Bill Clinton: “I think it depends overwhelmingly on how people react to them. But just consider what the argument of those ads is. The…”

“I think it depends overwhelmingly on how people react to them. But just consider what the argument of those ads is. The argument of those ads is that voters, Hispanic voters and others, should punish completely innocent Democrats. In other words, they're saying punish someone else for this. And ultimately, the argument is, they're telling the voters they should punish themselves. They should say, ``Vote for us, even though everything we're doing is not good for you; and don't vote for them, even though they will vote for modernized schools and 100,000 teachers; they--the Democrats--they will vote for a Patients' Bill of Rights; they will vote to raise the minimum wage; they will vote to save Social Security; they will vote for a fair, complete, and accurate census.'' Now, the argument of the Republican ads is you should forget about all that, all those things that are about you, and play our partisan political game here in Washington. And that's basically been what the Republicans are saying. I don't think the American people will buy that. But what Hispanic voters need to understand is that the stakes are high here: the Senate seats in California and New York; any number of House seats in California; there are House seats up in Colorado, in New Mexico; a Senate seat and House seat up in Nevada; and the enormously important Senate race in Illinois, where Senator Carol Moseley-Braun has made a remarkable comeback in the last week; the elections in Florida; the elections in Maryland. And I could go on and on. There are about three dozen House of Representatives seats at issue here. Many, many of them have substantial Hispanic populations. There are seven or eight Senate seats at stake here, and several of them have substantial Hispanic populations; and then, of course, all these Governorships. So I would say, this election ought to be about the American people and their children and their future and whether or not we have done a good job for them and whether or not our ideas are best for the future. They would like it, the Republicans, to use their $100 million financial advantage in contributions to get everyone to forget that they have killed the Patients' Bill of Rights, killed the minimum wage increase, that they have killed legislation to protect our children from the dangers of tobacco, that they killed the campaign finance reform, that they killed the school modernization initiative, and get people to buy into their Washington power games. I think the American people know that my administration has been about people, not politics, about progress, not partisanship. And I think this election is very much worth voting in. But a decision not to vote is also a decision about what will go on here in Washington, DC, just as a decision to vote is. California Proposition 10”