Vice president al gore accepted his partys president ial nomination at the 2000, National Convention in los angeles. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my husband, our next of al gore. [ applause ] [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. [ cheers and applause ] 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 think 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 so eloquently, someone ive loved with my whole heart since the night of my High School Senior prom, my wife tipper. [ applause ] weve been lucky enough to find each other all over again at each new stage of our lives, and just celebrated our 30th wetting anniversary. I want to acknowledge with great pride our four children, our oldest daughter and her husband, and our youngest member of the family, who a little over a year ago was born on the fourth of july. I i am honored tonight by the support of a leader of high ideals and fundamental decency who will be an important part of our countrys future, senator bill bradley. [ applause ] 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 encourage, a defender of the environment and working families, the next Vice President of the United States of america, Joe Lieberman. [ applause ] and hadassah and their wonderful family. I picked joe for one simple reason. Hes the best person for the job. [ cheers and applause ] 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. [ cheers and applause ] instead of the biggest deficit in history, we now have the biggest surpluses, the highest homeownership 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 changed 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. [ applause ] 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 a 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 folk 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. [ cheers and applause ] 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, soften powerful forces and powerful interests stand in your way and the odds seems 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 of the families in america [ applause ] to all of 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 of the families, to all of 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 incident incident si, we must challenge a culture with not enough meaning. And 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 ] 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 parents 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 conscious. And 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 buy each others side. My parents taught me that the real values in life arent material, but spiritual. They include faith and family, duty and 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 the small town of carthage, 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 gravest 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 and i saw more of what could go wrong in america. Not only on the police beat, but as an investigate 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. And i decided i couldnt turn away from service at home any more than i could have turned away from service in vietnam. Thats why i ran for congress. In my first term, a family 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 some of the first hearings on the issue. Our children should not have to draw the breath of life in cities that wash in pollution. 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 facet and get a glass of safe, clean, drinking water. [ cheers and applause ] on the issue of the environment, ive never given up, ive never backed down and i never will. And i say it again tonight, we must reverse the silent rising tide of Global Warming and we can. In the 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 reformed welfare and set time limits. Instead of handouts, we gave people to go from welfare to work and we have cut the welfare rolls in half and moved millions into good jobs. [ cheers and applause ] its helped lift them up. For almost 25 years now, ive been fighting for people. And for all that time, ive been listening to people, holding open meetings in the places where they live and work. A and you know what, ive 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 everyday 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 mean the big fancy names that we put on programs and legislation, im talking about family names like johnson, gutierrez and malone, people i have met all across this country and heres what theyve told me. I met milldrid in iowa, she left welfare and found a good job training training electricians. Now, she dreams of sending her daughter to college. She is here with us tonight and i say to her, i will fight for a targeted affordable tax cut to help working families save and pay for college. They need help. And well give it to them. Its the key to our future. 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 for herself. She spends over half of her Social Security check, her only source of income, on her pills. So she either skips meals or shops for bargains at a wholesale food store and buys macaroni and cheese dinners in bulk and has them at every meal. I invited her here tonight, and i promise you i will fight for a Prescription Drug benefit for all seniors under medicare. 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 in san antonio, texas. Their daughter has just started the fourth grade at Davey Crocket elementary school. The School Building is crumbling and overcrowded with cracked walls and peeling plaster. Trailers cover the playground where the kids used to spend recess. The family is here tonight and i tell them again, i will fight to rebuild and modernize crumbling schools and reduce class sides. We need to put safety, discipline and character first in ever classroom. [ cheers and applause ] you know [ chanting ] are you with me . 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 who suffered from a medical mistake during childbirth and needs full time nursing care for several years. I met him and his parents in seattle at their home and their hmo had told that it would no longer pay for the nurse they needed and told them they should 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 ] [ applause ] bill and christine are here with us tonight. Ian is here too. And i say to them and to all the 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 Practice 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. [ cheers and applause ] lets make that a bipartisan 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 those families. Its about millions of americans whose names we may never know, but whose needs and dreams must always be our calling. And so here tonight in the 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 ] [ 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 me with the presidency, i will put our democracy back in your hands and get all of the special interest money, all of it, out of our democracy by enacting Campaign Finance reform. I feel so strongly about this, i promise you that Campaign Finance reform will be the very first bill that Joe Lieberman and i send to the United States congress. [ cheers and applause ] it is time. Let others try to restore the old guard. We come to this contention 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 great grandchildren, we will 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, we will fight for Affordable Health care for all so patients and ordinary people are not left powerless and broke. We will move toward 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 everywhere 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, equal to the promise of this unequaled moment. So we will double the federal investment in medical research. We will 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 took Neil Armstrong to the moon, we will offer all of our people Lifelong Learning and new skills for the higherpaying jobs of the future. The amount of Human Knowledge is doubling every five years and science and technology are advancing so rapidly, we will do bold things to make our schools the best in the world. I will fight for the greatest single commitment to education since the g. I. Bill. The revolutionary improvements in our schools, for Higher Standards and more accountability, to put fully qualified teachers in every classroom. Test all new teachers and give teachers the training and professional development they dwe deserve. Its time to treat teachers like the professionals they are. [ cheers and applause ] 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 secondclass education always costs more than a firstclass education. And i will not go along with any plan that would drain taxpayer money away from our Public Schools and give it to private schools in the form of vouchers. [ cheers and applause ] this nation was a pioneer of universal public education. Now, lets set a specific new goal for the first decade of the 21st century. High quality, universal preschool available to every child in every family all across this nation. 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 to all. [ cheers and applause ] and all of this all of this [ chanting ] all of this, all of this is the change we wish to see in america. Not so long ago a balanced budget seemed impossible. Now our Budget Surpluses make it possible to give a full range of targeted tax cuts to working families. Not just to help you save for college, but to pay for Health Insurance and childcare, 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. We should not force couples to pay more in income taxes just because theyre married. Let me say it plainly, i will not go along with a huge tax cut for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else and wreck our good economy in the process. [ cheers and applause ] [ chanting ] 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 lowerincome families would get one penny. In fact, if you added up the average family would get about enough money to buy one extra diet coke a week. About thats not nothing. About 62 cents in change. But let me tell you, thats not the kind of change im working for. [ cheers and applause ] ill fight for tax cuts that go to the right people, to the working families who have the toughest time paying taxes and saving for the future. Ill fight for a new taxfree way to help you save and build a bigger nest egg for your retirement. Im talking about something extra that you can save and invest for yourself. Something that will supplemental Social Security, not be subtracted from it. But i will not go along with any proposal to strip 1 out of every 6 from the Social Security trust fund and privatization the Social Security that youre counting on. Thats Social Security minus. Our plan is Social Security plus. [ cheers and applause ] we will balance the budget every year and dedicate the Budget Surplus first to saving Social Security. In the next four years, we will pay off all of the National Debt this nation accumulated in our first 200 years. This will put us on the path to eliminating the debt by 2012, keeping america prosperous far into the future. But 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 ironclad lockbox where the politicians cant touch them. To me, that kind of commonsense 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. 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 the hmos and Insurance Companies for Prescription Drug coverage and thats the difference in this election. Their for the powerful. Were for the people. [ cheers and applause ] judge for yourself. Look at the agendas. 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 the constitution that is charged with the responsibility of fighting for all of the people, not just the people of one state or one district, not just the wealthy or the powerful, all the people. 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 when i say to you tonight if you entrust me with the presidency, i will fight for you. [ cheers and applause ] i mean that with all of my heart. Theres 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. We will honor families by expanding childcare and after school care and family and medical leave so working families have the help they need to care for their children. 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 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 that those who 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 alito and joseph bird by passing a law against hate crimes. 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 theyre walking down the street, surfing the worldwide web or sitting behind a desk in school. To make families safer, we passed the toughest crime bill in history and were 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 publishing 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 institutional 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 pray on our children and violate our privacy and ill fight to make every school in this nation drugfree and gun free. I believe in the right of sportsman and 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 and we embraced the families of the children worship lost and i will never forget the words of the father who whispered into my ear, promise me that these children have not died in vain. Laws and programs by themselves will never be enough. Especially all parents, knees 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 the meaning in their lives. Im 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 al time when i went to vietnam. I never forgot what i saw there and the bravery of so many young americans. The price of freedom is high. I voted to support the gulf war when adam husse saddam hussei invaded kuwait. I took up the issue of Nuclear Arms Control and Nuclear Weapons because nothing is more fundamental than protecting 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 forces continue to be the best equipped, best trained and best led in the entire world. On the last century, this nation, more than any other, freed the world from fascism and communism. But a newfree world has dangersd challenges. We must always have the will to defend our enduring interests from europe, the middle east, criter korea and japan. We must strengthen our partnerships with the rest of the developing world. We must confront the new challenges of terrorism, new kinds of weapons of mass destruction, Global Environmental problems and new diseases that know no National Boundaries and threaten National Security. I say to you, it must be fair trade. We must get standards, set standards to end child labor, to prevent the exploitation of workers and the poisoning of the environment. Free trade can and must be. If im president , will be a way to lift everyone up, not bring anyone down to the lowest common denominator. Those are the issues. 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. But like so many in america, they started out with almost nothing. My father grew up in a Small Community in middle tennessee. When he was just 18, he went to work as a teacher in a oneroom school. Then the Great Depression came along and taught him a lesson that couldnt be found in any classroom. He told me and my sister often how he watched grown men with wives and children they could neither feed nor clothe, on farms they could no longer pay for. My father didnt know whether he could help those families. But he believed he had to try. And 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. Her family ran a small Country Store in cold corner. A store that went bust during the Great Depression. She worked her way through college, then she got a room in nashville at the ywca and waited table at an allnight coffee shop. She became one of the first women in history to graduate from vanderbilt law school. As tipper told you, we lost my dad a year and a half ago. But were so lucky that my mother, pauline, continues to be 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 a a time, i see the face of my father. And i know that teaching our children well is not just the teachers job, 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, i will never agree to raise the retirement age to 70 or threaten the promise of Social Security. Its just not fair to them, and i wont do it. I say to you tonight, weve got to win this election because every hardworking American Family deserves to open the door to their dream. In our democracy the future in our democracy the future is not something that 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 knew the life of our world. We need your help to rekindle the spirit of america, believe in our country. We believe in you. And i ask all of you, my fellow citizens, from this city that mark both the end of americas journey westward and the beginning of the new frontier, let us set out on a new journey to the best america, a new journey on which we advance not by the turning of wheels, but by the turning of our minds, the reach of our vision, the grace of the human spirit. Yes, we have our problems, but the United States of america is the best country ever created and still the hope of human kind. Yes, were all imperfect. But as americans, we share in the privilege and challenge of 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. [ cheers and applause ] [ chanting ] we have big voicchoices ahead a our whole future is at stake. And i 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 city of angels, we can summon the better angels of our nation. Do all we can to make america all it can become. Thank you. God bless you. God bless america. [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] weeknights this month, were looking at past president ial debates. Tonight, its the 2004 debates between president george w. Bush and john kerry of massachusetts. The first debate was held at the university of miami. The candidates took questions from pbs about foreign policy. Especially the bush administrations response to the 9 11 terrorist attacks and the war in iraq. That starts at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. American history tv on cspan3. 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 american electoral system, a tuesday in november, the election of jfk, president of the United States, richard m. Nixon, the new 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. At 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the presidency, university of Mary Washington womilliam crowley on the achievements of franklin roosevelt. Exploring the american story, watch American History tv, this weekend on cspan3. In the 2000 president ial campaign, Vice President al gore was the democratic nominee and Texas Governor george w. Bush was the republican candidate. The two met for 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 other issues. The debate was moderated by jim lehrer of pbs. 30 seconds