Article 4766 of alt.politics.clinton: Path: bilver!tous!peora!masscomp!usenet.coe.montana.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!news.acns.nwu.edu!uicvm.uic.edu!u45301 Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago Date: Wednesday, 19 Aug 1992 05:52:56 CDT From: Mary Jacobs Message-ID: <92232.055256U45301@uicvm.uic.edu> Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton Subject: CLINTON ENDORSEMENT: BOSTON MAYOR RAY FLYNN Lines: 266 SEND COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS INFORMATION TO THE CLINTON/GORE CAMPAIGN AT 75300.3115@COMPUSERVE.COM (This information is posted for public education purposes. It does not necessarily represent the views of The University.) ======================================================================== ENDORSEMENT BY BOSTON MAYOR RAY FLYNN REMARKS BY GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS JUNE 25, 1992 Mayor Flynn: Thank you Louie. Thank you so very, very much Louie, not only to you, but to all the folks from organized labor who have worked so hard to improve the working conditions and the conditions of families in our neighborhoods, because that's what it's all about. Its about people in government serving your interest, making sure that you have a job, you have economic opportunity, you bring that paycheck home to your family each and every week so you can put bread and butter on the table, and that is what this is all about, and that is why we are here today. I asked Governor Clinton to come here, to Boston's historic North End. One of America's most diverse ethnic communities, where, in this community, you'll see more hardworking, decent people, and people who are committed to families, and committed to values, than any of that rhetoric that you hear coming out of Washington, D.C. You have people that are living with it. And you heard Louie Mandarini, and you know these other fellows and ladies that are out there fighting for economic justice and jobs. And that's what this campaign for President of the United States is all about. It's about jobs. It's about hope and opportunity. And it's about raising families with dignity and respect. Today, we are here to say very, very clearly, that there is one person. There is one person, of the candidates for President of the United States, that has a substantive proposal that will put people back to work, that will bring hope and opportunity back to families here in the North End. And South Boston, and Roksbrie, and Dorchester, and all across the cities of America. Because that's what this is all about. I want to let you know something. When I became, when I was given the privilege and the honor of being President of the Mayors across this country, and I want to say this in front of Governor Clinton, because he's not heard me say this before, I made a commitment to my colleagues, to the mayors, that I would not endorse a candidate for President of the United States until that person dealt with the issues of substance for the people that I represent, and the people that mayors represent all across this country. Now some people got a little annoyed with that. They thought that I should have been out front a little bit earlier. And some of the mayors should have been more positive about supporting this one, and that one, and the other thing. Well, it's really interesting. Because now, I can stand here in front of you, the people that pay my salary, the people that elected me, the mayors that I served all across this country, and tell you honestly that the basis of my support and my endorsement for this person for President of the Unites States is not based on some blind political loyalty. It's based on the fact that this person, Bill Clinton, is committed to improving the quality of life for people in this neighborhood, neighborhoods across this city, neighborhoods across this country. That's what this is all about. We have an administration in Washington that is completely out of touch with you, completely out of touch. As a matter of fact, the President of the United States wouldn't even speak with me, as President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Now that's not an insult to me. He could easily say, "He's a Democrat and I don't have to pay any attention to him." But, I didn't interpret it that way I interpret it as an insult to the people of this country, people of these cities, cities of America. So my friends, this message is going out to you, going out to the people of Boston, people across this country, who are concerned about the issues that Louie Mandarini talked about. Louie is sitting on some of the finest people, he's working with some of the finest people that you'd ever want to know. But yet, every time they come down that hiring hole, there's no work there. Do you understand what that means? Yes you do. I understood it. My father was a longshoreman, about three hundred yards from here. We knew the pain and the anguish that would happen when he would come home with no job, no paycheck to put on the table. That's what Louie is talking about. That's what Jimmy Farmer is talking about. And that's what Clinton is talking about. This election is about you. This election is about your family. This is an election about jobs, and hope, and opportunity. We have proven in Boston that when we work together, we work best. We need somebody in the White House who is going to respect you, and the dignity that only comes with a job. The best social program in America today is a job. We don't need welfare, we need work. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, Governor Clinton is going to tour throughout the United States between now and November. We want to look him in the eye here today, and talk as directly as we talk, and say to him that we are going to do everything in our power, everything in our power, to see that we get somebody in the White House who respects us, who respects America's cities, who respects the American workers, who respects poor and needy people. I firmly believe we have that person, and the next President of the United States, Governor Bill Clinton. Lets here it for him. Governor Clinton: Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank all of you for coming here today, and I want to thank the people who are up here on the platform with me, in the shadow of Paul Revere and the Old North Church, to give an alarm call to America. I want to thank your mayor, who has done a magnificent job, not only as mayor of this city, but as leader of the American mayors. A group of people who represent not just big cities but also suburbs and small towns, representing over eighty percent of the American people who live and work in this country, who are worried about their future. I also want to say a special word of thanks, as an old musician, to the band. I thought they were great. Let's give them a hand. The Roma band. Good thing they didn't have a saxophone, I'd still be over there instead of up here. You know, this is an amazing election year. I think everybody who has thought about it or who has felt the pain of the families of America knows that this great nation of ours, still the greatest country in the world, is in trouble. Most people are working harder for less money. Most people are worried about not having any health care or losing what they've got because they can't pay for it. Or if they change jobs they'll lose their health care. Most people are worried about not being able to educate their children, and a lot of people are worried about not even living on safe streets. And yet we are treated to a presidential election in which the other two candidates seem more interested in investigating and dumping on each other than in investigating the problems of the American people. I told someone the other day I had finally begun to work on my memoirs of this campaign, and I've had no time to write anything, but I've settled on a title. I'm going to call it, "A Billionaire, A Millionaire, and Me." I grew up in small towns compared to Boston, but in circumstances not all that different from most of you. My mother was widowed right before I was born. My grandparents helped raise me till I was four. I told somebody the other day after Dan Quayle said I was in the cultural elite, that I actually once lived in a home without indoor plumbing, which means that I'm not in the cultural elite. That disqualifies me automatically. I know what it's like for people to have to struggle and scrimp and try to save, and not be able to keep up. And I am sick and tired of having a government that doesn't work for ordinary people, but works only for special interests and the wealthiest Americans. For more than a decade now we have been living under a government that has a simple idea that's dead wrong. They told us that we should give them more inequality. Let them lower taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations, raise taxes on the middle class and increase the deficit. Get out of the way and they would invest and create jobs in our country. Well we got more inequality but we got no jobs, we got no growth, we got no health care. Our schools didn't get better and our streets didn't get safer. It was a bad deal for us. For the first time since the roaring 1920's, the top one percent of Americans control more wealth than the bottom ninety percent. That's because seventy percent of all the gains in the last decade went to the top one percent. I say it's time to put the people of America first again--better jobs, better education, better health care. Your mayor is here with me today to endorse me in front of people who mean more to him than anyone in the world. Because I have given the American people a plan that will invest in our jobs, our education, our health care, our streets. A plan that will create a million new private sector jobs by investing in transportation, in communication, in the economy of the twenty- first century, in repairing and rebuilding and building houses. In doing the kinds of things that need to be done to put America back to work. We have reduced defense spending in America, and thrown a lot of factory workers out of work. The people who have won the Cold War are being given the cold shoulder. What we ought to be doing is investing in this country again. Every dollar by which we reduce defense, I'm going to invest in putting the American people back to work. Every red cent. We live in a world in which what you earn depends on what you can learn. And yet we are the only advanced country that lets these young people graduate from high school and doesn't give them two years of further apprenticeship training. If you get me as president, every kid in this country will get two years of training after high school, to restore the dignity of blue collar work and their income. We live in a world in which a college education is worth more than ever before, but the college dropout rate is more than twice the high school dropout rate, because people can't afford to stay. If you get me as president, I'll give you the best of two great American ideas, the GI Bill after World War II, and the Peace Corps, which President Kennedy started. We will create a Peace Corps for America, by replacing the student loan program with a fund that will enable any American, any American, without regard to income, to borrow the money to go to college, and repay it either as a percentage of their own income when they go to work, or by coming home and giving two years of service to rebuild America. Pay off your college loan as a policeman, a teacher, a nurse, and a drug program, doing the problems that we need to have solved in America. This program also recognizes that we have to make our streets safer. It will create one hundred thousand new police officers for America so that more policemen can be like these, walking the same streets, knowing their neighbors, working in partnerships to keep people safe in their homes, in their parks, in their schools, and on their streets. That is what America needs, work, not welfare. The President and the Vice-President talk a lot about family values. Well if we really had family values in this country, we would value families. The truth is, most folks are working harder and spending less time with their kids for less money. That's not family values. America ought to be a place that rewards work and families. That helps working families with child care, with family leave, with pre-school opportunities, with tough child support enforcement when people don't pay it, and with moving people from welfare to work, by helping them through education and training, and support for their children. If you vote for me, you'll get real family values. We'll reward child rearing, and work. This is a great country. But the government has failed us, by not working for all the people. I want you to work with me between now and November, to give the government back to the people. To make it work again. To put the American people first again. I'm telling you there is nothing we can't do if we put our minds to it. We went through a great revolution that's commemorated here, a civil war that nearly tore us apart, a depression that put twenty five percent of out people out of work, and two great world wars. These problems are not insurmountable. What is killing America today is that too many of us are so cynical and angry and skeptical. We don't believe the future can be better than the present. And we don't believe America's one big family, a community anymore. [INAUDIBLE] ...to send a message throughout the country, that this campaign is one that will make the American people winners again. If I win, you win. Thank you very much, and God bless you all.