"On to the White House" Election Night Victory Speech Governor Bill Clinton June 2, 1992 Los Angeles, California Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. On behalf of Hillary and on my own behalf, I want to begin by thanking the millions and millions of people who voted for this campaign and its promise of change all across this country. I want to thank the people who volunteered literally millions of hours of their time to make this campaign work. I want to thank the friends of my lifetime who stood by me, the people from my beloved state of Arkansas who fought across this country for me, all the people who worked on our campaign across the nation and back home. And I want to say a special word of thanks to those who worked in my administration who kept our government going and working hard and made it possible for me to make this campaign. All of you tonight, this is your victory. It is not mine, and I hope you're proud of it. When I got into this race, the President was at an historically high point in popularity and most people did not think there would be much of a race this year. But I was convinced then and I am convinced now that this country needs profound change. For too long Washington has rigged our system for the benefit of the few, the quick buck, the gimmick, and the short run. For the first time since the twenties, one percent of the American people control more wealth than the bottom ninety percent. For this we were promised jobs, but instead we got pink slips and insecurity, worries about health care and education and safe streets. We have tried it that way and now we have to change. I am tired of seeing the people who work hard and play by the rules get the shaft. And tonight, with this delegate count, we want to put the forces of the status quo and short term greed on notice: the party is over, we are in for a change, we want our country back. It's time to invest in this country again, reward those who play by the rules, punish those who don't and get on in to the future that the people in this country deserve. It is time to make sure that everybody knows, as great as I am for what has happened, that this campaign is not about delegate count, it is about making people count. Tonight, I can't help thinking back over these last several months and all of the rave Americans I have met along the way. The people with whom I started in New Hampshire, Ron Macos Jr., who couldn't get a job with health insurance because he had a two year-old child who had open heart surgery. He played by the rules and was going to be punished because he lives in the only advanced nation where the government stubbornly refuses to control health care costs and provide affordable health care to all Americans. We are going to change that. Tonight, I think of that wonderful immigrant father I met in New York, who grabbed me as I was walking toward a speech and said, "Governor, my ten year-old studies politics in school, and he said, you should be president, so I am going to vote for you," but he said, "I came here because America is the land of the free. But my boy is not free, he can't even walk to school unless I go with him. If you become President, make my boy free." I'll tell you one thing, if this government helps cities put more police on the street in community policing, provided boot camps for first-time offenders, and passed the Brady Bill, that boy would be freer -- and I intend to do that. I think about the women that I met -- the working mother in Livingston, New Jersey, in Sacramento, California, -- who worry about how they can balance the demands of motherhood and work, how they can do right by their children. Well, I'll tell you one thing, if we had a president who would sign instead of veto the Family and Medical Leave Act, they'd be better off. And I am going to give that to them. I think about that wonderful couple, Mary Annie and Edward Davis I met and broke down and cried as I hugged them, telling me that every week they were choosing between food and medicine because they live in the only advanced nation that doesn't have health care including a decent long-term health system. And I'm going to give it to them if you will help me be president of the United States of America. For twelve years, Americans have tried to do the right things and they deserve a government that will do right by them. Doing right by our people means rebuilding our economy by investing in their jobs, their education, in their health care. It means honoring work and demanding responsibility. At the end of World War II, this great nation of ours did a wonderful job of rebuilding Europe and Japan. It's time at the end of the Cold War for us to rebuild America. That's where our work is today. To do that, rebuilding America begins with a commitment to educate and train all of our people. It's the best investment we will ever make, and to do it, we need a real education president -- someone who has paid the price and done the work. I have heard all of the talk about what a wonderful program Head Start is. It's time we had a president who would fund it so the children in this country and their parents would know how wonderful it is. And there needs to be something for these young people on the other end of school too. For those who don't to go to college but don't want to be in dead-end jobs, we should join the ranks of advanced nations and provide a two-year apprenticeship program to every non-college bound student so they can get those good jobs and we can restore the dignity to blue collar work in this country. Finally, I want to make it possible for every young American and every not so young American who wants to go to college to borrow the money to do it. We must end the attempt to make it impossible for people to go to college and provide the funds necessary for any American to go. At the end of World War II, we rebuilt our country in large measure because we provided, through the GI Bill, the opportunity for any soldier who wanted to to go to college. When John Kennedy was President, we helped rebuild a lot of the rest of the world through the Peace Corp. I propose to take the best of both ideas. Let anybody borrow the money to go to college and let them pay it back by giving a couple of years of service to our nation here at home to rebuild America as teachers, or police officers, or nurses. Investing in our people means also having the courage to take on the insurance companies and the health care bureaucracies and the government and providing affordable health care to all Americans. Tonight, even as we celebrate, there are thousands of people all across American lying awake wondering whether they are going to lose their jobs or their health insurance or whether the next illness will bankrupt them. That's because we have stubbornly refused to do what the competition does. Vote for me and together we'll provide affordable health care to the people of this country. Investing in America also means creating jobs for the people who are educated and healthy to do. Every last dollar by which we reduce defense must be reinvested in America to build an economy for the 21st century -- every dollar -- for high-speed rail, for short haul aircraft, for fiber optics communication, for modern environmental systems, to clean up our water and to recycle our solid waste. We can have growth and environmental protection if, but only if, we are committed to reinvesting in this country. That's the way we are going to create jobs and we are going to do it by investing in America for a change. Finally, if we want these changes, we are going to have to insist that all of our citizens accept the challenge to do their part and to be more responsible. There are millions of good people in business in this country today making the free enterprise system go. But our tax system does not reward them. It does not reward investment in new plant and equipment. Instead, it rewards unlimited executive compensation -- even for companies that are losing money. It rewards moving plants overseas instead of moving plants here at home with new plant and investment. And I tell you, we need a new responsibility ethic in our tax system -- more incentives to invest in America, no incentives for executive compensation that is excessive or moving our plants overseas. We also need a new family policy in this country -- more incentives for child care and maternal and health care for the kids. We need family leave. But, we need the toughest possible child support enforcement. I am tired of people running off and leaving their children for the government to raise, and we can stop it. We need a new policy toward the poor. We need to lift those who work 40 hours a week and have children at home above the poverty line. We need to say to those on welfare: we are going to end this system of welfare as we know it, we will invest more in your education and training and support for your children. But then you must work. We have got to end the system as we know it. My fellow Americans, change is never easy, but I have worked hard for more than a decade to make change and I have learned a few things about it. You have to be willing to take on organized groups and fight for change even if they are against you. You have to be willing to pay the price of time and you have to know, that in the end, words have to give way to deeds. I've got one opponent who says he'll do whatever it takes to hold onto the White House, then -- wait a minute -- then there's another person running who says he'll spend whatever it takes to get the White House. Let me tell you, winning this election is not what's at stake here, winning the fight for America's future is what is at stake here. And what I came here tonight to promise you is that I will stay up late and get up early and work hard as long as it takes to turn this country around and give it back to the American people. All of you have taught me a lot I learned a lot about the American people that I didn't know but that I suspected over the last seven or eight months. I've learned that from the farms to the factories, from the suburbs to the inner cities, we are not as different as we like to think. Most people really do value work and family. Most people want to believe they are part of a bigger community. Most people know down deep inside we're all in this together and we are going up and down together, that all children can learn and that it is wrong for us to let so many of our resources, including our people be wasted as we do. Most people believe that. Most people are tolerant but not permissive. They are sick and tired of seeing this country be divided by age, by gender, by race, by ethnic group, by sexual orientation, by region, every way. We are tired of it, we want to be together again. So if you ask me, "Bill, what did you learn from this primary?" I learned this is a very great country where we desperately want to win again, where we want to be one again, and where we know what we have to do again: invest in our people, be more responsible, and come together. The election for America's future begins tomorrow. It is not about me, it is about all of you. I will fight every day in every way to make you proud, to make you believe that together we can make a difference. Remember this, my fellow Americans, what kills a country is never the obstacles people face. There are always problems. This country is being decimated today by visionless leadership, by the politics of division. I am going to give you a campaign with a vision of America that works again, that rewards work, that invests in people, that insists on responsibility, and that pulls us together as one nation under God. Bless you all. Thank you.