Bill Clinton: “But Mark Warner is committed to you and your interests and your future. Mark Warner supports the Family and Medical…”

“But Mark Warner is committed to you and your interests and your future. Mark Warner supports the Family and Medical Leave Act that's allowed 12 million families to take some time off when their babies were born or their family members were sick. He supports our efforts to put 100,000 police on the street and our violence against women program in the Department of Justice. He supports our targeted tax cuts to help people pay for a college education. He does not support the other party's agenda of abolishing the Department of Education. So I say to you, this election is about the future. It is not about the Democratic or Republican Party; it's about which vision is right for our future. Thomas Jefferson was elected President as the first President of the 19th century. Three distinguished Virginians, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, not only helped to found our country, they led us into a new century. Thomas Jefferson made the most important decision of my political life, a long time before I showed up; he bought the Louisiana territory. If he hadn't done it, I wouldn't be an American and I couldn't be here running today. I say that to make this point. Believe me, when he bought the Louisiana territory for $15 million and more than doubled the land size of the United States--and by the way, that was the entire annual budget of the Government at the time. Can you imagine what you'd do to me if I tried to spend the annual budget of the Government on anything? [Laughter] And a lot of people thought he had lost his famous reason. He could not have foreseen the full implications of everything that would flow out of that decision. He could not have known that there would be all the things that happened in the 19th century, a great Civil War, two great World Wars and a depression in the 20th century, and that somewhere in a small town in that vast expanse of land that he bought, 150 years later some other young American would be born who would have a chance to grow up and be President. He did it because he had this vision of the future. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. Just before I came over here, I met with a lot of cancer advocates, people who have worked on research and treatment and prevention, people who have worked especially on breast cancer. I announced $30 million in extra funding for breast cancer genetic research because we just discovered two of the genes that cause breast cancer. It may enable us to prevent it forever. Now, let me just talk about some of the other things that have happened in the last 4 years. Because of research and faster approval of drugs, we have more than doubled the life expectancy of people with HIV and AIDS. It's on its way to becoming a chronic illness. We developed the first treatment for stroke ever. We have seen, for the first time ever, in laboratory animals whose spines were totally severed, movement in the lower limbs by the transfer of nerves from other parts of their bodies to the spine. This has enormous implications for military veterans, accident victims, and others who have been confined in their movements because of damage to their spines. We just signed a contract with IBM not very long ago to develop a supercomputer in the next couple of years that will do as many calculations in a second as you can do on a hand-held computer in 30,000 years. Now, that is the world we're going into. I appreciate what Senator Robb said. We are better off than we were 4 years ago. We are moving in the right direction. But the issue is, where are we going? What is our philosophy? Again, I say, this is a period not all that unlike 200 years ago. It's not about party; it's about vision. Mark Warner, Chuck Robb, Bobby Scott, Jim Moran, Don Beyer, we share a vision about the things we must do together as a nation, in our States, in our communities to help each other make the most of our own lives, to seize those opportunities for the 21st century, and to move this country forward. That's the issue. Are we going to build a bridge to the future big enough and strong enough for us all to walk across? Are you willing to help? [Applause] Do we really believe we would be better off if their vision had prevailed for the last 4 years? Audience members. No-o-o!”