us to reach down inside
ourselves to find the courage to take a new direction.
Sometimes it seems deceptively easy to continue with old
habits even when they're no longer good for us. Trickle-down
economics simply does not work. We have had an increase in
all of the things that should be decreasing. Everything that
should have been increasing has been going down. We have got
to change direction.
Bill Clinton offers a new approach. He has been named by
the other 49 governors, Republicans and Democrats alike, as
the best and most effective governor in the entire US of
America.
He's moved 17,000 people off the welfare rolls and on to
payrolls. He has introduced innovations in health care and
education, and again, he has led the nation for the last
2 years in a row in the creation of jobs in the private
sector.
Isn't it time for a new approach, a new generation of
ideas and leadership, to put our nation's people first and
to get our economy moving again?
We simply cannot stand to continue with this failed
approach that is no good for us. Ultimately, it is a choice
between hope and fear, a choice between the future and the
past. It is time to reach out for a better nation. We are
bigger than George Bush has told us we are, as a nation, and
we have a much brighter future.
Give us a chance. With your help, we'll change this
country and we can't wait to get started.
(Applause.)
BRUNO: Vice President Quayle.
VICE PRESIDENT QUAYLE: Thank you, Hal. I'd like to use
this closing statement to talk to you about a few people
that I have met in these last 4 years. I think of a woman in
Chicago when I was talking to parents about education where
she stood up and said I'm sick and tired of these schools in
this city being nothing but a factory for failure. And
that's why we support choice in education.
I was in Beaumont, Texas, and met with small business
people, and they wanted to reform the civil justice system
because they think our legal system costs too much and
there's too much of a delay in getting an answer.
I was in Middletown, Ohio, talking to a welfare woman,
where she said I want to go back to work and I had a job
offered to me but I'm not going to take it because I have
2 children at home and the job that is offered to me doesn't
have health insurance. Under President Bush's health care
reform package that woman won't have to make a choice about
going back to work or health care for her children, because
she'll have both.
I was in Vilnius, Lithuania, Independence Square,
speaking to 10,000 people in the middle of winter. Hundreds
of people came up to me and said: God bless America.
Yes, in the next 4 years, as I said, somewhere, some
time, there's going to be a crisis, and you need to have a
president that is qualified, has the experience, and has
been tested. Not one time during this evening, during 90
minutes, did Al Gore tell us why Bill Clinton is qualified
to be president. He never answered my charges that Bill
Clinton has trouble telling the truth.
The choice is yours. The American people should demand
that their president tell the truth. Do you really believe--
do you really believe Bill Clinton will tell the truth? And
do you, do you trust Bill Clinton to be your president?
(Applause)
BRUNO: That concludes this vice presidential debate. I'd
like to thank Vice President Quayle, Senator Gore, Admiral
Stockdale for being participants.
The next presidential debate is scheduled for this
Thursday at 9:00 PM Eastern Time at the University of
Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. To all of our viewers and
listeners, thank you and good night.
(Applause)
END OF DEBATE