Raw (Partial) Footage of President Bill Clinton Campaigning in Manchester (New Hampshire)

Ladies and gentlemen it is with great pride. I have the privilege of introducing to you a true friend of law enforcement the president of the United States. Thank. You. Thank. You. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hello. Thank you very much Sergeant badas for your introduction and for your fine work. Thank you. Nancy Tessier for your work at the beach Street school and for your support of community policing. Chief Favro to the Concord Police Chief Dave

wall check who is a great honor for New Hampshire he's the president of the International Association of Police Chiefs. I want to thank the others who have been with me today. You're a United States Attorney Paul Gein and the U.S. Marshal Ray Gagne the Hillsborough County attorney Peter McDonogh. Thank Father Adrian Longchamps who met with me today and I'd like to. I want to thank the police officers in particular who visited with me just a moment ago at the community station. Tyrone guys and Nick Willard and I want to say to Mr. Byron the police officer was standing to my right right before I came up here he said Mr. President this job is the best job I ever

had. I love it. I want to thank to others who are in our group today. Pauline Koch the executive director of the Manchester Neighborhood Services in. Some ways the linchpin of this whole experiment. Alice Sutton who's the head of the take our neighborhood take back our neighborhood corporation. I. Thank all the community police officers who are here all those who participated in Operation street sweeper. I thank the dear students and the people in the program who are here in this good. And I thank the Americorp members who are here from Salem for their work.

It is wonderful to be back in New Hampshire. Great to be back in Manchester and great to be talking about an issue that I discussed a great deal with the people of New Hampshire back in 1992 which is now a reality on the streets of Manchester and throughout the United States. Let me begin by saying that as all of you know in my state of the Union address I tried to outline for our country what I believe the challenges are that we face today and those that we will face in the years ahead. And what I think we all have to do to meet those challenges and how I see the nations government's role in working with the American people to meet them. This is an age of great possibility. There are more good things available to more people here than ever before. But it's also an age of very stiff challenge. More and more people have to work harder just to keep up. In this new economy

we still have too much crime and violence. We still have a lot of other problems. So the great challenge for us is how do we expand opportunity to more Americans how to bring this country together around our core values how to maintain our country's leadership for freedom and for peace. The first thing we have to do is to finish the work of yesterday. That means we have to pass the right kind of balanced budget plan that eliminates the deficit but also protects our obligations to our parents to our children and to our future through our investments and programs of Medicare Medicaid environmental protection and educational opportunity and let me emphasize again with all the work that I have done with the Republican congressional leaders and the Democratic Congressional leaders there are now more than enough savings that are

common to both our plans to pass that kind of balanced budget plan. And I hope we will do it and do it soon. After we do that we will still be left with the challenges we face. And I have identified seven that I think are the greatest challenges for our country of which taking back our streets and making America safe is one and in some cases the most fundamental we have to do more to strengthen our families. We have to do more to provide educational opportunity for all. We have to do more to provide economic security to people who are working hard but aren't getting raises and don't have access to health care and stable pensions and lifetime education and training opportunities. We have to do more to clean our environment and protect it and to grow the economy while cleaning up the environment instead of destroying it. We have to do more to fight the problems we face to our security. Terrorism weapons of

mass destruction working in concert with others for peace. We have to change the way the government works to increase your sense of confidence and it. When I ran here in 1994 I identified four things I thought ought to be done to reform the way the government works. The Congress has done two of those things this year and I applaud them. They passed a very tough reform bill on lobbying to limit what Congress can take from lobbyists and to require lobbyists to disclose how much money they spend and on what. That was a good thing. They passed a bill to require Congress to live under the laws that impose on the private sector. That was a good thing. I believe your former congressman was one of the original sponsors of that legislation well. That's a good thing. There are there are two other things we need to do this year we need to pass the

line item veto that I have pledged to pass from me. And we need to pass meaningful campaign finance reform. It is very important that can be done. It ought to be done. But there's one other thing I want to say that a great part of this debate in Washington is about what the national government's responsibility is and the way you've heard this debate over the last 15 years has often been big government is getting the way of the American economy. Big government is undermining the independence of the American community. Big government is weakening not strengthening the American family. I have to tell you that I think that is the wrong debate. The era of big government is over. Our administration has eliminated sixteen thousand pages of federal regulations hundreds of programs thousands of unnecessary offices. The government is over two hundred thousand people smaller today than it was the day I took

the office the oath of office. The issue is not big government versus small government. The issue is what is your responsibility through the national government to work to help people make the most of their own lives to work to help communities solve their own problems and meet their own challenges. That is the issue. And if you look at the challenge we have to take our streets back to make them safe again. I am very gratified at what we are doing. But we've got a long way to go. I'm gratified that the crime rates down here I am gratified at the crime rate is down all over America. I think it's wonderful that New York City had the biggest drop in crime since 1972. I think it is wonderful that Houston has the lowest murder rate it's had in 19 years. I think these are good things. But we all know that our job will not be over until crime and violence are the exception not the rule until every neighborhood

can say what I heard the people in this neighborhood say to me a few moments ago that people now can walk outside and walk down the street and they don't have to be afraid that the police are there at the play yard talking to the kids and they know them by name that people feel secure. You can't eliminate the darkness that lurks in human nature. There will never be a time when there is absolutely no crime in America when there's absolutely no violence. But we can go back to the days when it's the exception not the rule. And people have their freedom. Of speech my philosophy has been all along that if we could identify a national challenge and an idea that works. It was a legitimate thing for the government in Washington your government to define what the what what is the challenge and then to help people to meet that

challenge. But the people at the grassroots level should define. How to do it that people in Washington should not be telling people how to do it. That's what we do here. And our education reform as we said OK here's some national standards we ought to meet. You figure out how to do it. And welfare reform we said we want to move people from welfare to work. We want people to be better parents and effective workers and break the cycle of dependence. But any state has got a better idea about how to do it. We ought to give you permission to try. We did it in health care. We said if you can find a way to slow health care costs and expand health coverage to people who are working through the Medicaid program we'll give you a chance to determine how to do that. And we've given more permission and more state and local governments to do more things. In the last three years than the previous administration did in 12 years before me I believe in giving states and localities and private citizens the right to determine the how. But what in the case of crime is a national problem. Crime and

violence is a national problem and we know that community policing which you celebrate here in Manchester is what is working everywhere. Just a couple of weeks ago one of our Maggo a major national news magazines had a cover story on turning the corner and the war against crime and the police commissioner from New York City was featured on the cover as a stand in for all the police officers everywhere and their community supporters who are working to make projects like this work. Consider what has happened. The streets of New Hampshire are safer today because under the crime bill that we passed providing for community policing. There are 132 new police officers in communities all across this state but they aren't just there as police officers. They're also changing what they're doing. They are working with community groups like the community groups in this neighborhood they are working not just to catch more criminals but to prevent crime from occurring in the first place and to make streets and hospitable places for the return of crime and drugs and gangs

and violence. And it is working. We need to do more of it. I heard the story of a 9 year old girl who told an officer working in one of your community substations that her mother now allows her to play outside because the police have made it safe. Isn't that the story you want every child in America to be able to tell. Shouldn't every child in America be. Like. I was very moved by the grit and the determination of the people that I saw in the community substation today and by their sense that they can make a difference. One of the things that I constantly battle as your president is the feeling too many Americans have that their efforts won't make a difference anymore. Too many people seem to believe that we can't do better. And if one message comes out of

this trip I took to Manchester this morning Should he go out all over America is when it comes to crime and violence we can do better. You have done better in Manchester. People are doing better all over this country. We can take our streets and our neighborhoods back but it will require a partnership between people and law enforcement community leaders and grassroots citizens. We have to do it together no one can do it alone but together we can all do it. And that is the central lesson the United States has to face. I want to be absolutely frank in saying that while I think it would be a disastrous mistake for the Congress to reverse course on the crime bill and not to continue until we have put the full complement of 100000 police officers on our street and just a little over a year and a half we're already a third of the way home. Congress must not turn around. I want to be frank in saying to you that we could put all these

police officers out and departments all across America. And if we didn't have community leaders who were prepared to take their streets and neighborhoods back if we didn't have schools that were prepared to support the police if we didn't have parents like those that helped this substation here get decorated for Christmas and support them we could put the police officers out there and we still wouldn't succeed. It requires both a commitment to putting the police back on the street and in the neighborhoods and a commitment from citizens to win the war against crime. Every American should be challenged to join a neighborhood watch group. If you see somebody in trouble to pick up a phone and call for help to spend a few weeks a few hours every week helping out young people who need a helping hand from a caring adult through a boys club of girls or. You're a member of the community. We take back our neighborhood. You live right down the street from here and live in here five years from two sides the school the

last summer has worked out really well especially with the community police which President Clinton supports and we really need. And it's it's really doing a good job. I think the point he made that I thought was the best was. The point he made that was best was like people like me that you know the grassroots people that were involved and that's that's the key to getting rid of them all across the world but if you're not involved it's not going to do anything. To Cousens kind of agreement with this. Guy. That's. The skeptics everywhere. And that's a bunch of baloney. They know. This is they're here to stay I think it's worked. And I I know because I've lived here before they were here the crime was wrapped right around my house deal was everything. It's all gone now. So it's working. It's going to continue to work. But his point about cooperation between. Local authorities I mean exactly because with the.

The police if he had the freedom to do. What they want to do and the government isn't telling them how to do it and he made that point crystal clear it it's very true. My name is Falkland. Islands. Most definitely. He's. Meeting.

With. Speech. And. The. And he's made it difficult. That was interesting. I like that. Resume that. Come out to me. And his concern. To me. Isn't it. Oh it has it's a lot more quiet. So. Nice to see the prostitutes walking around here just to see. Drug transactions taking place right on street corners. You don't see that nearly as frequently anymore. A. Good. Yelling and screaming in the middle of the night. We don't hear that anymore. It's been a great help. I think it's long lasting. I believe so once the people get a taste of what it's like to be. Living in that peaceful place that you will continue. As it's called now people don't sit on street corners or on the street. They don't during the summer. It's so little more noise because people are in and out of what we used to

hear them all times of the nights. Consider shows. Support. Definitely. And I don't think that he gets the credit that he should have. I really don't. But I think the proof is in the pudding and the pudding looks good. Oh I agree. You do. Oh I'm a registered Democrat. I'm Jermaine. Jermaine go. I'm sorry. I'm. Scheduled to go out to Iowa I believe towards. The end of next

week I don't know I'm not exactly sure tentatively scheduled a similar trip to Iowa next week. And then. You know tentative plans for him to be back here on the 17th. And definitely do the hundred club and 17th the evening of the 17th. Quit. The. Street. Search to teach someone. Something. Yeah I mean basically talk a little bit about his vision for the future. And you know in New Hampshire which is a. Place that. He feels very specially about. It's a it's a good place for him to come up and talk to people and talk about the themes he laid out the state of the Union in front of a crowd that understands him knows Sandman you know put him in office in part because. He's been. Rooting for. This. I mean there's been some misinformation out there. I mean there's no Republican is talking about how the president's economic strategy worked when they all said it wouldn't. There's no Republican out there saying that the president's cut the deficit in half as a share of the economy. When they said it

would. There's no one talking about how unemployment and inflation are at you know 27 year low. So. He's going to come out here and talk about what he's done and where he wants to go in the future. He knows he has a lot more to work to do on the economy and on some of these other challenges that he laid out. All right. He might just do some stuff. Right outside. There's a group out there. Of volunteers. That kind of got stock on the way and so he's going to try to see them and I think he's out to Merrimack and then out of here. All right. Thank. You. And your. I see you there. Do not. Just disappear. That's.

Right.