Provider. Vice president al gore expected his partys president ial nomination at the 2000 Democratic National convention in los angeles. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my husband, our next president of the United States, al gore. [ cheers and applause ] thaup [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I speak tonight of gratitude, achievement and high hopes for our country. Tonight, i think first of those who helped me get here, starting with the people of tennessee. And then those who braved the first snows of iowa, and new hampshire. And all of you here from all over this country. Who have come with me into the warm sunlight of this great city. While i cant thank each of you individually in words, i do so in my heart. And i know you wont mind if i single out someone who has just spoken out so eloquently, someone ive loved with my whole heart since the night of my High School Senior prom, my wife tipper. Weve been lucky enough to find each other all over again at each new stage of our lives, and we just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary. I want to acknowledge, with great pride, our four children, kristen, sarah and albert, our oldest daughter corinna and her husband drew. And the youngest member of our family, who a little over a year ago was born on the 4th of july. Our grandson wyatt. And my brotherinlaw frank hunder. I am honored tonight by the support of a leader. Of high ideals and fundamental decency, senator bill bradley. Thank you, bill. Thank you, bill, for your focus on Campaign Finance reform, and civil rights, and ending child poverty. Theres someone else who will shape that future. A leader of character and courage, a defender of the environment, and working families. The next Vice President of the United States of america, Joe Lieberman. And to their wonderful family. I picked joe for one simple reason. Hes the best person for the job. For almost eight years now ive been the partner of a leader who moved us out of the valley of recession and into the longest period of prosperity in American History. I say to you tonight millions of americans will live better lives for a long time to come because of the job thats been done by president bill clinton. Instead of of the biggest deficits in history, we now have the biggest surpluses, the highest Home Ownership ever, the lowest inflation in a generation. And instead of losing jobs, we now have 22 million good, new jobs, higher family incomes. Above all our success comes from you, the people, who have worked hard for your families. But lets not forget that a few years ago you were also working hard. But your hard work then was undone by a government that didnt work, didnt put people first, and wasnt on your side. Together, we change things to help unleash your potential and unleash innovation and investment in the private sector, the engine that drives our economic growth. And our progress on the economy is a good chapter in our history. But now we turn the page. And write a new chapter. And thats what i want to speak about tonight. This election is not an award for past performance. Im not asking you to vote for me on the basis of the economy we have. Tonight i ask for your support on the basis of the better, fairer, more prosperous america we can build together. [ cheers and applause ] together, lets make sure that our prosperity enriches not just the few, but all working families. Lets invest in health care. Education, a secure retirement, and middle class tax cuts. Im happy that the stock market has boomed and so many businesses and new enterprises have done well. This country is richer and stronger. But my focus is on working families. People trying to make house payments, and car payments. Working overtime to save for college and do right by their kids. Whether youre in a suburb or an inner city, whether you raise crops or drive hogs and cattle on a farm, drive a big rig on the interstate or drive ecommerce on the internet. Whether youre starting out to raise your own family or getting ready to retire after a lifetime of hard work, so often powerful forces and powerful interests stand in your way. And the odds seem stacked against you, even as you do whats right for you and your family. How and what we do for all of you, the people who pay the taxes, bear the burdens, and live the american dream, that is the standard by which we should be judged. And for all of our good times, i am not satisfied. To all the families in america [ cheers and applause ] to all the families in america who have to struggle to afford the right education and the skyrocketing costs of Prescription Drugs, i want you to know this. Ive taken on the powerful forces. And as president ill stand up to them, and ill stand up for you. To all the families, families. To all the families who are struggling with things that money cant measure. Like trying to find a little more time to spend with your children. Or protecting your children from entertainment that you think glorifies violence and indecency. I believe we must challenge a culture with too much meanness and not enough meaning and as president i will stand with you for a goal we all share, to give more power back to parents. To choose what your own children are exposed to. So you can pass on your familys basic lessons of responsibility and decency. The power should be in your hands, the future should belong to everyone in this land. Everyone. All families. We could squander this moment, but our country would be the poorer for it. Instead, lets lift our eyes and see how wide the american horizon has become. Were entering a new time. Were electing a new president. And i stand here tonight as my own man. And i want you to know me for who i truly am. [ cheers and applause ] [ crowd chanting we want gore ] i grew up in a wonderful family. I have a lot to be thankful for. And the greatest gift my parents gave me was love. When i was a child, it never once occurred to me that the Foundation Upon which my security depended would ever shake. And of all the lessons my parent taught me the most powerful one was unspoken. The way they loved one another. My father respected my mother as an equal if not more. She was his best friend and in many ways his conscience. I learned from them the value of a true Loving Partnership that lasts for life. They simply couldnt imagine being without each other and for 61 years they were by each others side. My parents taught me that the real values in life arent material, but spiritual. They include, faith, duty, honor and trying to make the world a better place. I finished college at a time when all that seemed to be in doubt. And our nations spirit was being depleted. We saw the assassination of our best leaders, appeals to racial backlash, and the first warning signs of watergate. I remember the conversations i had with tipper back then. And the doubts we had about the vietnam war. But i enlisted in the army because i knew if i didnt go, someone else in a small town of tennessee would have to go in my place. I was an Army Reporter in vietnam. When i was there i didnt do the most or run the greatest danger but i was proud to wear my countrys uniform. [ cheers and applause ] let me tell you, when i came home, running for office was the very last thing i ever thought i would do. I studied religion at vanderbilt and worked nights as a Police Reporter at the nashville tennesseean. I saw more of what could go wrong in america not only on the police beat but as an Investigative Reporter covering local government. I also saw so much of what could go right. Citizens lifting up local communities. Family by family, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, in churches and charities, on School Boards and City Councils and then tipper and i started our own family and when our first daughter was born i began to see the future through a fresh set of eyes. I know a lot of you have had that feeling too. I decided i couldnt turn away from service at home any more than i could have turned away the from service in vietnam. Thats when i ran for congress. In my first term a family in a county in tennessee wrote a letter and told how worried they were that toxic waste, a lot of it, had been dumped near their home. I held he some of the first hearings on the issue and ever since ive been the there in fight against the big polluters. Our children should not have to draw the breath of life in cities awash in pollution. [ cheers and applause ] when they come in from playing on a hot summer afternoon, every child in america, anywhere in america ought to be able to turn on the faucet and get a glass of safe, clean, drinking water. [ cheers and applause ] on the issue of the environment, ive never given up. I never backed down. I never will. [ cheers and applause ] and i say it again tonight, we must reverse the silent rising tide of Global Warming and we can. In senate, and as Vice President , i fought for welfare reform. Over and over again i talked to folks who told me how they were trapped in the old welfare system. I saw what it did to families. So i fought to end welfare as we then knew it to help those in trouble but to insist on work and responsibility. Others talked about welfare reform. We actually reformed welfare and set time limits. Instead of handouts we gave people training to go from welfare to work and we cut the welfare roles in half and moved millions into good jobs. [ cheers and applause ] and helped them lift up. In fighting for people, for all that time ive been listening to people, holding open meetings in places where they live and work. You know what . I learned a lot. If im your president , im going to keep on having open meetings all over this country. Im going to go out to you the people, because i want to stay in touch with your hopes, with the quiet every day heroism of working families. [ cheers and applause ] and because ive learned that the issues before us, the problems and the policies all have names. And i dont and inbig fancy names that we put on programs and legislation. Im talking about family names. Like nystol, johnson, gutierrez, malone. People and families i met in the last year all across this country and heres what they told me. I met mildred in iowa. Because of our welfare reform, she has left welfare and found a good job training electricians and shes become a proud member of the local 288. [ cheers and applause ] now she dreams of sending her daughter, irene to college. Mildred if youre with us tonight and say to her, ill fight for a targeted affordable tax cut to help working families stay and pay for college. They need help. [ cheers and applause ] and well give it to them. [ cheers and applause ] its a key to our future. [ cheers and applause ] i met Jacqueline Johnson in st. Louis, missouri. She worked for 35 years as a medical assistant caring for others. Now shes 72 years old and needs prescription medicines to care for herself. She spends over half of her Social Security check, her only source of income on her the pills. So she either skips meals or shops for bargains at a whole steal food store and buys macaroni and cheese dinners in bulk and have them every night. I invited her. Mrs. Johnson i promise you ill fight for a Prescription Drug benefit for all seniors under medicare. [ cheers and applause ] its just wrong for seniors to have to choose between food and medicine while the Big Drug Companies run up record profits. That is wrong. [ cheers and applause ] i met george and Juanita Gutierrez in san antonio, texas. Their daughter just started fourth grade at David Crockett elementary school. The school is overcrowded with cracked walls and peeling blasters. Trailers cover the playground where the kids used to spend recess. The gutierrez family is here tonight and i tell them again, i will fight to rebuild and modernize crumbling schools and reduce class size. We need to put discipline and character first in every classroom. [ cheers and applause ] you know [ crowd chanting we want al gore ] are you with me . [ crowd chanting we want gore ] you know, education education may be a local responsibility. But i believe it also has to be our Number One National priority. We cant stop until every school in america is a good place to get a good education. [ cheers and applause ] and i will never forget a little boy named ian malone who suffered a medical mistake while in childhood. I met him and his parents in ever r everett, washington and their hmo said they wouldnt pay for the nurse he need and to consider giving ian up for adoption. Thats when his mom and dad got really mad. They told their story in public and the hmo was embarrassed because they fought for their baby. Today ian has the care he needs to stay alive. But no family in america should have to go on National Television to save their childs life. [ cheers and applause ] bill and Christie Malone are here with us tonight. Ian is here too. And i say to them and to all families of america, i will fight for a real enforceable patients bill of rights. [ cheers and applause ] its just wrong to have life and death medical decisions made by bean counters at hmos who dont have a license to from medicine and dont have a right to play god. Its time to take the medical decisions away from the hmos and Insurance Companies and give them back to the doctors and the nurses, and the health care professionals. Lets make that an issue. So, this is not just an election between my opponent and me. Its about our people. Our families. And our future. And whether forces standing in your way will keep you from living a better life. To me this election is about mildred nystol, Jacqueline Johnson, the gutierrezs, ian malone. Its about millions of americans whose names well never know but whose dreams and needs must be our calling and so here tonight in name of all the working families who are the strength and soul of america, i accept your nomination for president of the United States of america. [ cheers and applause ] im here to talk seriously about the issues. I believe people deserve to know specifically what a candidate proposes to do. I intend to tell you tonight. You ought to be able to know, and then judge for yourself if you entrust bhe t trustrust me presidency ill put democracy back in your hands and get all of the special interest money out of our democracy by enacting Campaign Finance reform. I feel so strongly about this i promise you Campaign Finance reform will be the very first bill that Joe Lieberman and i send to the United States congress. [ cheers and applause ] let others try to restore the old guard. We come to this convention as the change we wish to see in america. And what are those changes . At a time when most americans will live to know even their greatgrandchildren, well save and strengthen Social Security and medicare. Not only for this generation, but for generations to come. At a time of almost unimaginable medical breakthroughs well fight for Affordable Health care for all, so patients and ordinary people are not left powerless and broke. We will move towards universal Health Coverage step by step, starting with all children. Lets get all children covered by 2004. [ cheers and applause ] and lets move to the day when we at long last end the stigma of Mental Illness and treat it like every other illness every where in this nation. And i thank you, tipper, for leading the way. [ cheers and applause ] within the next few years scientists will identify the genes that cause every type of cancer. We need a national commitment. Well double the federal investment in medical seven. Well find new medicines and new cures not just for cancer but for everything from diabetes to hiv aids. [ cheers and applause ] at a time when there is more computer power in a palm pilot than in a spaceship that nook Neil Armstrong to the moon, well offer all our people life long learning and new skills for the higher paying jobs of the future. At a time when the amount of Human Knowledge is doubling every five years, and science and technology are advancing so rapidly, well do bold things to make our schools the best in the world. Ill fight for the single greatest idea since the gi bill. The revolutionary improvements in our schools. To put highly qualified teachers in every classroom. Task all teachers. Give teach terrifies training and professional development they deserve. Its time to treat and reward teachers like the professionals that they are. Its not just about more money. Its about higher standards, accountability, new ideas. But we cant do it without new resources and thats why i will invest far more in our schools. In the long run a second class education always costs more than a first class education. And i will not go along with any plan that would drain taxpayer money away from our public cools and give to it private schools in form of vouchers. [ cheers and applause ] this nation was a pioneer of universal public education. Now lets seat specific new goal for the first decade of the 21st century. High quality, universal preschool available over tory child in every family all across this nation. [ cheers and applause [ cheers and applause ] and lets give middle class families help in paying for college with taxfree College Savings and by making most College Tuition tax deductible. Open the doors of learning for all. [ cheers and applause ] and all of this all of th this [ crowd chanting we want gore ] all of this all of this is the change we wish to see in america. Not so long ago a balanced budget seemed point. Now our Budget Surplus make it possible to gave full range of targeted tax cuts to working families. Not just hope to you save for college but to pay for Health Insurance and child care. To reform the estate tax so people can pass on a Small Business or a family farm and to end the marriage penalty. The right way. The fairway. Because we should not force couples to pay more in income taxes because they are married. Let me say it plainly. Ill not go along with a huge tax cut for the wealthy and wreck our economy in process. [ cheers and applause ] let me tell you, under the tax plan the other side has proposed, for every 10 that goes to the wealthiest 1 , middle class families would get one dime and lower income families would get one penny. [ crowd booing ] in fact, if you add it up, the average family would get about enough money to buy one extra diet coke a week. [ chuckling ] its nothing about 52 cents in change. Let me tell you thats not the kind of change im working for. [ cheers and applause ] ill fight for tax cuts that go the right people, to the working families who have the toughest time paying tax and saving for future. Ill fight for a new tax way to help you save and build a bigger nest egg for you retirement. Im talking about something extra you can save and invest for yourself. Something that will supplement Social Security, not be subtracted from it. But i will not go along with any proposal to strip one out of every 6 from Social Securitys trust fund and privatize Social Security that youre counting on. Our plan is Social Security plus. [ cheers and applause ] we will balance the budget every year and dedicate the Budget Surplus to saving Social Security. In next four years we will pay off all the National Debt this nation accumulated in our first 200 years. This will put us on the path to completely eliminate the debt by 2012, keeping america prosperous far into the future. [ cheers and applause ] but theres theres Something Else at stake in this election thats even more important than economic progress. Simply put its our values. Its our responsibility to our loved ones, to our families. And to me family values means honoring our fathers and mothers. Teaching our children well. Caring for the sick. Respecting one another. Giving people the power to achieve what they want for their families. Putting both Social Security and medicare in an iron clad lock box where the politicians cant touch them, to me that kind of common sense is a family value. Hands off medicare and Social Security trust fund money. Ill veto anything that spends it for anything other than Social Security and medicare. Getting cigarettes out of the hands of kids before they get hooked is a family value. [ cheers and applause ] i will crack down on the marketing of tobacco to our children no matter how hard the Tobacco Companies lobby and no matter how much they spend. [ cheers and applause ] a new Prescription Drug benefit under medicare for all, our seniors, thats a family value, and let me tell you, ill fight for it and the other side will not. They give into the Big Drug Companies. Their plan tells seniors to beg hmos and Insurance Companies for Prescription Drug coverage and thats the difference in this election. They are the powerful. Were for the people. [ cheers and applause ] judge for yourself. Look at the agenda. Look at the facts. Big tobacco, big oil, the big polluters, the pharmaceutical companies, the hmos, sometimes you have to be willing to stand up and say no so families can have a better life. I know one thing about the job of the president. It is the only job in constitution thats charged with the responsibility of fighting for all the people. Not just feminine of one state or one district. Not just the wealthy or the powerful. All feminine. Especially those who need a voice. Those who need a champion. Those who need to be lifted up so they are never left behind. So if i say to you tonight, if you entrust me with the presidency ill fight for you. [ cheers and applause ] i mean that with all my heart. [ cheers and applause ] [ crowd chanting we want gore ] theres one other word that weve heard a lot of in this campaign and that word is honor. To me honor is not just a word but an obligation. And you have my word we will honor hard work by raising the minimum wage so that work always pays more than welfare. [ cheers and applause ] we will honor families by funding child care and after school care and family and medical leave. So working families have the help they need to care for third children because one of the most important jobs of all is raising our children. And well support the right of parents to decide that one of them will stay home longer with their babies if thats what they believe is best for their families. We will honor the ideal of equality by standing up for civil rights and defending affirmative action. [ cheers and applause ] we will honor we will honor equal rights and we will fight for an equal days pay for an equal days work. [ cheers and applause ] and let there be no doubt, i will protect and defend a womans right to choose. The last thing this country needs is a Supreme Court that overturns roe v wade. [ cheers and applause ] we will remove all the old barriers so those that are called disabled can develop all their abilities, and we will also widen the circle of opportunity for all americans, and we will vigorously enforce all of our civil rights laws with the budgets and personnel that are necessary. And hear me well, we will pass the employment nondiscrimination act. [ cheers and applause ] and we will honor the memory of Matthew Shepherd and joseph gileto and james byrd whose families all join us this week bypassing a law against hate crimes. [ cheers and applause ] they are different. We need to embody our values in that new law. Its time. We will honor the hard work of raising a family by doing all we can to help parents protect their children. Parents deserve the simple security of knowing that their children are safe. Whether they are walking down the street, surfing the worldwide net or sitting behind a desk in school. To make families safer we passed the toughest crime bill in history and putting 100,000 new Community Police on our streets. Crime has fallen in every major category for seven years in a row. But theres still too much danger. And theres still too much fear. So tonight i want to set another new specific goal, to cut the crime rate every year. Year after year. All the way until the end of this decade. Every single year. Thats why ill fight to add another 50,000 new police. Community police. Prevention. Community police who help prevent crime by establishing Real Relationships between Law Enforcement and neighborhood residents. Which incidentally is the opposite of racial profiling which must be brought to an end. Throughout the criminal justice system. And community policing, policing and prevention is one of the keys. I will fight for a crime victims bill of rights including a constitutional amendment to make sure that victims and not just criminals are guaranteed rights in our justice system. Ill fight to toughen penalties on those who misuse the internet to prey on our children and violate our privacy. And ill fight to make every school in this nation drug free and gun free. [ cheers and applause ] i believe in right of hunters and lawabiding citizens to own firearms but i want mandatory background checks to keep guns away from criminals and mandatory Child Safety Locks to protect our children. [ cheers and applause ] tipper and i went out to Columbine High School after the tragedy there and we embraced the families of the children who were lost and i will never forget the words of the father who whispered into my ear promise me that these children will not have died in vain. All of us must join together to make that promise come true. Laws and programs by the themselves will never be enough. All of us, especially all parents need to take more responsibility. We need to change our hearts and make a commitment to our children and to one another. We need to lift up the meaning in their lives. You know, i am excited about americas prospects and full of hope for americas future. Our country has come a long way. And ive come a long way since that long ago time when i went to vietnam. Ive never forgotten what i saw there and the bravery of so many young americans. The price of freedom is sometimes high. But ive never believed that america should turn inward. As a senator i broke with many in our party and voted to support the gulf war when Saddam Hussein invaded kuwait because i believe americas vital interests were at stake. Early in my Public Service i took up the issue of Nuclear Arms Control and Nuclear Weapons because nothing is more fundamental that protect our national security. Now i want to lead america because i love america. I will keep americas defenses strong. I will make sure our armed force continue to be the best equipped, best trained and best led in the entire world. [ cheers and applause ] they are now and they will be. In last century this nation more than any other freed the world from fascism and communism but the new world has dangers and challenges, both old and new. We must always have the will to defend our enduring interests from europe to the middle east to japan and korea. We must strengthen our partnerships with africa, latin america and confront terrorism, new weapons of mass destruction, Global Environmental problems and new diseases that can threaten national security. We must promote and welcome free trade. But it must be fair. We must set standards to end child labor to end exploitation of workers. If im president it will be a way to lift everybody up not bring anyone down as the common denominator. So those are the issues. And thats where i stand. But i also want to tell you just a little more about two of my greatest heroes. My father and my mother. They did give me a good life. Like so many in america they started out with almost nothing. My father grew up in a Small Community named Opossum Hollow in tennessee. He worked as a teacher. In the Great Depression came along and taught him a lesson. He told me and my sister often how he watched grown men with wives and children they could no longer feed on farms they couldnt pay for. My father didnt know the if we could help those families but he believed he had to try. Never in the years to come, in congress and in the United States senate did he lose sight of the reason he entered Public Service. To fight for the people, not the powerful. [ cheers and applause ] my mother grew up in a poor Farming Community in northwest tennessee. Her family ran a small Country Store in cold corner, a store that went bust during the Great Depression. He she worked her way through college, then she got a room in nashville at the ywca and waited tables at an all night coffee shop for 25 cent tips. She then went on to become one of the first woman in thoift gradua history to graduate from vanderbilt university. We lost my dad a year and a half ago but were so lucky that my mom is a part of our lives every single day. Shes here tonight. [ cheers and applause ] sometimes in this campaign when i visit a school and see a hardworking teacher trying to change the world one child at a time, i see the face of my father. And i know that teaching our children well is not just a teachers jobs its everyones job and it has to be our national mission. Ive shaken hands in diners and coffee shops all across this country and sometimes when i see a waitress working hard and thanking someone for a tip, i see the face of my mother. And i know for that waitress carrying trays or a construction worker in the winter cold i will never agree to raise the he retirement age to 70 or threaten the promise of Social Security. Its just not fair. I wont do it. I say to you tonight we got to win this election because every hardworking American Family deserves to open the door to their dreams. In our democracy the future in our democracy the future is not something that just happens to us, its something that we make for ourselves together. So to the young people watching tonight i say this is your time to make new the life of our world. We need your help, to rekindle the spirit of america. Believe in our country. We believe in you. I ask all of you, my fellow citizen from this city, that mark the end of americas journey west wand and a new frontier. Lets set out the a new journey to a best america. A new journey where we advance not by the turning of wheels but by the turning of our mind, the enduring grace of the human spirit. Yes we have our problems but the United States of america is the best country ever created and still as ever the hope of humankind. Yes, were all imperfect but as americans we share in the privilege and charlottesville building a more perfect union. I know my own imperfections. For example i know sometimes people say im too serious, that i talk too much substance and policy. Maybe ive done that tonight. But the presidency but the presidency is more than a popularity contest. Its a daybyday fight for people. Sometimes you have to choose to do whats difficult or unpopular. Sometimes you have to be willing to spend your popularity in order to pick the hard right over the easy wrong. [ crowd chanting we want gore ] [ crowd chanting go al go ] a big crisis is ahead and our whole future is at stake and i do have strong beliefs about it. If you entrust me with the presidency, i know i wont always be the most exciting politician. But i pledge to you tonight i will work for you every day and i will never let you down. [ cheers and applause ] if we allow ourselves to believe without reservation that we can do whats right and be the better for it, then the best america will be our america. In this stiff angels we can summon the better angels of our nature. Do not rest where we are or retreat. Do all we can to make america all it can. Thank you. God bless you. God bless america. [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] week nights this month on American History tv were looking at past president ial debates. Tonight its the 2004 debates between president george w. Bush and democratic senator john kerry of massachusetts. The first debate was held at the university of miami. The candidates took questions from jim lehrer of pbs about Foreign Policy especially the bush response to the terror attacks and war in iraq. That starts at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and enjoy American History this week and every weekend on cspan 3. American history tv on cspan 3 exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. Coming up this weekend before election day november 3rd well look at president s and president ial elections. Saturday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on reel america a look at four films that explain the electoral system pap tuesday in november. The election of john f. Kennedy, president of the United States. Richard m. Nixon, the new president. And election 1976, day of decision. On sunday at noon eastern the final president ial debate between Vice President al gore and governor george w. Bush. Then at 2 30 p. M. Eastern the first president ial debate between president george w. Bush and senator john kerry and at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the presidency, university of Mary Washington history professor on the personality, leadership and achievements of franklin roosevelt. Exploring the american story, watch American History tv this weekend on cspan 3. In 2000 president ial campaign Vice President al gore was a democratic nominee and Texas Governor george w. Bush was the republican candidate. The two metaphor their first debate at the university of massachusetts in boston and took questions on Social Security, taxes, the Supreme Court, abortion and a number of issues. The debate was mode rated by jim lehrer of pbs. 30 seconds