| They still wanted to spend a decades worth of projected surpluses on them, claiming that the money belonged to the taxpayers and we should give it back to themIt was a persuasive argument except for one thing: the surpluses were projected and the tax cuts would take effect whether the surpluses materialized or notI attempted to illustrate the point by asking people to imagine that they had gotten one of those heavily advertised letters from well-known TV personality Ed McMahon that started with, You may have already won $10 millionI said that the people who would spend $10 million upon receiving that letter should support the Republican plan; everyone else should stick with us and keep the prosperity going
August was a busy monthIt began with the nomination of George WBush and Dick Cheney in PhiladelphiaHillary and I went to Marthas Vineyard for a couple of fund-raisers for her, then I flew to Idaho to visit firefighters who were fighting a large and dangerous forest fireOn the ninth, I awarded the Medal of Freedom to fifteen Americans, including the late senator John Chafee, Senator Pat Moynihan, Childrens Defense Fund founder Marian Edelman, AIDS activist DrMathilde Krim, Jesse Jackson, civil rights lawyer Judge Cruz Reynoso, and General Wes Clark, who had ended his brilliant military career by commanding our arduous campaign against Milosevic and his ethnic prada bags handbags cleansing in Kosovo
Amid a blizzard of political events, I did one completely nonpolitical one: I went to my friend Bill Hybelss Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, near Chicago, for a conversation before several hundred people at Bills ministers leadership conferenceWe talked about when I decided to go into politics, where my family went to church and what it meant to me, why so many people still believed I had never apologized for my misconduct, how I used polls, what the most important elements of leadership were, and how I wanted to be rememberedHybels had an uncanny way of stripping things down to basics and getting me to discuss things I normally would not talk aboutI enjoyed taking a few hours away from politics and work to think about the inner life that politics often crowds out
On August 14, opening night of the Democratic convention, Hillary gave a moving expression of thanks to the Democrats for their support and a mighty declaration of what was at stake in this years elec-tionThen, after my third convention film produced by Harry and Linda Thomason, which outlined the accomplishments of our eight years, I was brought onstage to thunderous applause and inspirational musicWhen the noise died down, I said that the election was about one simple question: Are we going to keep this progress and prosperity going?
I asked the louis vuitton travel bag Democrats to make sure we applied President Rea-gans 1980 standard for whether a party should continue in office: Are we better off today than we were eight years ago? The answer proved that Harry Truman was right when he said, If you want to live like a Republican, you better vote for the DemocratsWe were better off, and not just economicallyJobs were up, but so were adoptionsThe debt was down, but so was teen pregnancyWe were becoming both more diverse and more unitedWe had built and crossed our bridge to the twenty-first century, and were not going back
I made the case for a Democratic Congress, saying that what we did with our prosperity was just as sure a test of Americas character, values, and judgment as how we had dealt with adversity in the pastIf we had a Democratic Congress, America would already have the Patients Bill of Rights, a minimum wage increase, stronger equal-pay laws for women, and middle-class tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care
I praised Hillary for thirty years of public service and especially her work in the White House for children and families, and said that just as she had always been there for our family, she would always be there for the families of New York and America
Then I argued for Al Gore, emphasizing his strong convictions, good ideas, understanding of the future, and fundamental decencyI thanked Tipper for her white chanel j12 watch replica mental-health advocacy and applauded Als selection of Joe Lieberman, and spoke of our thirty-year friendship and Joes work for civil rights in the South in the sixtiesAs the first Jewish-American ever to be on a major partys national ticket, Joe provided clear evidence of Al Gores commitment to building One America
I ended the speech with personal thanks and a personal plea:
My friends, fifty-four years ago this week I was born in a summer storm to a young widow in a small southern townAmerica gave me the chance to live my dreamsAnd I have tried as hard as I knew how to give you a better chance to live yoursNow, my hair is a little grayer, my wrinkles are a little deeper, but with the same optimism and hope I brought to the work I loved so eight years ago, I want you to know my heart is filled with gratitude
My fellow Americans, the future of our country is now in your handsYou must think hard, feel deeply, and choose wiselykeep putting people firstKeep building those bridgesAnd dont stop thinking about tomorrow
The next day Hillary, Chelsea, and I flew to Monroe, Michigan, for a passing the torch rally with Al and Tipper GoreA good crowd in a battleground state sent Al off to Los Angeles to claim the nomination and become the leader of our party, and me to the local McDonalds, a stop I hadnt made in years
The Bush-Cheney ticket had settled on a two-pronged chanel fashion campaign messageThe positive argument was compassionate conservatism, giving America the same good conditions we had provided, but with a smaller government and a bigger tax cutThe negative one was that they would elevate the moral tone and end bitter partisanship in WashingtonThat was, to say the least, disingenuousI had done everything I knew to reach out to the Republicans in Washington; they had tried to demonize me from day oneNow they were saying, Well stop misbehaving if you give us the White House back
The morality argument should have had no resonance, unless people believed Gore had done something wrong, especially with the super-straight Lieberman on the ticketI wasnt on the ballot; it was both unfair and self-defeating for voters to blame them for my personal mistakesI knew their strategy wouldnt work unless the Democrats accepted the legitimacy of the Republican argument and failed to remind voters of the impeachment fiasco and how much more damage the right wing could inflict if they controlled both the White House and the CongressAn NRA vice president had already boasted that if Bush were elected, the NRA would have an office in the White House
After our convention, the polls showed Al Gore had come from behind to hold a narrow lead, and I accompanied Hillary to the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York for a couple of days of vacation and fake gucci tote bag campaign |
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