Billxt on the presidency, clinton accepts his partys president ial nomination at the 1992 Democratic National convention in new york city. In 55 minutes, george hwb acce and then theation u. S. House of representative representative and house curator use a selection of artifacts to tell the history of africanamericans in congress. [cheers] govenor clinton governor richards. Chairman brown. Mayor dinkins, our great host. [applause] my fellow delegates and my fellow americans. I am so proud of al gore. [applause] he said he came here tonight because he always wanted to do the warmup for elvis. [laughter] well, i ran for president this year for one reason and one reason only. I wanted to come back to this convention and finish that speech i started four years ago. [applause] last night, mario cuomo taught us how a real nominating speech should be given. [cheers] he also made it clear why we have to steer our ship of state on a new course. Tonight i want to talk with you about my hope for the future, my faith in the american people, and my vision of the kind of country we can build, together. I salute the good men who were my companions on the campaign trail tom harkin, [applause] bob kerrey, [applause] doug wilder, [applause] jerry brown, [applause] and paul tsongas. [cheers] one sentence in the platform we built says it all. The most important family policy, urban policy, labor policy, minority policy and Foreign Policy america can have is an expanding, entrepreneurial economy of highwage, highskill jobs. [applause] and so, in the name of all the people who do the work, pay the taxes, raise the kids and play by the rules in the name of the hardworking americans who make up our forgotten middle class, i proudly accept your nomination for the presidency of the united states. [cheers] i am a product of that middle class. And when i am president , you will be forgotten no more. [applause] we meet at a special moment in history, you and i. The cold war is over. Soviet communism has collapsed. And our values freedom, democracy, individual rights, Free Enterprise they have triumphed all around the world. And yet, just as we have won the cold war abroad, we are losing the battles for Economic Opportunity and social justice here at home. [applause] now that we have changed the world, its time to change america. [cheers] i have news for the forces of greed and the defenders of the status quo your time has come and gone. Its time for a change in america. [cheers] tonight 10 million of our fellow americans are out of work. Tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. The incumbent president says unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins. But unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a Real Recovery can begin. [cheers] and mr. President , you are that man. [cheers] this election is about putting power back in your hands and putting Government Back on your side. Its about putting people first. [applause] you know, ive said that all across the country. And whenever i do, someone comes back at me, as a young man did this just week at a town meeting at the henry street settlement on the Lower East Side of manhattan. [applause] he said, that sounds good, bill. But youre a politician. Why should i trust you . Tonight, as plainly as i can, i want to tell you who i am, what i believe, and where i want to lead america. [applause] i never met my father. He was killed in a car wreck on a rainy road three months before i as born, driving from chicago to arkansas to see my mother. After that, my mother had to support us. So we lived with my grandparents while she went back to louisiana to study nursing. [applause] i can still see her clearly tonight through the eyes of a threeyearold, kneeling at the railroad station and weeping as she put me back on the train to arkansas with my grandmother. She endured that pain because she knew her sacrifice was the only way she could support me and give me a better life. My mother taught me. She taught me about family and hard work and sacrifice. She held steady through tragedy after tragedy. And she held our family, my brother and i, together through tough times. As a child, i watched her go off to work each day at a time when it wasnt always easy to be a working mother. As an adult, ive watched her fight off breast cancer. And again she taught me a lesson in courage. And always, always she taught me to fight. Thats why ill fight to create highpaying jobs so that parents can afford to raise their children today. Thats why im so committed to make sure every american gets the health care that saved my mothers life [cheers] and that Womens Health care gets the same attention as mens. [cheers] thats why ill fight to make sure women in this country receive respect and dignity, whether they work in the home, out of the home or both. [cheers] you want to know where i get my fighting spirit . It all started with my mother. [applause] thank you, mother, i love you. [applause] when i think about opportunity for all americans, i think about my grandfather. He ran a Country Store in our little town of hope. There were no food stamps back then, so when his customers, whether they were white or black, who worked hard and did the best they could came in with no money, well, he gave them food anyway. Just made a note of it. So did i. Before i was big enough to see over the counter, i learned from him to look up to people other folks looked down on. [applause] my grandfather just had a High School Education a gradeschool education. But in that Country Store he taught me more about equality in the eyes of the lord than all my professors at georgetown, more about the intrinsic worth of every individual than all the philosophers at oxford, more about the need for equal justice than all the jurists at yale law school. [applause] if you want to know where i come by the passionate commitment i have to bringing people together without regard to race, it all started with my grandfather. [applause] i learned a lot from another person, too. A person who for more than 20 years has worked hard to help our children, paying the price of time to make sure our schools dont fail them, someone who traveled our state for a year studying, learning, listening; going to pta meetings, school board meetings, town hall meetings, putting together a package of School Reforms recognized around the nation. Doing it all while building a distinguished legal career and being a wonderful, loving mother. That person is my wife. [cheers] hillary taught me. She taught me that all children can learn, and that each of us has a duty to help them do it. So if you want to know why i care so much about our children and our future, it all started with my wife. I love you. [cheers] frankly, im fed up with politicians in washington lecturing the rest of us about family values. [cheers] our families have values. But our government doesnt. [cheers] i want an america where family values live in our actions, not just in our speeches. An america that includes every family, every traditional family and every extended family, every twoparent family, every singleparent family, and every foster family every family. [cheers] i do want to Say Something to the fathers in this country who have chosen to abandon their children by neglecting their child support. Take responsibility for your children or we will force you to do so. [cheers] because governments dont raise children, parents do, and you should. And i want to Say Something to every child in america tonight who is out there trying to grow up without a father or a mother. I know how you feel. Youre special, too. You matter to america. And dont you ever let anyone ever tell you cant become whatever you want to be. [cheers] and if other politicians make you feel like youre not a part of their family, come on and be part of ours. [cheers] [chants of we want bill] govenor clinton the thing that makes me angriest about whats gone wrong in the last 12 years is that our government has lost touch with our values while our politicians continue to shout about them. Im tired of it. [cheers] i was raised to believe that the American Dream was built on rewarding hard work. But we have seen the folks in washington turn the american ethic on its head. For too long, those who play by the rules and keep the faith have gotten the shaft. [applause] and those who cut corners and cut deals have been rewarded. People are working harder than ever, spending less time with their children, working nights and weekends at their jobs instead of going to pta and Little League or scouts. And their incomes are still going down. Their taxes are still going up, and the costs of health care, housing and education are going through the roof. Meanwhile, more and more of our best people are falling into poverty, even when though they work 40 hours a week. [applause] our people are pleading for change, but government is in the way. It has been hijacked by privileged, private interests. It has forgotten who really pays the bills around here. Its taking more of your money and giving you less in return. We have got to go beyond the braindead politics in washington and give our people the kind of government they deserve, a government that works for them. [applause] [chants of we want bill] a president ought to be a powerful force for progress. But right now i know how president lincoln felt when general mcclellan wouldnt attack in the civil war. He asked him, if youre not going to use your army, may i borrow it . [laughter] and so i say, george bush, if you wont use your power to help america, step aside, i will. [cheers] [chants of we want bill] govenor clinton our country is falling behind. The president is caught in the grip of a failed economic theory. We have gone from first to thirteenth in the world in wages since reagan and bush have been in office. Four years ago, candidate bush said america is a special place, not just another pleasant country somewhere on the u. N. Roll call between albania and zimbabwe. Now, under president bush, america has an unpleasant economy stuck somewhere between germany and sri lanka. [applause] and for most americans, mr. President , life is a loss less kind and a lot less gentle than it was before your administration took office. [cheers] our country has fallen so far, so fast, that just a few months ago the japanese Prime Minister actually said he felt sympathy for the united states. [boos] sympathy. When i am your president , [applause] the rest of the world will not look down on us with pity, but up to us with respect again. [cheers] what is george bush doing about our economic problems . Four years ago, he promised 15 million new jobs by this time, and hes over 14 million short. [laughter] al gore and i can do better. [cheers] he has raised taxes on the people driving pickup trucks, and lowered taxes on the people riding in limousines. We can do better. He promised to balance the budget, but he hasnt even tried. In fact, the budgets he submitted to Congress Nearly doubled the debt. Even worse, he wasted billions and reduced our investments in education and jobs. We can do better. [cheers] so, if youre sick and tired of a government that doesnt work to create new jobs, if youre sick and tired of a tax system thats stacked against you, if youre sick and tired of exploding debt and reduced investments in our future, or if, like the late civil rights pioneer fannie lou hamer, youre just old plain sick and tired of being sick and tired, then join us, work with us, win with us, and we can make our country the country it was meant to be. [cheers] now, george bush talks a good game. But he has no game plan to rebuild america from the cities to the suburbs to the countryside so that we can compete and win again in the global economy. I do. [cheers] he wont take on the Big Insurance Companies and the bureaucracies to control health costs and give us Affordable Health care for all americans, but i will. [cheers] he wont even implement the recommendations of his own commission on aids, but i will. [cheers] he wont streamline the federal government and change the way it works, cut 100,000 bureaucrats, and put 100,000 new Police Officers on the streets of american cities, but i will. [cheers] hes never balanced a government budget, but i have 11 times. [cheers] he wont break the stranglehold the special interests have on our elections and the lobbyists have on our government, but i will. [cheers] he wont give mothers and fathers the simple chance to take some time off from work when a baby is born or a parent is sick, but i will. [cheers] were losing our farms at a rapid rate and he has no commitment to keep family farms in the family, but i do. [cheers] hes talked a lot about drugs, but he hasnt helped people on the front line to wage that war on drugs and crime, but i will. [cheers] he wont take the lead in protecting the environment and creating new jobs in Environmental Technologies for the 21st century, but i will. [cheers] and you know what else, he doesnt have al gore and i do. [cheers] just in case you didnt notice, thats gore with an e on the end. And George Bush George bush wont guarantee a womans right to choose. I will. [cheering and applause] hear me now. I am not proabortion. I am prochoice, strongly. [cheering and applause] i believe this difficult and painful decision should be left to the women of america. [cheering and applause] i hope the right to privacy can be protected and we will never again have to discuss this issue on political platforms. [cheering and applause] but, i am old enough to remember what it was like before roe v. Wade, and i do not want to return to the time when we made criminals of women and their doctors. [cheering and applause] jobs. Education. Health care. These are not just commitments from my lips. They are the work of my life. [cheering and applause] our priorities must be clear. We will put our people first again. [cheering and applause] but priorities without a clear plan of action are just empty words. To turn our rhetoric into reality, weve got to change the way government does business, fundamentally. Until we do, well continue to pour billions of dollars down the drain. The republicans have campaigned against Big Government for a generation. But have you noticed . Theyve run this Big Government for a generation, and they havent changed a thing. They dont want to fix government. They still want to campaign against it, and thats all. [cheering and applause] but my fellow democrats, its time for us to realize that weve got some changing to do, too. There is not a program in government for every problem. And if we want to use government to help people, weve have got to make it work again. [cheering and applause] because we are committed, in this convention and in this platform, to making these changes, we are, as democrats, in the words that ross perot, himself, spoke today, a revitalized democratic party. [cheering and applause] i am well aware that all those millions of people who rallied to ross perots cause wanted to be in an army of patriots for change. Tonight, i say to them join us, together we will revitalize america. And together, we will revitalize america. [cheering and applause] now, i dont have all the answers. But i do know the old ways dont work. Trickle down economics has sure failed. And big bureaucracies, both private and public, theyve failed, too. That is why we need a new approach to government. A government that offers more empowerment and less entitlement, more choices for young people in the schools they attend. In the Public Schools they attend. [cheers applause] and more choices for the elderly and for people with disabilities in the longterm care they receive. [cheering and applause] a government that is leaner, not meaner. A government that expands opportunity, not bureaucracy. A government that understands that jobs must come from growth in a vibrant and vital system of Free Enterprise. I call this approach a new covenant a solemn agreement between the people and their government, based not simply on what each of us can take, but what all of us must give to our nation. [cheering and applause] we offer our people a new choice based on old values. We offer opportunity. We demand responsibility. We will build an American Community again. The choice we offer is not conservative or liberal, in many ways, its not even republican or democratic. It is different. It is new. And it will work. [cheering and applause] it will work, because it is rooted in the vision and the values of the american people. Of all the things george bush has ever said that i disagree with, perhaps the thing that bothers me most is how he derides and degrades the american tradition of seeing, and seeking a better future. American tradition of seeing and seeking a better future. He mocks it as the vision thing. [cheering and applause] but just remember what the scripture says, where there is no vision, the people perish. [cheering and applause] i hope nobody in this great hall tonight, or in our beloved country, has to go through tomorrow without a vision. I hope no one ever tries to raise a child without a vision. I hope nobody ever starts a business or plants a crop in the ground without a vision. For where there is no vision, the people perish. [cheering and applause] one of the reasons we have so many children in so much trouble in so many places in this nation is because they have seen so little opportunity, so little responsibility, so little loving, Caring Community that they literally cannot imagine the life we are calling them to lead. [cheering and applause] and so, i say again, where there is no vision, america will perish. What is the vision of our new covenant . An america with millions of new jobs in dozens of new industries moving confidently toward the 21st century. An america that says to entrepreneurs and Business People we will give you more incentives and more opportunity than ever before to develop the skills of your workers and to create american jobs and american wealth in the new global economy. [cheering and applause] but you must