Thursday, July 16, was the final day of the convention. So far, we had had three great days, in the hall and on television. We had showcased not only our national leaders but also our rising stars, as well as ordinary citizens. We had hammered home our new ideas. But it would all count for nothing unless Al Gore and I were effective in our acceptance speeches. The day began with a surprise, as had so many days in this wild campaign season: Ross Perot withdrew from the race. I called him, congratulated him on his campaign, and said I agreed with him on the need for fundamental political reform. He declined to endorse either President Bush or me, and I went into the convention’s last night unsure whether his withdrawal would help or hurt.
After Al Gore was nominated by acclamation, he gave a rip-roaring speech, which he began by saying he’d dreamed as a boy growing up in Tennessee that he would, one day, be the warm-up act for Elvis, the nickname the staff gave me during the campaign. Al then launched into a litany of the Bush administration’s failings, saying after each one, “It’s time for them to go.” After he did it a couple of times, the delegates took over for him, sending sparks throughout the hall. Then he extolled my record, outlined the challenges we faced, and talked about his family and our obligation to leave a stronger, more united nation to the next generation. Al had given a really good speech. He had done his part. Now it was my turn.
Paul Begala wrote the first draft of the speech. We were trying to do a lot with it—biography, campaign rhetoric, and policy. And we were trying to appeal to three different groups—hard-core Democrats, independents and Republicans dissatisfied with the President but unsure of me, and people who didn’t vote at all because they didn’t think it made a difference. Paul, as always, had some great lines. And George Stephanopoulos had kept notes of the ones that had worked best on the stump during the primary campaign. Bruce Reed and Al From helped sharpen the policy section. To bring me on, my friends Harry and Linda Bloodworth Thomason produced a short film entitled “The Man from Hope.” It pumped the crowd up, and I walked onto the platform to tremendous applause. The speech started slowly, with a bow to Al Gore, thanks to Mario Cuomo, and a salute to my primary opponents. Then came the message: “In the name of all those who do the work and 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 President of the United States. I am a product of that middle class, and when I am President, you will be forgotten no more.”
Next, I told the story of the people who had had the greatest impact on me, beginning with my mother, from her travails as a young widow with a baby to support to her current struggle with breast cancer, saying, “Always, always, always she taught me to fight.” I talked about my grandfather and how he taught me “to look up to people other folks looked down on.” And I paid tribute to Hillary for teaching me that “all children can learn and that each of us has a duty to help them do it.” I wanted America to know that my fighting spirit started with my mother, my commitment to racial equality started with my grandfather, and my concern for the future of all our children started with my wife. And I wanted people to know that everybody could be part of our American family: “I want to say something to every child in America tonight who is out there trying to grow up without a mother or father: I know how you feel. You are special too. You matter to America. And don’t ever let anybody tell you you can’t become whatever you want to be.”
For the next several minutes, I laid out my critique of the Bush record and my plan to do better. “We have gone from first to thirteenth in the world in wages since Reagan and Bush took office.” . . . “Four years ago he promised 15 million new jobs by this time, and he’s over 14 million short.” . . . “The incumbent President says unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins, but unemployment only has to go up one more person before a real recovery can begin. And Mr. President, you are that man.” I said my New Covenant of opportunity, responsibility, and community would give us “an America in which the doors of college are thrown open again to the sons and daughters of stenographers and steelworkers,” “an America in which middle-class incomes, not middle-class taxes, are going up,” “an America in which the rich are not soaked, but the middle class is not drowned either,”
“an America where we end welfare as we know it.”
Then I made an appeal for national unity. To me, it was the most important part of the speech, something I had believed in since I was a little boy:
