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Jimmy Carter 1980 Jimmy Carter 1980 August 14, 1980










New York, New York

Remarks Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the 1980 Democratic National Convention.

August 14, 1980

Fellow Democrats, fellow citizens:

I thank you for the nomination you've offered me, and I especially thank you for choosing as my running mate the best partner any President ever had, Fritz Mondale.

With gratitude and with determination I accept your nomination, and I am proud to run on the progressive and sound platform that you have hammered out at this convention.

Fritz and I will mount a campaign that defines the real issues, a campaign that responds to the intelligence of the American people, a campaign that talks sense. And we're going to beat the Republicans in November.

We'll win because we are the party of a great President who knew how to get reelected--Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And we are the party of a courageous fighter who knew how to give 'em hell--Harry Truman. And as Truman said, he just told the truth and they thought it was hell. And we're the party of a gallant man of spirit--John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And we're the party of a great leader of compassion--Lyndon Baines Johnson, and the party of a great man who should have been President, who would have been one of the greatest Presidents in history--Hubert Horatio Hornblower--Humphrey. I have appreciated what this convention has said about Senator Humphrey, a great man who epitomized the spirit of the Democratic Party. And I would like to say that we are also the party of Governor Jerry Brown and Senator Edward Kennedy.

I'd like to say a personal word to Senator Kennedy. Ted, you're a tough competitor and a superb campaigner, and I can attest to that. Your speech before this convention was a magnificent statement of what the Democratic Party is and what it means to the people of this country and why a Democratic victory is so important this year. I reach out to you tonight, and I reach out to all those who supported you in your valiant and passionate campaign. Ted, your party needs and I need you. And I need your idealism and your dedication working for us. There is no doubt that even greater service lies ahead of you, and we are grateful to you and to have your strong partnership now in a larger cause to which your own life has been dedicated.

I thank you for your support; we'll make great partners this fall in whipping the Republicans. We are Democrats and we've had our differences, but we share a bright vision of America's future--a vision of a good life for all our people, a vision of a secure nation, a just society, a peaceful world, a strong America--confident and proud and united. And we have a memory of Franklin Roosevelt, 40 years ago, when he said that there are times in our history when concerns over our personal lives are overshadowed by our concern over "what will happen to the county we have known." This is such a time, and I can tell you that the choice to be made this year can transform our own personal lives and the life of our country as well.

During the last Presidential campaign, I crisscrossed this country and I listened to thousands and thousands of people-housewives and farmers, teachers and small business leaders, workers and students, the elderly and the poor, people of every race and every background and every walk of life. It was a powerful experience--a total immersion in the human reality of America.

And I have now had another kind of total immersion--being President of the United States of America. Let me talk for a moment about what that job is like and what I've learned from it.

I've learned that only the most complex and difficult task comes before me in the Oval Office. No easy answers are found there, because no easy questions come there.

I've learned that for a President, experience is the best guide to the right decisions. I'm wiser tonight than I was 4 years ago.

And I have learned that the Presidency is a place of compassion. My own heart is burdened for the troubled Americans. The poor and the jobless and the afflicted-they've become part of me. My thoughts and my prayers for our hostages in Iran are as though they were my own sons and daughters.

The life of every human being on Earth can depend on the experience and judgment and vigilance of the person in the Oval Office. The President's power for building and his power for destruction are awesome. And the power's greatest exactly where the stakes are highest--in matters of war and peace.

And I've learned something else, something that I have come to see with extraordinary clarity: Above all, I must look ahead, because the President of the United States is the steward of the Nation's destiny. He must protect our children and the children they will have and the children of generations to follow. He must speak and act for them. That is his burden and his glory.

And that is why a President cannot yield to the shortsighted demands, no matter how rich or powerful the special interests might be that make those demands. And that's why the President cannot bend to the passions of the moment, however popular they might be. That's why the President must sometimes ask for sacrifice when his listeners would rather hear the promise of comfort.

The President is a servant of today, but his true constituency is the future. That's why the election of 1980 is so important.

Some have said it makes no difference who wins this election. They are wrong. This election is a stark choice between two men, two parties, two sharply different pictures of what America is and what the world is, but it's more than that--it's a choice between two futures.

The year 2000 is just less than 20 years away, just four Presidential elections after this one. Children born this year will come of age in the 21st century. The time to shape the world of the year 2000 is now. The decisions of the next few years will set our course, perhaps an irreversible course, and the most important of all choices will be made by the American people at the polls less than 3 months from tonight.

The choice could not be more clear nor the consequences more crucial. In one of the futures we can choose, the future that you and I have been building together, I see security and justice and peace.

I see a future of economic security-security that will come from tapping our own great resources of oil and gas, coal and sunlight, and from building the tools and technology and factories for a revitalized economy based on jobs and stable prices for everyone.

I see a future of justice--the justice of good jobs, decent health care, quality education, a full opportunity for all people regardless of color or language or religion; the simple human justice of equal rights for all men and for all women, guaranteed equal rights at last under the Constitution of the United States of America.

And I see a future of peace--a peace born of wisdom and based on a fairness toward all countries of the world, a peace guaranteed both by American military strength and by American moral strength as well.

That is the future I want for all people, a future of confidence and hope and a good life. It's the future America must choose, and with your help and with your commitment, it is the future America will choose.

But there is another possible future. In that other future I see despair--despair of millions who would struggle for equal opportunity and a better life and struggle alone. And I see surrender--the surrender of our energy future to the merchants of oil, the surrender of our economic future to a bizarre program of massive tax cuts for the rich, service cuts for the poor, and massive inflation for everyone. And I see risk--the risk of international confrontation, the risk of an uncontrollable, unaffordable, and unwinnable nuclear arms race.

No one, Democrat or Republican either, consciously seeks such a future, and I do not claim that my opponent does. But I do question the disturbing commitments and policies already made by him and by those with him who have now captured control of the Republican Party. The consequences of those commitments and policies would drive us down the wrong road. It's up to all of us to make sure America rejects this alarming and even perilous destiny.

The only way to build a better future is to start with the realities of the present. But while we Democrats grapple with the real challenges of a real world, others talk about a world of tinsel and make-believe.

Let's look for a moment at their make-believe world.

In their fantasy America, inner-city people and farm workers and laborers do not exist. Women, like children, are to be seen but not heard. The problems of working women are simply ignored. The elderly do not need Medicare. The young do not need more help in getting a better education. Workers do not require the guarantee of a healthy and a safe place to work. In their fantasy world, all the complex global changes of the world since World War II have never happened. In their fantasy America, all problems have simple solutions--simple and wrong.

It's a make-believe world, a world of good guys and bad guys, where some politicians shoot first and ask questions later. No hard choices, no sacrifice, no tough decisions--it sounds too good to be true, and it is.

The path of fantasy leads to irresponsibility. The path of reality leads to hope and peace. The two paths could not be more different, nor could the futures to which they lead. Let's take a hard look at the consequences of our choice.

You and I have been working toward a more secure future by rebuilding our military strength--steadily, carefully, and responsibly. The Republicans talk about military strength, but they were in office for 8 out of the last 11 years, and in the face of a growing Soviet threat they steadily cut real defense spending by more than a third.

We've reversed the Republican decline in defense. Every year since I've been President we've had real increases in our commitment to a stronger Nation, increases which are prudent and rational. There is no doubt that the United States of America can meet a threat from the Soviet Union. Our modernized strategic forces, a revitalized NATO, the Trident submarine, the Cruise missile, the Rapid Deployment Force--all these guarantee that we will never be second to any nation. Deeds, not words; fact, not fiction. We must and we will continue to build our own defenses. We must and we will continue to seek balanced reductions in nuclear arms.

The new leaders of the Republican Party, in order to close the gap between their rhetoric and their record, have now promised to launch an all-out nuclear arms race. This would negate any further effort to negotiate a strategic arms limitation agreement. There can be no winners in such an arms race, and all the people of the Earth can be the losers.

The Republican nominee advocates abandoning arms control policies which have been important and supported by every Democratic President since Harry, Truman, and also by every Republican President since Dwight D. Eisenhower. This radical and irresponsible course would threaten our security and could put the whole world in peril. You and I must never let this come to pass.

It's simple to call for a new arms race, but when armed aggression threatens world peace, tough-sounding talk like that is not enough. A President must act responsibly.

When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, we moved quickly to take action. I suspended some grain sales to the Soviet Union; I called for draft registration; and I joined wholeheartedly with the Congress and with the U.S. Olympic Committee and led more than 60 other nations in boycotting the big propaganda show in Russia--the Moscow Olympics.

The Republican leader opposed two of these forceful but peaceful actions, and he waffled on the third. But when we asked him what he would do about aggression in Southwest Asia, he suggested blockading Cuba. [Laughter] Even his running mate wouldn't go along with that. He doesn't seem to know what to do with the Russians. He's not sure if he wants to feed them or play with them or fight with them.

As I look back at my first term, I'm grateful that we've had a country for the full 4 years of peace. And that's what we're going to have for the next 4 years-peace.

It's only common sense that if America is to stay secure and at peace, we must encourage others to be peaceful as well.

As you know, we've helped in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia where we've stood firm for racial justice and democracy. And we have also helped in the Middle East.

Some have criticized the Camp David accords and they've criticized some delays in the implementation of the Middle East peace treaty. Well, before I became President there was no Camp David accords and there was no Middle East peace treaty. Before Camp David, Israel and Egypt were poised across barbed wire, confronting each other with guns and tanks and planes. But afterward, they talked face-to-face with each other across a peace table, and they also communicated through their own Ambassadors in Cairo and Tel Aviv.

Now that's the kind of future we're offering--of peace to the Middle East if the Democrats are reelected in the fall.

I am very proud that nearly half the aid that our country has ever given to Israel in the 32 years of her existence has come during my administration. Unlike our Republican predecessors, we have never stopped nor slowed that aid to Israel. And as long as I am President, we will never do so. Our commitment is clear: security and peace for Israel; peace for all the peoples of the Middle East.

But if the world is to have a future of freedom as well as peace, America must continue to defend human rights.

Now listen to this: The new Republican leaders oppose our human rights policy. They want to scrap it. They seem to think it's naive for America to stand up for freedom and democracy. Just what do they think we should stand up for?

Ask the former political prisoners who now live in freedom if we should abandon our stand on human rights. Ask the dissidents in the Soviet Union about our commitment to human rights. Ask the Hungarian Americans, ask the Polish Americans, listen to Pope John Paul II. Ask those who are suffering for the sake of justice and liberty around the world. Ask the millions who've fled tyranny if America should stop speaking out for human principles. Ask the American people. I tell you that as long as I am President, we will hold high the banner of human rights, and you can depend on it.

Here at home the choice between the two futures is equally important.

In the long run, nothing is more crucial to the future of America than energy; nothing was so disastrously neglected in the past. Long after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the Republicans in the White House had still done nothing to meet the threat to the national security of our Nation. Then, as now, their policy was dictated by the big oil companies.

We Democrats fought hard to rally our Nation behind a comprehensive energy policy and a good program, a new foundation for challenging and exciting progress. Now, after 3 years of struggle, we have that program. The battle to secure America's energy future has been fully and finally joined. Americans 'have cooperated with dramatic results. We've reversed decades of dangerous and growing dependence on foreign oil. We are now importing 20 percent less oil--that is 1 1/2 million barrels of oil every day less than the day I took office.

And with our new energy policy now in place, we can discover more, produce more, create more, and conserve more energy, and we will use American resources, American technology, and millions of American workers to do it with.

Now, what do the Republicans propose? Basically, their energy program has two parts. The first part is to get rid of almost everything that we've done for the American public in the last 3 years. They want to reduce or abolish the synthetic fuels program. They want to slash the solar energy incentives, the conservation programs, aid to mass transit, aid to elderly Americans to help pay their fuel bills. They want to eliminate the 55-mile speed limit. And while they are at it, the Republicans would like to gut the Clean Air Act. They never liked it to begin with.

That's one part of their program; the other part is worse. To replace what we have built, this is what they propose: to destroy the windfall profits tax and to "unleash" the oil companies and let them solve the energy problem for us. That's it. That is it. That's their whole program. There is no more. Can this Nation accept such an outrageous program?

AUDIENCE. No !

THE PRESIDENT. No! We Democrats will fight it every step of the way, and we'll begin tomorrow morning with a campaign for reelection in November.

When I took office, I inherited a heavy load of serious economic problems besides energy, and we've met them all head-on. We've slashed Government regulations and put free enterprise back into the airlines, the trucking and the financial systems of our country, and we're now doing the same thing for the railroads. This is the greatest change in the relationship between Government and business since the New Deal. We've increased our exports dramatically. We've reversed the decline in the basic research and development, and we have created more than 8 million new jobs--the biggest increase in the history of our country.

But the road is bumpy, and last year's skyrocketing OPEC price increases have helped to trigger a worldwide inflation crisis. We took forceful action, and interest rates have now fallen, the dollar is stable and, although we still have a battle on our hands, we're struggling to bring inflation under control.

We are now at the critical point, a turning point in our economic history of our country. But because we made the hard decisions, because we have guided our Nation and its economy through a rough but essential period of transition, we've laid the groundwork for a new economic age.

Our economic renewal program for the 1980's will meet our immediate need for jobs and attack the very same, long-range problem that caused unemployment and inflation in the first place. It'll move America simultaneously towards our five great economic goals--lower inflation, better productivity, revitalization of American industry, energy security, and jobs.

It's time to put all America back to work--but not in make-work, in real work. And there is real work in modernizing American industries and creating new industries for America as well. Here are just a few things we'll rebuild together and build together:

--new industries to turn our own coal and shale and farm products into fuel for our cars and trucks and to turn the light of the sun into heat and electricity for our homes;

--a modern transportation system of railbeds and ports to make American coal into a powerful rival of OPEC oil;

--industries that will provide the convenience of futuristic computer technology and communications to serve millions of American homes and offices and factories;

--job training for workers displaced by economic changes;

--new investment pinpointed in regions and communities where jobs are needed most;

--better mass transit in our cities and in between cities;

--and a whole new generation of American jobs to make homes and vehicles and buildings that will house us and move us in comfort with a lot less energy.

This is important, too: I have no doubt that the ingenuity, and dedication of the American people can make every single one of these things happen. We are talking about the United States of America, and those who count this country out as an economic superpower are going to find out just how wrong they are. We're going to share in the exciting enterprise of making the 1980's a time of growth for America.

The Republican alternative is the biggest tax giveaway in history. They call it Reagan-Kemp-Roth; I call it a free lunch that Americans cannot afford. The Republican tax program offers rebates to the rich, deprivation for the poor, and fierce inflation for all of us. Their party's own Vice Presidential nominee said that Reagan-Kemp-Roth would result in an inflation rate of more than 30 percent. He called it "voodoo economics". He suddenly changed his mind toward the end of the Republican Convention, but he was right the first time.

Along with this gigantic tax cut, the new Republican leaders promise to protect retirement and health programs and to have massive increases in defense spending-and they claim they can balance the budget. If they are serious about these promises, and they say they are, then a close analysis shows that the entire rest of the Government would have to be abolished, everything from education to farm programs, from the G.I. bill to the night watchman at the Lincoln Memorial--and their budget would still be in the red. The only alternative would be to build more printing presses to print cheap money. Either way, the American people lose. But the American people will not stand for it.

The Democratic Party has always embodied the hope of our people for justice, opportunity, and a better life, and we've worked in every way possible to strengthen the American family, to encourage self-reliance, and to follow the Old Testament admonition: "Defend the poor and the fatherless; give justice to the afflicted and needy." We've struggled to assure that no child in America ever goes to bed hungry, that no elderly couple in America has to live in a substandard home, and that no young person in America is excluded from college because the family is poor.

But what have the Republicans proposed?--just an attack on everything that we've done in the achievement of social justice and decency that we've won in the last 50 years, ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term. They would make social security voluntary. They would reverse our progress on the minimum wage, full employment laws, safety in the work place, and a healthy environment.

Lately, as you know, the Republicans have been quoting Democratic Presidents. But who can blame them? Would you rather quote Herbert Hoover or Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Would you rather quote Richard Nixon or John Fitzgerald Kennedy?

The Republicans have always been the party of privilege, but this year their leaders have gone even further. In their platform, they have repudiated the best traditions of their own party. Where is the conscience of Lincoln in the party of Lincoln? What's become of their traditional Republican commitment to fiscal responsibility? What's happened to their commitment to a safe and sane arms control?

Now, I don't claim perfection for the Democratic Party. I don't claim that every decision that we have made has been right or popular; certainly, they've not all been easy. But I will say this: We've been tested under fire. We've neither ducked nor hidden, and we've tackled the great central issues of our time, the historic challenges of peace and energy, which have been ignored for years. We've made tough decisions, and we've taken the heat for them. We've made mistakes, and we've learned from them. But we have built the foundation now for a better future.

We've done something else, perhaps even more important. In good times and bad, in the valleys and on the peaks, we've told people the truth, the hard truth, the truth that sometimes hurts.

One truth that we Americans have learned is that our dream has been earned for progress and for peace. Look what our land has been through within our own memory--a great depression, a world war, a technological explosion, the civil rights revolution, the bitterness of Vietnam, the shame of Watergate, the twilight peace of nuclear terror.

Through each of these momentous experiences we've learned the hard way about the world and about ourselves. But we've matured and we've grown as a nation and we've grown stronger.

We've learned the uses and the limitations of power. We've learned the beauty and responsibility of freedom. We've learned the value and the obligation of justice. And we have learned the necessity of peace.

Some would argue that to master these lessons is somehow to limit our potential. That is not so. A nation which knows its true strengths, which sees its true challenges, which understands legitimate constraints, that nation--our nation--is far stronger than one which takes refuge in wishful thinking or nostalgia. The Democratic Party--the American people-have understood these fundamental truths.

All of us can sympathize with the desire for easy answers. There's often the temptation to substitute idle dreams for hard reality. The new Republican leaders are hoping that our Nation will succumb to that temptation this year, but they profoundly misunderstand and underestimate the character of the American people.

Three weeks after Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill came to North America and he said, "We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy." We Americans have courage. Americans have always been on the cutting edge of change. We've always looked forward with anticipation and confidence.

I still want the same thing that all of you want--a self-reliant neighborhood, strong families, work for the able-bodied and good medical care for the sick, opportunity for our youth and dignity for our old, equal rights and justice for all people.

I want teachers eager to explain what a civilization really is, and I want students to understand their own needs and their own aims, but also the needs and yearnings of their neighbors.

I want women free to pursue without limit the full life of what they want for themselves.

I want our farmers growing crops to feed our Nation and the world, secure in the knowledge that the family farm will thrive and with a fair return on the good work they do for all of us.

I want workers to see meaning in the labor they perform and work enough to guarantee a job for every worker in this country.

And I want the people in business free to pursue with boldness and freedom new ideas.

And I want minority citizens fully to join the mainstream of American life. And I want from the bottom of my heart to remove the blight of racial and other discrimination from the face of our Nation, and I'm determined to do it.

I need for all of you to join me in fulfilling that vision. The choice, the choice between the two futures, could not be more clear. If we succumb to a dream world then we'll wake up to a nightmare. But if we start with reality and fight to make our dreams a reality, then Americans will have a good life, a life of meaning and purpose in a nation that's strong and secure.

Above all, I want us to be what the Founders of our Nation meant us to become--the land of freedom, the land of peace, and the land of hope.

Thank you very much.

NOTE: The President spoke at 10:28 p.m. at Madison Square Garden. His remarks were broadcast live on radio and television.

Source:

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter: 1977-1981.

9 vols. Washington: U.S. Govt. Printing Off., 1977-1982.

Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum Ronald Reagan 1980 Ronald Reagan 1980 July 17, 1980










Ronald Reagan Nomination Acceptance Speech

Republican National Convention

Detroit, Michigan

July 17, 1980

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice President to be, this convention, my fellow citizens of this great nation:

With a deep awareness of the responsibility conferred by your trust, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States. I do so with deep gratitude, and I think also I might interject on behalf of all of us, our thanks to Detroit and the people of Michigan and to this city for the warm hospitality they have shown. And I thank you for your wholehearted response to my recommendation in regard to George Bush as a candidate for vice president.

I am very proud of our party tonight. This convention has shown to all America a party united, with positive programs for solving the nation's problems; a party ready to build a new consensus with all those across the land who share a community of values embodied in these words: family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom.

I know we have had a quarrel or two, but only as to the method of attaining a goal. There was no argument about the goal. As president, I will establish a liaison with the 50 governors to encourage them to eliminate, where it exists, discrimination against women. I will monitor federal laws to insure their implementation and to add statutes if they are needed.

More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country; to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values.

Never before in our history have Americans been called upon to face three grave threats to our very existence, any one of which could destroy us. We face a disintegrating economy, a weakened defense and an energy policy based on the sharing of scarcity.

The major issue of this campaign is the direct political, personal and moral responsibility of Democratic Party leadership--in the White House and in Congress--for this unprecedented calamity which has befallen us. They tell us they have done the most that humanly could be done. They say that the United States has had its day in the sun; that our nation has passed its zenith. They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems; that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities.

My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view. The American people, the most generous on earth, who created the highest standard of living, are not going to accept the notion that we can only make a better world for others by moving backwards ourselves. Those who believe we can have no business leading the nation.

I will not stand by and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose. We have come together here because the American people deserve better from those to whom they entrust our nation's highest offices, and we stand united in our resolve to do something about it.

We need rebirth of the American tradition of leadership at every level of government and in private life as well. The United States of America is unique in world history because it has a genius for leaders--many leaders--on many levels. But, back in 1976, Mr. Carter said, "Trust me." And a lot of people did. Now, many of those people are out of work. Many have seen their savings eaten away by inflation. Many others on fixed incomes, especially the elderly, have watched helplessly as the cruel tax of inflation wasted away their purchasing power. And, today, a great many who trusted Mr. Carter wonder if we can survive the Carter policies of national defense.

"Trust me" government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man; that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties. The trust is where it belongs--in the people. The responsibility to live up to that trust is where it belongs, in their elected leaders. That kind of relationship, between the people and their elected leaders, is a special kind of compact.

Three hundred and sixty years ago, in 1620, a group of families dared to cross a mighty ocean to build a future for themselves in a new world. When they arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, they formed what they called a "compact"; an agreement among themselves to build a community and abide by its laws.

The single act--the voluntary binding together of free people to live under the law--set the pattern for what was to come.

A century and a half later, the descendants of those people pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to found this nation. Some forfeited their fortunes and their lives; none sacrificed honor.

Four score and seven years later, Abraham Lincoln called upon the people of all America to renew their dedication and their commitment to a government of, for and by the people.

Isn't it once again time to renew our compact of freedom; to pledge to each other all that is best in our lives; all that gives meaning to them--for the sake of this, our beloved and blessed land?

Together, let us make this a new beginning. Let us make a commitment to care for the needy; to teach our children the values and the virtues handed down to us by our families; to have the courage to defend those values and the willingness to sacrifice for them.

Let us pledge to restore, in our time, the American spirit of voluntary service, of cooperation, of private and community initiative; a spirit that flows like a deep and mighty river through the history of our nation.

As your nominee, I pledge to restore to the federal government the capacity to do the people's work without dominating their lives. I pledge to you a government that will not only work well, but wisely; its ability to act tempered by prudence and its willingness to do good balanced by the knowledge that government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

The first Republican president once said, "While the people retain their virtue and their vigilance, no administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can seriously injure the government in the short space of four years."

If Mr. Lincoln could see what's happened in these last three-and-a-half years, he might hedge a little on that statement. But, with the virtues that our legacy as a free people and with the vigilance that sustains liberty, we still have time to use our renewed compact to overcome the injuries that have been done to America these past three-and-a-half years.

First, we must overcome something the present administration has cooked up: a new and altogether indigestible economic stew, one part inflation, one part high unemployment, one part recession, one part runaway taxes, one party deficit spending and seasoned by an energy crisis. It's an economic stew that has turned the national stomach.

Ours are not problems of abstract economic theory. Those are problems of flesh and blood; problems that cause pain and destroy the moral fiber of real people who should not suffer the further indignity of being told by the government that it is all somehow their fault. We do not have inflation because--as Mr. Carter says--we have lived too well.

The head of a government which has utterly refused to live within its means and which has, in the last few days, told us that this year's deficit will be $60 billion, dares to point the finger of blame at business and labor, both of which have been engaged in a losing struggle just trying to stay even.

High taxes, we are told, are somehow good for us, as if, when government spends our money it isn't inflationary, but when we spend it, it is.

Those who preside over the worst energy shortage in our history tell us to use less, so that we will run out of oil, gasoline, and natural gas a little more slowly. Conservation is desirable, of course, for we must not waste energy. But conservation is not the sole answer to our energy needs.

America must get to work producing more energy. The Republican program for solving economic problems is based on growth and productivity.

Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched because the present administration seems to believe the American people would rather see more regulation, taxes and controls than more energy.

Coal offers great potential. So does nuclear energy produced under rigorous safety standards. It could supply electricity for thousands of industries and millions of jobs and homes. It must not be thwarted by a tiny minority opposed to economic growth which often finds friendly ears in regulatory agencies for its obstructionist campaigns.

Make no mistake. We will not permit the safety of our people or our environment heritage to be jeopardized, but we are going to reaffirm that the economic prosperity of our people is a fundamental part of our environment.

Our problems are both acute and chronic, yet all we hear from those in positions of leadership are the same tired proposals for more government tinkering, more meddling and more control--all of which led us to this state in the first place.

Can anyone look at the record of this administration and say, "Well done?" Can anyone compare the state of our economy when the Carter Administration took office with where we are today and say, "Keep up the good work?" Can anyone look at our reduced standing in the world today and say, "Let's have four more years of this?"

I believe the American people are going to answer these questions the first week of November and their answer will be, "No--we've had enough." And, then it will be up to us--beginning next January 20th--to offer an administration and congressional leadership of competence and more than a little courage.

We must have the clarity of vision to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable, and then the courage to bring our government back under control and make it acceptable to the people.

It is essential that we maintain both the forward momentum of economic growth and the strength of the safety net beneath those in society who need help. We also believe it is essential that the integrity of all aspects of Social Security are preserved.

Beyond these essentials, I believe it is clear our federal government is overgrown and overweight. Indeed, it is time for our government to go on a diet. Therefore, my first act as chief executive will be to impose an immediate and thorough freeze on federal hiring. Then, we are going to enlist the very best minds from business, labor and whatever quarter to conduct a detailed review of every department, bureau and agency that lives by federal appropriations. We are also going to enlist the help and ideas of many dedicated and hard working government employees at all levels who want a more efficient government as much as the rest of us do. I know that many are demoralized by the confusion and waste they confront in their work as a result of failed and failing policies.

Our instructions to the groups we enlist will be simple and direct. We will remind them that government programs exist at the sufferance of the American taxpayer and are paid for with money earned by working men and women. Any program that represents a waste of their money--a theft from their pocketbooks--must have that waste eliminated or the program must go--by executive order where possible; by congressional action where necessary. Everything that can be run more effectively by state and local government we shall turn over to state and local government, along with the funding sources to pay for it. We are going to put an end to the money merry-go-round where our money becomes Washington's money, to be spent by the states and cities exactly the way the federal bureaucrats tell them to.

I will not accept the excuse that the federal government has grown so big and powerful that it is beyond the control of any president, any administration or Congress. We are going to put an end to the notion that the American taxpayer exists to fund the federal government. The federal government exists to serve the American people. On January 20th, we are going to re-establish that truth.

Also on that date we are going to initiate action to get substantial relief for our taxpaying citizens and action to put people back to work. None of this will be based on any new form of monetary tinkering or fiscal sleight-of-hand. We will simply apply to government the common sense we all use in our daily lives.

Work and family are at the center of our lives; the foundation of our dignity as a free people. When we deprive people of what they have earned, or take away their jobs, we destroy their dignity and undermine their families. We cannot support our families unless there are jobs; and we cannot have jobs unless people have both money to invest and the faith to invest it.

There are concepts that stem from an economic system that for more than 200 years has helped us master a continent, create a previously undreamed of prosperity for our people and has fed millions of others around the globe. That system will continue to serve us in the future if our government will stop ignoring the basic values on which it was built and stop betraying the trust and good will of the American workers who keep it going.

The American people are carrying the heaviest peacetime tax burden in our nation's history--and it will grow even heavier, under present law, next January. We are taxing ourselves into economic exhaustion and stagnation, crushing our ability and incentive to save, invest and produce.

This must stop. We must halt this fiscal self-destruction and restore sanity to our economic system.

I have long advocated a 30 percent reduction in income tax rates over a period of three years. This phased tax reduction would begin with a 10 percent "down payment" tax cut in 1981, which the Republicans and Congress and I have already proposed.

A phased reduction of tax rates would go a long way toward easing the heavy burden on the American people. But, we should not stop here.

Within the context of economic conditions and appropriate budget priorities during each fiscal year of my presidency, I would strive to go further. This would include improvement in business depreciation taxes so we can stimulate investment in order to get plants and equipment replaced, put more Americans back to work and put our nation back on the road to being competitive in world commerce. We will also work to reduce the cost of government as a percentage of our gross national product.

The first task of national leadership is to set honest and realistic priorities in our policies and our budget and I pledge that my administration will do that.

When I talk of tax cuts, I am reminded that every major tax cut in this century has strengthened the economy, generated renewed productivity and ended up yielding new revenues for the government by creating new investment, new jobs and more commerce among our people.

The present administration has been forced by us Republicans to play follow-the-leader with regard to a tax cut. But, in this election year we must take with the proverbial "grain of salt" any tax cut proposed by those who have given us the greatest tax increase in our history. When those in leadership give us tax increases and tell us we must also do with less, have they thought about those who have always had less--especially the minorities? This is like telling them that just as they step on the first rung of the ladder of opportunity, the ladder is being pulled out from under them. That may be the Democratic leadership's message to the minorities, but it won't be ours. Our message will be: we have to move ahead, but we're not going to leave anyone behind. Thanks to the economic policies of the Democratic Party, millions of Americans find themselves out of work. Millions more have never even had a fair chance to learn new skills, hold a decent job, or secure for themselves and their families a share in the prosperity of this nation.

It is time to put America back to work; to make our cities and towns resound with the confident voices of men and women of all races, nationalities and faiths bringing home to their families a decent paycheck they can cash for honest money.

For those without skills, we'll find a way to help them get skills.

For those without job opportunities, we'll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live.

For those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!

When we move from domestic affairs and cast our eyes abroad, we see an equally sorry chapter on the record of the present administration.

- As Soviet combat brigade trains in Cuba, just 90 miles from our shores.

- A Soviet army of invasion occupies Afghanistan, further threatening our vital interests in the Middle East.

- America's defense strength is at its lowest ebb in a generation, while the Soviet Union is vastly outspending us in both strategic and conventional arms.

- Our European allies, looking nervously at the growing menace from the East, turn to us for leadership and fail to find it.

- And, incredibly more than 50 of our fellow Americans have been held captive for over eight months by a dictatorial foreign power that holds us up to ridicule before the world.

Adversaries large and small test our will and seek to confound our resolve, but we are given weakness when we need strength; vacillation when the times demand firmness.

The Carter Administration lives in the world of make-believe. Every day, drawing up a response to that day's problems, troubles, regardless of what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow.

The rest of us, however, live in the real world. It is here that disasters are overtaking our nation without any real response from Washington.

This is make-believe, self-deceit and--above all--transparent hypocrisy.

For example, Mr. Carter says he supports the volunteer army, but he lets military pay and benefits slip so low that many of our enlisted personnel are actually eligible for food stamps. Re-enlistment rates drop and, just recently, after he fought all week against a proposal to increase the pay of our men and women in uniform, he helicoptered to our carrier, the U.S.S. Nimitz, which was returning from long months of duty. He told the crew that he advocated better pay for them and their comrades! Where does he really stand, now that he's back on shore?

I'll tell you where I stand. I do not favor a peacetime draft or registration, but I do favor pay and benefit levels that will attract and keep highly motivated men and women in our volunteer forces and an active reserve trained and ready for an instant call in case of an emergency.

There may be a sailor at the helm of the ship of state, but the ship has no rudder. Critical decisions are made at times almost in comic fashion, but who can laugh? Who was not embarrassed when the administration handed a major propaganda victory in the United Nations to the enemies of Israel, our staunch Middle East ally for three decades, and them claim that the American vote was a "mistake," the result of a "failure of communication" between the president, his secretary of state, and his U.N. ambassador?

Who does not feel a growing sense of unease as our allies, facing repeated instances of an amateurish and confused administration, reluctantly conclude that America is unwilling or unable to fulfill its obligations as the leader of the free world?

Who does not feel rising alarm when the question in any discussion of foreign policy is no longer, "Should we do something?", but "Do we have the capacity to do anything?"

The administration which has brought us to this state is seeking your endorsement for four more years of weakness, indecision, mediocrity and incompetence. No American should vote until he or she has asked, is the United States stronger and more respected now than it was three-and-a-half years ago? Is the world today a safer place in which to live?

It is the responsibility of the president of the United States, in working for peace, to insure that the safety of our people cannot successfully be threatened by a hostile foreign power. As president, fulfilling that responsibility will be my number one priority.

We are not a warlike people. Quite the opposite. We always seek to live in peace. We resort to force infrequently and with great reluctance--and only after we have determined that it is absolutely necessary. We are awed--and rightly so--by the forces of destruction at loose in the world in this nuclear era. But neither can we be naive or foolish. Four times in my lifetime America has gone to war, bleeding the lives of its young men into the sands of beachheads, the fields of Europe and the jungles and rice paddies of Asia. We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted.

We simply cannot learn these lessons the hard way again without risking our destruction.

Of all the objectives we seek, first and foremost is the establishment of lasting world peace. We must always stand ready to negotiate in good faith, ready to pursue any reasonable avenue that holds forth the promise of lessening tensions and furthering the prospects of peace. But let our friends and those who may wish us ill take note: the United States has an obligation to its citizens and to the people of the world never to let those who would destroy freedom dictate the future course of human life on this planet. I would regard my election as proof that we have renewed our resolve to preserve world peace and freedom. This nation will once again be strong enough to do that.

This evening marks the last step--save one--of a campaign that has taken Nancy and me from one end of this great land to the other, over many months and thousands of miles. There are those who question the way we choose a president; who say that our process imposes difficult and exhausting burdens on those who seek the office. I have not found it so.

It is impossible to capture in words the splendor of this vast continent which God has granted as our portion of this creation. There are no words to express the extraordinary strength and character of this breed of people we call Americans.

Everywhere we have met thousands of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans from all economic conditions and walks of life bound together in that community of shared values of family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom. They are concerned, yes, but they are not frightened. They are disturbed, but not dismayed. They are the kind of men and women Tom Paine had in mind when he wrote--during the darkest days of the American Revolution--"We have it in our power to begin the world over again."

Nearly 150 years after Tom Paine wrote those words, an American president told the generation of the Great Depression that it had a "rendezvous with destiny." I believe that this generation of Americans today has a rendezvous with destiny.

Tonight, let us dedicate ourselves to renewing the American compact. I ask you not simply to "Trust me," but to trust your values--our values--and to hold me responsible for living up to them. I ask you to trust that American spirit which knows no ethnic, religious, social, political, regional, or economic boundaries; the spirit that burned with zeal in the hearts of millions of immigrants from every corner of the Earth who came here in search of freedom.

Some say that spirit no longer exists. But I have seen it--I have felt it--all across the land; in the big cities, the small towns and in rural America. The American spirit is still there, ready to blaze into life if you and I are willing to do what has to be done; the practical, down-to-earth things that will stimulate our economy, increase productivity and put America back to work. The time is now to resolve that the basis of a firm and principled foreign policy is one that takes the world as it is and seeks to change it by leadership and example; not by harangue, harassment or wishful thinking.

The time is now to say that while we shall seek new friendships and expand and improve others, we shall not do so by breaking our word or casting aside old friends and allies.

And, the time is now to redeem promises once made to the American people by another candidate, in another time and another place. He said, "For three long years I have been going up and down this country preaching that government--federal, state, and local--costs too much. I shall not stop that preaching. As an immediate program of action, we must abolish useless offices. We must eliminate unnecessary functions of government...we must consolidate subdivisions of government and, like the private citizen, give up luxuries which we can no longer afford."

"I propose to you, my friends, and through you that government of all kinds, big and little be made solvent and that the example be set by the president of the United State and his Cabinet."

So said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention in July 1932.

The time is now, my fellow Americans, to recapture our destiny, to take it into our own hands. But, to do this will take many of us, working together. I ask you tonight to volunteer your help in this cause so we can carry our message throughout the land.

Yes, isn't now the time that we, the people, carried out these unkempt promises? Let us pledge to each other and to all America on this July day 48 years later, we intend to do just that.

I have thought of something that is not part of my speech and I'm worried over whether I should do it.

Can we doubt that only a Divine Providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely: Jews and Christians enduring persecution behind the Iron Curtain, the boat people of Southeast Asia, of Cuba and Haiti, the victims of drought and famine in Africa, the freedom fighters of Afghanistan and our own countrymen held in savage captivity.

I'll confess that I've been a little afraid to suggest what I'm going to suggest--I'm more afraid not to--that we begin our crusade joined together in a moment of silent prayer. God bless America.

Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum John Anderson 1980 John Anderson 1980 August 27, 1980 John Anderson 1980 John Anderson 1980 April 24, 1980 Ronald Reagan 1980 Ronald Reagan 1980 November 13, 1979










Official Announcement

New York Hilton, New York, NY November 13, 1979

Ronald Reagan delivered this speech to the nation, announcing his candidacy for President of the United States.

Good evening. I am here tonight to announce my intention to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

I'm sure that each of us has seen our country from a number of viewpoints depending on where we've lived and what we've done. For me it has been as a boy growing up in several small towns in Illinois. As a young man in Iowa trying to get a start in the years of the Great Depression and later in California for most of my adult life.

I've seen America from the stadium press box as a sportscaster, as an actor, officer of my labor union, soldier, officeholder and as both a Democrat and Republican. I've lived in America where those who often had too little to eat outnumbered those who had enough. There have been four wars in my lifetime and I've seen our country face financial ruin in the Depression. I have also seen the great strength of this nation as it pulled itself up from that ruin to become the dominant force in the world.

To me our country is a living, breathing presence, unimpressed by what others say is impossible, proud of its own success, generous, yes and naive, sometimes wrong, never mean and always impatient to provide a better life for its people in a framework of a basic fairness and freedom.

Someone once said that the difference between an American and any other kind of person is that an American lives in anticipation of the future because he knows it will be a great place. Other people fear the future as just a repetition of past failures. There's a lot of truth in that. If there is one thing we are sure of it is that history need not be relived; that nothing is impossible, and that man is capable of improving his circumstances beyond what we are told is fact.

There are those in our land today, however, who would have us believe that the United States, like other great civilizations of the past, has reached the zenith of its power; that we are weak and fearful, reduced to bickering with each other and no longer possessed of the will to cope with our problems.

Much of this talk has come from leaders who claim that our problems are too difficult to handle. We are supposed to meekly accept their failures as the most which humanly can be done. They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where--because of our past excesses--it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true.

I don't believe that. And, I don't believe you do either. That is why I am seeking the presidency. I cannot and will not stand by and see this great country destroy itself. Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. I don't agree that our nation must resign itself to inevitable decline, yielding its proud position to other hands. I am totally unwilling to see this country fail in its obligation to itself and to the other free peoples of the world.

The crisis we face is not the result of any failure of the American spirit; it is failure of our leaders to establish rational goals and give our people something to order their lives by. If I am elected, I shall regard my election as proof that the people of the United States have decided to set a new agenda and have recognized that the human spirit thrives best when goals are set and progress can be measured in their achievement.

During the next year I shall discuss in detail a wide variety of problems which a new administration must address. Tonight I shall mention only a few.

No problem that we face today can compare with the need to restore the health of the American economy and the strength of the American dollar. Double-digit inflation has robbed you and your family of the ability to plan. It has destroyed the confidence to buy and it threatens the very structure of family life itself as more and more wives are forced to work in order to help meet the ever-increasing cost of living. At the same time, the lack of real growth in the economy has introduced the justifiable fear in the minds of working men and women who are already overextended that soon there will be fewer jobs and no money to pay for even the necessities of life. And tragically as the cost of living keeps going up, the standard of living which has been our great pride keeps going down.

The people have not created this disaster in our economy; the federal government has. It has overspent, overestimated, and over-regulated. It has failed to deliver services within the revenues it should be allowed to raise from taxes. In the 34 years since the end of World War II, it has spent $448 billion more than it has collected in taxes--$448 billion of printing-press money, which has made every dollar you earn worth less and less. At the same time, the federal government has cynically told us that high taxes on business will in some way "solve" the problem and allow the average taxpayer to pay less. Well, business is not a taxpayer; it is a tax collector. Business has to pass its tax burden on to the customer as part of the cost of doing business. You and I pay taxes imposed on business every time we go to the store. Only people pay taxes and it is political demagoguery or economic illiteracy to try and tell us otherwise.

The key to restoring the health of the economy lies in cutting taxes. At the same time, we need to get the waste out of federal spending. This does not mean sacrificing essential services, nor do we need to destroy the system of benefits which flow to the poor, elderly, the sick and the handicapped. We have long since committed ourselves, as a people, to help those among us who cannot take care of themselves. But the federal government has proven to be the costliest and most inefficient provider of such help we could possibly have.

We must put an end to the arrogance of a federal establishment which accepts no blame for our condition, cannot be relied upon to give us a fair estimate of our situation and utterly refuses to live within its means. I will not accept the supposed "wisdom" which has it that the federal bureaucracy has become so powerful that it can no longer be changed or controlled by any administration. As President I would use every power at my command to make the federal establishment respond to the will and the collective wishes of the people.

We must force the entire federal bureaucracy to live in the real world of reduced spending, streamlined function and accountability to the people it serves. We must review the function of the federal government to determine which of those are the proper province of levels of government closer to the people.

The 10th article of the Bill of Rights is explicit in pointing out that the federal government should do only those things specifically called for in the Constitution. All others shall remain with the states or the people. We haven't been observing that 10th article of late. The federal government has taken on functions it was never intended to perform and which it does not perform well. There should be a planned, orderly transfer of such functions to states and communities and a transfer with them of the sources of taxation to pay for them.

The savings in administrative overhead would be considerable and certainly there would be increased efficiency and less bureaucracy.

By reducing federal tax rates where they discourage individual initiative--especially personal income tax rates--we can restore incentives, invite greater economic growth and at the same time help give us better government instead of bigger government. Proposals such as the Kemp-Roth bill would bring about this kind of realistic reductions in tax rates.

In short, a punitive tax system must be replaced by one that restores incentive for the worker and for industry; a system that rewards initiative and effort and encourages thrift.

All these things are possible; none of them will be easy. But the choice is clear. We can go on letting the country slip over the brink to financial ruin with the disaster that it means for the individual or we can find the will to work together to restore confidence in ourselves and to regain the confidence of the world. I have lived through one Depression. I carry with me the memory of a Christmas Eve when my brother and I and our parents exchanged our modest gifts--there was no lighted tree as there has been on Christmases past. I remember watching my father open what he thought was a greeting from his employer. We all watched and yes, we were hoping it was a bonus check. It was notice that he no longer had a job. And in those days the government ran the radio announcements telling workers not to leave home looking for jobs--there were no jobs. I'll carry with me always the memory of my father sitting there holding that envelope, unable to look at us. I cannot and will not stand by while inflation and joblessness destroy the dignity of our people.

Another serious problem which must be discussed tonight is our energy situation. Our country was built on cheap energy. Today, energy is not cheap and we face the prospect that some forms of energy may soon not be available at all.

Last summer you probably spent hours sitting in gasoline lines. This winter, some will be without heat and everyone will be paying much more simply to keep home and family warm. If you ever had any doubt of the government's inability to provide for the needs of the people, just look at the utter fiasco we now call "the energy crisis." Not one straight answer nor any realistic hope of relief has come from the present administration in almost three years of federal treatment of the problem. As gas lines grew, the administration again panicked and now has proposed to put the country on a wartime footing; but for this "war" there is no victory in sight. And, as always, when the federal bureaucracy fails, all it can suggest is more of the same. This time it's another bureau to untangle the mess by the ones we already have.

But, this just won't work. Solving the energy crisis will not be easy, but it can be done. First we must decide that "less" is not enough. Next, we must remove government obstacles to energy production. And, we must make use of those technological advantages we still possess.

It is no program simply to say "use less energy." Of course waste must be eliminated and efficiently promoted, but for the government simply to tell people to conserve is not an energy policy. At best it means we will run out of energy a little more slowly. But a day will come when the lights will dim and the wheels of industry will turn more slowly and finally stop. As President I will not endorse any course which has this as its principal objective.

We need more energy and that means diversifying our sources of supply away from the OPEC countries. Yes, it means more efficient automobiles. But it also means more exploration and development of oil and natural gas here in our own country. The only way to free ourselves from the monopoly pricing power of OPEC is to be less dependent on outside sources of fuel.

The answer, obvious to anyone except those in the administration it seems, is more domestic production of oil and gas. We must also have wider use of nuclear power within strict safety rules, of course. There must be more spending by the energy industries on research and development of substitutes for fossil fuels.

In years to come solar energy may provide much of the answer but for the next two or three decades we must do such things as master the chemistry of coal. Putting the market system to work for these objectives is an essential first step for their achievement. Additional multi-billion-dollar federal bureaus and programs are not the answer.

In recent weeks there has been much talk about "excess" oil company profits. I don't believe we've been given all the information we need to make a judgment about this. We should have that information. Government exists to protect us from each other. It is not government's function to allocate fuel or impose unnecessary restrictions on the marketplace. It is government's function to determine whether we are being unfairly exploited and if so to take immediate and appropriate action. As President I would do exactly that.

On the foreign front, the decade of the 1980s will place severe pressures upon the United States and its allies. We can expect to be tested in ways calculated to try our patience, to confound our resolve and to erode our belief in ourselves. During a time when the Soviet Union may enjoy nuclear superiority over this country, we must never waiver in our commitment to our allies nor accept any negotiation which is not clearly in the national interest. We must judge carefully. Though we should leave no initiative untried in our pursuit of peace, we must be clear voiced in our resolve to resist any unpeaceful act wherever it may occur. Negotiation with the Soviet Union must never become appeasement.

For the most of the last 40 years, we have been preoccupied with the global struggle--the competition--with the Soviet Union and with our responsibilities to our allies. But too often in recent times we have just drifted along with events, responding as if we thought of ourselves as a nation in decline. To our allies we seem to appear to be a nation unable to make decisions in its own interests, let alone in the common interest. Since the Second World War we have spent large amounts of money and much of our time protecting and defending freedom all over the world. We must continue this, for if we do not accept the responsibilities of leadership, who will? And if no one will, how will we survive?

The 1970s have taught us the foolhardiness of not having a long-range diplomatic strategy of our own. The world has become a place where, in order to survive, our country needs more than just allies--it needs real friends. Yet, in recent times we often seem not to have recognized who our friends are. This must change. It is now time to take stock of our own house and to resupply its strength.

Part of that process involves taking stock of our relationship with Puerto Rico. I favor statehood for Puerto Rico and if the people of Puerto Rico vote for statehood in their coming referendum I would, as President, initiate the enabling legislation to make this a reality.

We live on a continent whose three countries possess the assets to make it the strongest, most prosperous and self-sufficient area on Earth. Within the borders of this North American continent are the food, resources, technology and undeveloped territory which, properly managed, could dramatically improve the quality of life of all its inhabitants.

It is no accident that this unmatched potential for progress and prosperity exists in three countries with such long-standing heritages of free government. A developing closeness among Canada, Mexico and the United States--a North American accord--would permit achievement of that potential in each country beyond that which I believe any of them--strong as they are--could accomplish in the absence of such cooperation. In fact, the key to our own future security may lie in both Mexico and Canada becoming much stronger countries than they are today.

No one can say at this point precisely what form future cooperation among our three countries will take. But if I am elected President, I would be willing to invite each of our neighbors to send a special representative to our government to sit in on high level planning sessions with us, as partners, mutually concerned about the future of our continent. First, I would immediately seek the views and ideas of Canadian and Mexican leaders on this issue, and work tirelessly with them to develop closer ties among our peoples. It is time we stopped thinking of our nearest neighbors as foreigners.

By developing methods of working closely together, we will lay the foundations for future cooperation on a broader and more significant scale. We will put to rest any doubts of those cynical enough to believe that the United States would seek to dominate any relationship among our three countries, or foolish enough to think that the governments and peoples of Canada and Mexico would ever permit such domination to occur. I for one, am confident that we can show the world by example that the nations of North America are ready, within the context of an unswerving commitment to freedom, to see new forms of accommodation to meet a changing world. A developing closeness between the United States, Canada and Mexico would serve notice on friends and foe alike that we were prepared for a long haul, looking outward again and confident of our future; that together we are going to create jobs, to generate new fortunes of wealth for many and provide a legacy for the children of each of our countries. Two hundred years ago, we taught the world that a new form of government, created out of the genius of man to cope with his circumstances, could succeed in bringing a measure of quality to human life previously thought impossible.

Now let us work toward the goal of using the assets of this continent, its resources, technology, and foodstuffs in the most efficient ways possible for the common good of all its people. It may take the next 100 years but we can dare to dream that at some future date a map of the world might show the North American continent as one in which the people's commerce of its three strong countries flow more freely across their present borders than they do today.

In recent months leaders in our government have told us that, we, the people, have lost confidence in ourselves; that we must regain our spirit and our will to achieve our national goals. Well, it is true there is a lack of confidence, an unease with things the way they are. But the confidence we have lost is confidence in our government's policies. Our unease can almost be called bewilderment at how our defense strength has deteriorated. The great productivity of our industry is now surpassed by virtually all the major nations who compete with us for world markets. And, our currency is no longer the stable measure of value it once was.

But there remains the greatness of our people, our capacity for dreaming up fantastic deeds and bringing them off to the surprise of an unbelieving world. When Washington's men were freezing at Valley Forge, Tom Paine told his fellow Americans: "We have it in our power to begin the world over again," we still have that power.

We--today's living Americans--have in our lifetime fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom and done more to advance the dignity of man than any people who have ever lived on this Earth. The citizens of this great nation want leadership--yes--but not a "man on a white horse" demanding obedience to his commands. They want someone who believes they can "begin the world over again." A leader who will unleash their great strength and remove the roadblocks government has put in their way. I want to do that more than anything I've ever wanted. And it's something that I believe with God's help I can do.

I believe this nation hungers for a spiritual revival; hungers to once again see honor placed above political expediency; to see government once again the protector of our liberties, not the distributor of gifts and privilege. Government should uphold and not undermine those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded--religion, education and, above all, family. Government cannot be clergyman, teacher and patriot. It is our servant, beholden to us.

We who are privileged to be Americans have had a rendezvous with destiny since the moment in 1630 when John Winthrop, standing on the deck of the tiny Arbella off the coast of Massachusetts, told the little band of Pilgrims, "We shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world."

A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and--above all--responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.

I believe that you and I together can keep this rendezvous with destiny.

Thank you and good night.

Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum Ted Kennedy 1980 Ted Kennedy 1980 November 7, 1979 Howard Baker 1980 Howard Baker 1980 November 1, 1979










EMBARGOED UNTIL: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1979, 11:00 AM EST

*** PRESIDENTIAL ANNOUNCEMENT STATEMENT ***

by HONORABLE HOWARD H. BAKER, JR.

I am a candidate for President of the United States.

The greatness of America has always been written in the confidence of her people as they summon the will to shape their future. Throughout our history, days of trouble have turned to years of pride through a renaissance of the American spirit. Once again America knows days of trouble. Once again we will recover in pride. But only if we are honest enough to admit our peril.

America has lost its margin for error. Our superiority in strategic arms used to give us the benefit of the doubt; but that superiority is gone. Our abundance in energy used to give us the luxury of time; but that abundance is gone. Our advantage in productivity used to give us certainty in the dollar; but that advantage is gone. Our confidence in the future used to give us the freedom to lead; but that confidence is gone.

I repeat: America has lost its margin for error. We can't afford to wait. We can't afford to guess. We can't afford to be wrong.

So both reality and instinct tell us that the time has come for our country to find it greatness again...quickly. That will take still another renaissance of the American spirit. And it will take a President who can unite our people -- a President who knows Washington well enough to change Washington -- a President who can chart a course -- and, above all, a President who can launch a new generation of confidence.

I have been privileged to serve Tennessee and my Party in the Senate. It has been a testing challenge to seek legislative consensus during trauma, indecision and self-doubt. They have been trying and difficult years as America has continually fallen short of its heritage.

But only one office can make America true to its heritage again. And the choice we make may be more important than any we have made before. Our margin for error is gone; we cannot afford to be wrong. It is obvious that one of five men will be our next President:

-- Surely we know that we cannot withstand still more Washington inexperience.

-- Surely we know that government by ideological reflex, left or right, will not bring the unity we need.

-- Surely we know that a President cannot govern without trust and that trust never comes from bluster.

-- Surely we know that we need a leader for tomorrow if the goal is a new generation of confidence.

So I offer myself for the job with humility, but as well with the personal certainty that I am ready.

America needs a President who will face up to the realities of a Soviet foreign policy that probes every weakness and fills every vacuum -– a President to insist on defenses strong enough through the next generation to give us the confidence to stand tall again. I am ready to be that President.

Washington needs a President who can bring unity and action in this city and in this Congress -- to curb useless regulation and spending, to assure energy independence, to help our people cope with inflation, and to set in motion a long-range and certain program of tax relief to cut inflation and assure a generation of economic resurgence. I am ready to be that President.

Our people need a President articulate enough to chart the future, tough enough to take a stand, honest enough to be believed, compassionate enough to care, young enough to lead, and experienced enough to get others to follow. I am ready to be that President.

And the Republican Party needs a President who can win -- in the South and in the North -- on the farms and in the cities -- with the whites and with the blacks -- with the old and with the young -- and having won can nurture the national unity needed to govern with purpose and launch a new generation of confidence. I am ready to be that President.

In the days and weeks ahead I will share the specifics of this agenda for America’s recovery. But unlike others in the past, I will not deal in promises. I do not ask you to trust me; I ask you to judge me.

Promises are cheap; America needs performance. Judge me. Judge my Senate service. Judge the campaign that starts today. Judge me now as you judged me on Watergate in this very room.

As you do so in the upcoming SALT treaty debate, take the time as well to judge President Carter who negotiated it and Senator Kennedy who supports it. They may be on the right political side. But they are short-sighted and they are wrong.

Approval of this treaty with its acceptance of Soviet strategic superiority could guarantee to the Soviet Union the margin for error that used to be ours. If we ratify the treaty we will be saying to the Soviets: “We’re willing to accept an unequal treaty. We just hope you will abide by it." If we defeat the treaty we will be saying: We intend to be the masters of our own fate again. And we have the confidence to negotiate a new SALT treaty that is safe for this country under a new President who will be safe for this country."

I don’t honestly know whether I can beat both Jimmy Carter and Teddy Kennedy on this treaty this November. It is very close. But I guarantee you that I’ll beat either Jimmy Carter or Teddy Kennedy in the voting booth next November.

Watch me. Judge me. Then come with me. Let's reach for the future and make it ours.

Source: Baker Committee Press Release

The Howard H. Baker, Jr. Papers, University of Tennessee, Knoxville John Anderson 1980 John Anderson 1980 June 8, 1979 Bob Dole 1980 Bob Dole 1980 May 14, 1979










EMBARGO UNTIL 9:30 A.M. May 14 FOR PM'S OF MAY 14

"Dole Presidential Announcement Speech"

I thank you all for being with us today. I especially thank the members of the national media who have come so far out of their way to be here. We are very proud of Russell, but we recognize that it is not a major media center. On the other hand, it is very nearly the center of the United States--so those of you who like to be in the middle of things are pretty well situated.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I am announcing today that I shall seek my Party's nomination to the office of President of the United States.

I have no illusions about the magnitude of the undertaking; neither have I any undue concern for the magnitude of the problems associated with it. Financing, logistics, simple human effort or the lack of these may conspire in time to defeat a candidacy, but they cannot deter it at the outset. The magnitude of the endeavor rests not in the institutional necessities which must carry it forward, but rather in the expectations which any candidate must engender and then satisfy in the minds and the hearts of the American people. This is the great task.

It is the task of reasserting a common faith in all that we once set out to be as a nation, a shared confidence in those means established to help us grow and prosper in freedom, and a common conviction that we are in truth what we say we are: a nation that hews to the self-evident truth that "all men are created equal."

Today, in America, no truth is self-evident any longer. Instead, self-doubt increasingly characterizes our public life and our private lives as well.

It is evident in the dwindling numbers of Americans who go to the polls to vote. We say that the franchise is a right--but that alone does not describe it; rather, it reduces its significance. The franchise is a great gift paid for again and again by the courage and sacrifice of previous generations. Yet, today so many of our people ignore it. They doubt that it matters--which is to say they doubt that they have any control over events, over our nation's business, its direction and its destiny.

It is evident in the growth of single-issue constituencies. Overwhelmed by the range of issues which confront the nation, many of our people doubt their capacity to understand them and deal with them. Many retreat to narrow concerns which they can grasp and which they believe they can influence: should we use nuclear power; should we have the right to bear arms?

I do not see this as an occasion for despair, but as an occasion for hope. I see it as a dawning realization of the contradiction which has shaped and misshaped our national life for forty years: that a nation constituted for, and consecrated to, the individual should have been led to believe that the individual could best benefit by relinquishing his hopes, his responsibilities and his very individuality to government.

Today, there are those who insist that our great difficulty is that Americans don't believe in their government. That may not be true. The great difficulty might be that Americans no longer believe sufficiently in themselves.

Today, we have a President who goes about insisting that he will be "personally" responsible for this, and "personally" responsible for that. He means well, no doubt, but what he says is without meaning. We don't need a President who says he will be "personally" responsible for things he can't do anything about. We need individual Americans to be "personally" responsible again for their own lives, and the life of this nation.

I do not intend to campaign against those who serve in government. They are no better and no worse than the rest of the American public--they are a part of it. It is absurd to say we must have a government as good as our people. This assumes that the people, whoever they are, are wise and generous and good, and that those in government are all devious, dumb, and stingy. It isn't so. Those who serve in government reflect the nation; human, with human strengths and human failings.

But the federal government, in its size, cost and reach is too large for this nation and, in its capacities, too small. The size of government today reflects some people's mistaken belief that government has magical powers which the individual does not possess, and ignores the fact that there is no power on earth greater than that of the individual in a free society.

In government we have institutionalized compassion, forgetting that compassion is a human virtue that comes from the heart, and that institutions lack these attributes, and so they fail in doing the compassionate thing--in helping to see that children are adequately clothed and fed and educated; in assuring that the elderly are cared for and loved rather than warehoused and tolerated, in seeing that the needy are helped to provide for themselves. In the face of these failures, the institution--the federal government and those who exalt its capacities--insists that success will come with increased expenditures, with increased size, and with increased authority.

Never mind that as a people we are poorer because government takes our money and its purchasing power, and our incentive; that we are endangered because government constantly increases its control over us. These are second order consequences. The real tragedy is that we are poorer and we are endangered because government takes away our need and our obligation and our opportunity to behave as individuals, as human beings, toward each other.

This is the major problem which confronts us in this great land. It is the source of cynicism in a country that was not born out of cynicism but out of hope. It is at the root of the desperation which causes so many of our people to thrash about for something to believe in, something to hold on to, something to shape lives they no longer believe they can shape themselves.

This is my concern in the campaign ahead. It is, in the words of an American poet, to let America be America again. It must be an America which understands what it means when it speaks of rights-civil rights, human rights, individual rights, equal rights. It is true as Burke said, that "all men have equal rights, but not to equal things." The man who lives in a row house and rides the bus has the same constitutional rights as the man who lives in a mansion and rides in a limousine. Yet, the one has no right to the wealth of the other, and the other has no right to prevent the first from achieving whatever he may within the confines of the law and his own abilities. They are equal before God, before the Constitution and before the law. But it is arrant nonsense to suppose that because they may not be equal in ability and ambition government should equalize their portion of the material advantages which flow from the unfettered exercise of ability and ambition.

If we can eliminate this and similar misconceptions about the purpose of government then we can get away from building the federal budget and the federal bureaucracy and get back to building the nation.

This is my message in the campaign ahead.

I will neither attack my opponents in the Republican Party, nor the incumbent President. My fellow Republicans have views which the American people must weigh, and the President has a record which must be considered and accounted for. I am sure we will be diligent in helping to consider the record, and I am sure the President will be equally diligent in accounting for it.

There are, of course, a number of concerns which confront us and I mean to address them in the months ahead, though I give little attention to them here today.

One is the state of the economy. Since our economy today is managed largely by government, its failure is simply one more failure of government. We have rejected hard wisdom, short-term sacrifice and long-term prosperity for immediate political advantage and immediate personal gratification. Our leaders have persisted in the view that we could spend ourselves rich; that we could grow fat by devouring ourselves.

With that plan discredited, we seem uncertain where to turn next. I don't mean this as a criticism, but I simply point out as an example of the confusion of goals and methods that one of the first official acts of the present Administration was to increase the salaries of some of their staff by sums in excess of 100%, sometimes reaching 150 to 200%, and they now insist that the average American workers should forego pay increases in excess of seven percent. Our economic difficulties are broader and deeper than this example, but the will to cope with them is fairly reflected there, I think.

Another concern is peace. We have enjoyed a peace established in 1973, and squandered it in some measure, and it is becoming an increasingly uneasy peace maintained largely by retreating in the face of Soviet and Soviet- sponsored aggression around the world. it is a difficult thing to make a peace--but it was done; it is a difficult thing to keep the peace, and I think we are failing in that regard. our economic position, our defense position, and our prestige are being rapidly eroded around the world.

We preach international morality, but we don't practice it, and the world knows it.

In the Middle East, we have tried to compromise Israel to buy Arab oil, and that effort is not over yet.

In the Far East, we walked out on Taiwan for a public relations success; to suggest mastery of foreign affairs we accepted an arrangement with China which had been available to us since 1973 when the door to China was first opened.

If any or all of these incidents, and many more, could be structured into a comprehensible pattern that we might call U.S. foreign policy then, whether we agreed or disagreed with the policy, we and the world would have confidence that at least a policy and a unifying vision existed. There is no such confidence, and the next step away from confidence in foreign affairs is grave, dangerous doubt. This is not a time for grave doubts about the U.S.' ability to conceive and manage a foreign policy.

So we will be discussing these things and more in the days ahead.

I will offer no slogans; slogans are no substitute for ideas, and novelty cannot replace hard, painful thought if, as we hope, government is to be a shared national endeavor once again rather than a costly entertainment.

I intend to promise only the possible, so that when I am successful in my aims I shall have occasion to disappoint as few as possible.

I do not propose just to make people believe in government again; but rather to urge that they believe in themselves again. I do mean to remind people that our founding thinkers and our constitutive documents all aimed at institutionalizing doubt about government, in keeping that doubt foremost in the public mind, and in providing the means to limit the power of government and to protect the individual against it. And none of that has to do with the calibre or character of people who make up the government.

I do not urge that we turn our backs on the future. I urge that we recover some old truths about ourselves as a people, and that we be guided by these as we face the future. The truth is that today many Americans have doubts about the future of this nation. We have to eliminate those doubts. I believe we can.

I do not agree with Henry Adams that politics is "the systematic organization of hatreds.” We fought a terrible war--and these plains which surround us today were drenched with the first blood of it--for the proposition that a house divided against itself could not stand. That truth is no less compelling today. When you divide a people to conquer an office, the division is maintained in order to hold the office--and a divided people are a weakened people. There are natural adversary relationships in America; it is irresponsible to exacerbate the adversarial nature of these relations for political advantage-to single out the businessman or businesswoman or the working man or woman as scapegoats, or the farmer, or the poor, to set one region against another, one economic group against another. This is demogoguery. This we must not do.

And so I mean to wage a whole campaign. I will be speaking with our friends in the Democratic Party as well as Republicans and Independents, believing that neither party has a corner on wisdom. We seek not a Democratic approach or a Republican approach to the nation's future, but we seek the correct approach and it will combine the best thinking and the best efforts of all.

I will be meeting with black and brown and red and yellow and white. Events in the world are forcing our nation's doors open again, and they should be open if we are to call ourselves Mother of Exiles. We must not fear that new Americans threaten to diminish a finite national wealth. We must rather work to increase that wealth. New blood, new brains, new energy will help. Joseph's coat was a coat of many colors, distinctive threads woven together in one strong fabric. It is an ideal we have sought through our national history. We must continue, confident that we will be judged not by whether we succeeded, but by whether we tried.

I will be reaching out to women and to men--whether in politics, in business, in the labor market or in the home. When we insist that women "tell us what they really want," we cast ourselves in the master's role-benevolent, perhaps, but superior nonetheless. We are not patrons, we are partners. That is not a sentiment, it is a reality. It is not a reality which we have fully accepted and assimilated, and this we must do.

I will be meeting with labor as well as business. So often we see them as separate and distinct entities, enemies in constant conflict; and some have found it useful at times to encourage that false perspective and generate hostility for political gain. Labor and business are joined together like Siamese twins. Each may have its own goals and interests, but neither can accomplish anything without the other. We must reduce government’s role as a third party in the labor-business relationship, as a court of first and last resort. Each have their own strengths and their own capacities to contend with the other. Let them do it without intervention in any but the most grave circumstances.

And I will speak to the young as well as the adult and the elderly. Those too young to vote are nonetheless American citizens, with a stake in our nation's future and with a capacity to grasp-if we trouble to explain--what are the concerns which effect us all. It seems to me foolish to work to build a nation for our children, and never tell them what we are doing or what are the real difficulties involved.

Above all, I mean to say what I stand for and speak plainly so that the American people may know which weaknesses of mine they will have to make up for or accommodate, and so they may know which strengths they can count on.

Finally, there is this: I know I might have chosen a different forum for this occasion. The National Press Club offers splendid hospitality. The Senate office Buildings provide a beautiful and dramatic setting. There are many places easier to reach, certainly.

I came home simply because the strength I need for the undertaking before me is here. I know that as I travel the country in the weeks and months ahead, I will be heard and helped by others who agree with me, who will consider my views and examine my record and judge my capacities and they will determine, as they should, whether I succeed or fail.

But there ought to be at least one place for every person where he or she is accepted with unjudging love and strengthened and reassured by it, and for me that place is here. I was born here, I left for awhile, I was hurt and I came back. I was helped and healed in this place by my townsmen and I began my public career here. And whenever I have set out on a new path, I have come back here to begin. No failure has ever been so hurtful that this place could not ease the pain. And no success has ever been so great that its satisfaction exceeded the satisfaction of being a part of the people of Russell, a citizen of Kansas.

Thank you.

Source: Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, The University of Kansas George Bush 1980 George Bush 1980 May 1, 1979










EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 9:30 EST, May 1, 1979

PRESIDENTIAL ANNOUNCEMENT STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR GEORGE BUSH

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a candidate for President of the United States.

With the help of friends and supporters throughout the country, I intend to seek and win our party's nomination and the general election in 1980.

I seek this nomination as a lifelong Republican who has worked throughout his career, in business and in public office, on behalf of the principles of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.

At the outset of this campaign, let me say that I am not running for President as a regional or factional candidate, but as a national candidate. I ask all Republicans to join me in a common effort to bring America the principled, stable leadership we must have in the decade of the eighties.

As a national- candidate, I will welcome the support of all Americans -- Republicans Democrats and Independents -- in my campaign, to give America the new leadership needed to keep our country free prosperous and second-to-none in the years ahead.

For that kind of leadership, as we have seen in recent years, good intentions are not enough.

Let there be no mistake regarding the source of our country's current problems, at home and overseas. The failure of the present administration is more than the failure of an individual leader.

It is a failure tied to the philosophy of tax-and-spend that has long dominated the leadership of his party.

New foundations cannot be built on these old pilings. The problems that face America today are traceable to the reckless national leadership of past years.

Over a decade ago when I was elected to the U.S. Congress, I spoke out against that reckless leadership -- warning against the consequences that would flow from an administration that promised the American people solutions to all problems, but instead gave us higher taxes, skyrocketing inflation, and loss of confidence in our country's leadership.

Our problems today, both at home and overseas, are rooted in that era of "guns-and-butter, tax-and-spend."

I submit that those who contributed to the short-sighted policies of that era cannot be depended on to provide workable solutions to our current national dilemma.

But in any event, those solutions will not be quick or easy.

In that regard, it is time for those who aspire to leadership -n our country to stop trying to fool the American people that there are panaceas for our problems.

More important, it is time for we, the American people, to stop fooling ourselves.

We have learned that good intentions are not enough in a President. We should know too, that rhetoric is not enough to provide the kind of leadership our country needs and deserves.

As a candidate for President, I am not promising

--A new deal

--A new frontier

--A great society, or

--A new foundation.

But I do pledge a new candor.

To be effective, leadership in the eighties must be based on a politics of substance, not symbols; of reason, not bombast; of frankness, not false promise.

In short, those who seek the highest office in the land must level with the American people.

That will be the underlying theme of my campaign and the spirit of a George Bush Presidency.

As a candidate, and as President, I will speak not in terms of simple solutions but of hard choices.

The American people must be told the hard, unvarnished truth about the nature of our problems at home:

--That we cannot buy our way out of problems with expanded government programs.

On the contrary, where government expands, our problems multiply.

Our new leadership of candor must also tell the American people:

-- That the Protection of our freedoms cannot be purchased on the cheap.

--That there is no substitute for credible military strength in dealing with potential adversaries in a nuclear age.

Nor, in dealing with these problems, is there any substitute for the virtues of personal commitment and self-discipline.

At the government level, I speak of virtues such as restrained, consistent economic policies which would result in a balanced budget and a stronger dollar.

On a personal level, I speak of a stronger commitment to our work, our community, our neighborhoods and our family life.

There are other, vital human resources we must call upon to give America a new leadership in the decade of the eighties.

Women must be given a greater opportunity to participate at the highest levels. Young people -- many of whom were disillusioned by the politics of the seventies -- must be inspired to commit their ideals and energies to the building not simply of a greater, but a better society.

All these must be encouraged by our new American leadership -- and something else as well.

Out of the tragic failures of recent years, we as a people have lost confidence in ourselves and in our country's institutions.

That confidence -- that faith -- that pride in the American ideal -- must be restored.

I believe that my record in both private and public life -- as a businessman and as a member of the legislative and executive branches dealing with both foreign and domestic policy – qualifies me to provide that leadership.

I can do the job -- I will do the job -- not with promises, not with rhetoric, but with the strength that comes to any American President who levels with the American people and earns their trust.

More than a quarter century ago, in his first State of the Union message to the Congress, one of the wisest and strongest of this century's Presidents said:

"There is in world affairs a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly.

"There is in our affairs at home, a middle way between the untrammeled freedom of the individual and the demands for the welfare of the whole nation. This way must avoid government by bureaucracy as carefully as it avoids neglect of the helpless."

President Dwight Eisenhower then went on:

"In this spirit we must live and labor: confident of our strength, compassionate in our heart, clear in our mind. In this spirit, let us turn to the great tasks before us."

In this spirit, too, I from this day will go forward to seek the Presidential nomination of my Party and the support of Americans everywhere who believe that in the decade of the eighties, America must have a new leadership -- a leadership confident of our strength, compassionate of heart, and clear in mind, as we turn to the great tasks before us.

# # # # #

Source: George Bush Presidential Library and Museum John Connally 1980 John Connally 1980 January 24, 1979 Phil Crane 1980 Phil Crane 1980 August 2, 1978

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