The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-387-Vol-3of3.iso/c/clinspch.zip/CLINFLYN.TXT

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Article 4766 of alt.politics.clinton:
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Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Wednesday, 19 Aug 1992 05:52:56 CDT
From: Mary Jacobs <[e-mail]>
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Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: CLINTON ENDORSEMENT: BOSTON MAYOR RAY FLYNN
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              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.