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Bill Clinton 1992 Bill Clinton 1992 July 16, 1992










Acceptance Speech to the Democratic National Convention by Governor Bill Clinton from Arkansas
New York, NY
July 16, 1992

Governor Richards, Chairman Brown, Mayor Dinkins, our great host, my fellow delegates and my fellow Americans, I am so proud of Al Gore. (Applause)

He said he came here tonight because he always wanted to do the warm-up for Elvis. Well, I ran for President this year for one reason and one reason only: I wanted to come back to this convention and finish that speech I started four years ago. (Applause)

Last night Mario Cuomo taught us how a real nominating speech should be given. (Applause) He also made it clear why we have to steer our ship of state on a new course. Tonight I want to talk with you about my hope for the future, my faith in the American people, and my vision of the kind of country we can build together.

I salute the good men who were my companions on the campaign trial: Tom Harkin (Applause), Bob Kerrey (Applause), Doug Wilder (Applause), Jerry Brown (Applause), and Paul Tsongas (Applause).

One sentence in the Platform we built says it all. The most important family policy, urban policy, labor policy, minority policy, and foreign policy America can have is an expanding entrepreneurial economy of high-wage, high-skilled jobs. (Applause)

And so, in the name of all those who do the work and pay the taxes, raise the kids, and play by the rules, in the name of the hardworking Americans who make up our forgotten middle class, I proudly accept your nomination for President of the United States.

(Spontaneous Demonstration)

I am a product of that middle class, and when I am President, you will be forgotten no more. (Applause)

We meet at a special moment in history, you and I. The Cold War is over. Soviet communism has collapsed and our values -- freedom, democracy, individual rights, free enterprise- they have triumphed all around the world. And yet, just as we have won the Cold War abroad, we are losing the battles for economic opportunity and social justice here at home. (Applause)

Now that we have changed the world, it’s time to change America.

I have news for the forces of greed and the defenders of the status quo: Your time has come and gone. Its time for a change in America. (Applause)

Tonight 10 million of our fellow Americans are out of work, tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. The incumbent President says that unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins, but unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a real recovery can begin. (Applause) And Mr. President, you are that man.

This election is about putting power back in your hands and putting government back on your side. It’s about putting people first. (Applause)

You know, I’ve said that all across the country, and when I do, someone always comes back to me, as a young man did just this week at a town meeting at the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East side of Manhattan.

He said, “That sounds good, Bill, but you’re a politician. Why should I trust you?”

Tonight, as plainly as I can, I want to tell you who I am, what I believe, and where I want to lead America. (Applause)

I never met my father. He was killed in a car wreck on a rainy road three months before I was born, driving from Chicago to Arkansas to see my mother.

After that, my mother had to support us, so we lived with my grandparents while she went back to Louisiana to study nursing. I can still see her clearly tonight through the eyes of a three-year-old, kneeling at the railroad station and weeping as she put me back on the train to Arkansas with my grandmother.

She endured that pain because she knew her sacrifice was the only way she could support me and give me a better life. My mother taught me. She taught me about family and hard work and sacrifice. She held steady through tragedy after tragedy, and she held our family- my brother and I- together through tough times.

As a child, I watched her go off work each day at a time when it wasn’t always easy to be a working mother.

As an adult, I watched her fight off breast cancer, and again she has taught me a lesson in courage. And always, always, always she taught me to fight.

That’s why I’ll fight to create high-paying jobs so that parents can afford to raise their children today.

That’s why I’m so committed to make sure every American gets the health care that saved my mother’s life (Applause) and that women’s health care gets the same attention as men’s. (Applause)

That’s why I’ll fight to make sure women in this country receive respect and dignity, whether they work in the home, out of the home, or both. (Applause)

You want to know where I get my fighting spirit? It all started with my mother. Thank you, Mother. I love you. (Applause)

When I think about opportunity for all Americans, I think about my grandfather. He ran a country store in our little town of Hope. There was no food stamps back then, so when his customers, whether they were White or Black who worked hard and did the best they could, came in with no money, well, he gave them food anyway. He just made a note of it. So did I. (Applause)

Before I was big enough to see over the counter, I learned from him to look up to people other folks looked down on. (Applause)

My grandfather just had a high school education- a grade school education- but in that country store he taught me more about equality in the eyes of the Lord than all my professors at Georgetown, more about the intrinsic worth of every individual that all the philosophers at Oxford, more about the need for equal justice under the law than all the jurists at Yale Law School. (Applause)

If you want to know where I come by the passionate commitment I have to bringing people together without regard to race, it all started with my grandfather. (Applause)

I learned a lot from another person too: a person who for more than 20 years has worked hard to help our children, paying the price of time to make sure our schools don’t fail them. Someone who traveled our state for a year, studying, learning, listening, going to PTA meetings, school board meetings, town hall meetings, putting together a package of school reforms recognized around the Nation, and doing it all while building a distinguished legal career and being a wonderful, loving mother.

That person is my wife.

(Standing Ovation)

Hillary taught me. She taught me that all children can learn and that each of us has a duty to help them do it.

So if you want to know why I care so much about our children, and our future, it all started with Hillary. I love you. (Applause)

Frankly, I am fed up with politicians in Washington lecturing the rest of us about family values. Our families have values. But our government doesn’t. (Applause)

I want an America where family values live in our actions, not just in our speeches. (Applause) An America that includes every family. Every traditional family and every extended family. Every two parent family. Every single-parent family. And every foster family. Every family. (Applause)

I do want to say something to the fathers in this country who have chosen to abandon their children by neglecting their child support: Take responsibility for your children or we will force you to do so. (Applause) Because governments don’t raise children; parents do. And you should. (Applause)

And I want to say something to every child in America tonight who is out there trying to grow up without a father or a mother: I know how you feel. You are special too.

You matter to America. And don’t you ever let anybody tell you can’t become whatever you want to be. (Applause) And if other politicians make you feel like you are not part of their family, come on and be part of ours. (Applause)

(Chants of “We Want Bill!”)

The thing that makes me angriest about what has gone wrong in the last 12 years is that our government has lost touch with our values, while our politicians continue to shout about them. I’m tired of it! (Applause)

I was raised to believe the American Dream was built on rewarding hard work. But we have seen the folks of Washington turn the American ethic on its head.

For too long those who play by the rules and keep the faith have gotten the shaft, and those who cut corners and cut deals have been rewarded. (Applause)

People are working harder than ever, spending less time with their children, working nights and weekends at their jobs instead of going to PTA and Little League or Scouts. And their incomes are still going down. (Applause) Their taxes are still going up. And the costs of health care, housing and education are going through the roof. (Applause)

Meanwhile, more and more of our best people are falling into poverty even though they work 40 hours a week. (Applause)

Our people are pleading for change, but government is in the way. It has been hijacked by privileged private interests. It has forgotten who really pays the bills around here. (Applause) It has taken more of your money and given you less in return. We have got to go beyond the brain-dead politics in Washington and give our people the kind of government they deserve, a government that works for them. (Applause)

A President ought to be a powerful force for progress. But right now I know how President Lincoln felt when General McClellan wouldn’t attack in the Civil War. He asked him, “If you’re not going to use your army, may I borrow it?” (Laughter)

And so I say: George Bush, if you won’t use our power to help America, step aside. I will. (Applause)

(Chants of “We Want Bill!”)

Our country is falling behind. The President is caught in the grip of a failed economic theory. We have gone from first to 13th in the world in wages since Ronald Reagan and Bush have been in office.

Four years ago, candidate Bush said, “America is a special place, not just another pleasant country somewhere on the UN Roll Call between Albania and Zimbabwe.” Now under President Bush, America has an unpleasant economy struck somewhere between Germany and Sri Lanka. (Applause)

And for most Americans, Mr. President, life’s a lot less kind and a lot less gentle than it was before your administration took office. (Applause)

(Chants of “Bush Must Go!”)

Listen, do it some more.

(Chants of “Bush Must Go!)

Our country has fallen so far so fast that just a few months ago the Japanese prime minister actually said he felt sympathy for the United States. Sympathy. When I am your President (Applause), the rest of the world will not look down on us with pity but up to us with respect again. (Applause)

What is George Bush doing about our economic problems?

Now, four years ago he promised 15 million new jobs by this time, and he’s over 14 million short. Al Gore and I can do better. (Applause)

He has raised taxes on the people driving pickup trucks and lowered taxes on the people riding in limousines. We can do better.

He promised to balance the budget, but he hasn’t even tried. In fact, the budgets he has submitted to Congress nearly doubled the debt. Even worse, he wasted billions and reduced our investments in education and jobs. We can do better. (Applause)

So if you are sick and tired of a government that doesn’t work to create jobs, if you’re sick and tired of a tax system that’s stacked against you, if you’re sick and tired of exploding debt and reduced investments in our future, or if, like the great civil rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer, you’re just plain old sick and tired of being sick and tired (Applause), then join us, work with us, win with us, and we can make our country the country it was meant to be. (Applause)

Now, George Bush talks a good game, but he has no game plan to rebuild America, from the cities to the suburbs to the countryside, so that we can compete and win again in the global economy. I do. (Applause)

He won’t take on the big insurance companies and the bureaucracies to control health costs and give us affordable health care for all Americans, but I will. (Applause)

He won’t even implement the recommendations of his own commission on AIDS, but I will. (Applause)

He won’t streamline the federal government and change the way it works, cut 100,000 bureaucrats and put 100,000 new police officers on the streets of American cities, but I will. (Applause)

He’s never balanced a government budget, but I have 11 times. (Applause)

He won’t break the stranglehold the special interests have on our elections and the lobbyists have on our government, but I will. (Applause)

He won’t give mothers and fathers the simple chance to take some time off from work when a baby is born or a parent it sick, but I will. (Applause)

We’re losing our farms at a rapid rate, and he has no commitment to keep family farms in the family, but I do. (Applause)

He’s talked a lot about drugs, but he hasn’t helped people on the front line to wage that war on drugs and crime. But I will. (Applause)

He won’t take the lead in protecting the environment and creating new jobs in environmental technologies for the 21st century, but I will. (Applause) And you what else? He doesn’t have Al Gore, and I do. (Laughter and Applause)

Just in case you didn’t notice, that’s Gore with an E on the end. (Laughter and Applause)

And George Bush- George Bush won’t guarantee a women’s right to choose; I will.

(Spontaneous Demonstration)

Listen. Here me now. I am not pro-abortion; I am pro-choice, strongly. (Applause) I believe this difficult and painful decision should be left to the women of America. (Applause)

I hope the right to privacy can be protected and we will never again have to discuss this issue on political platforms. (Applause) But I am old enough to remember what it was like before Roe v. Wade, and I do not want to return to the time when we made criminals of women and their doctors. (Applause)

Jobs, education, health care- these are not just commitments from my lips; they are the work of my life. (Applause)

Our priorities must be clear; we will put our people first again. (Applause) But priorities without a clear plan of action are just empty words. To turn our rhetoric into reality we’ve got to change the way government does business, fundamentally. Until we do, we’ll continue to pour billions of dollars down the drain.

The Republicans have campaigned against big government for a generation, but have you noticed? They’ve run this big government for a generation (Applause) and they haven’t changed a thing. They don’t want to fix government; they still want to campaign against it, and that’s all. (Applause)

But, my fellow Democrats, its time for us to realize we’ve got some changing to do too. There is not a program in government for every problem, and if we want to use government to help people, we have got to make it work again. (Applause)

Because we are committed in this Convention and in this Platform to making these changes, we are, as Democrats, in the words that Ross Perot himself spoke today, “a revitalized Democratic Party.” (Applause)

I am well aware that all those millions of people who rallied to Ross Perot’s cause wanted to be in an army of patriots for change. Tonight I say to them, join us, and together we will revitalize America. (Applause)

Now, I don’t have all the answers, but I do know the old ways don’t work. Trickledown economics has sure failed. And big bureaucracies, both private and public, they’ve failed too.

That’s why we need a new approach to government, a government that offers more empowerment and less entitlement. More choices for young people in the schools they attend- in the public schools they attend. (Applause) And more choices for the elderly and for people with disabilities and the long-term care they receive. (Applause) A government that is leaner, not meaner; a government that expands opportunity, not bureaucracy; a government that understands that jobs must come from growth in a vibrant and vital system of free enterprise.

I call this approach the New Covenant, a solemn agreement between the people and their government based not simply on what each of us can take but what all of us must give to our Nation. (Applause)

We offer our people a new choice based on old values. We offer opportunity. We demand responsibility. We will build an American community again. The choice we offer is not conservative or liberal. In many ways, it is not even Republican or Democratic. It is different. It is new. And it will work. (Applause) It will work because it is rooted in the vision and the values of the American people.

Of all the things that George Bush has ever said that I disagree with, perhaps the thing that bothers me most is how he derides and degrades the American tradition of seeing and seeking a better future. He mocks it as the “vision thing.” (Applause)

But just remember what the Scripture says: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Applause)

I hope nobody in this great hall tonight, or in our beloved country has to go through tomorrow without a vision. I hope no one ever tries to raise a child without a vision. I hope nobody ever starts a business or plants a crop in the ground without a vision. For where there is no vision, the people perish. (Applause)

One of the reasons we have so many children in so much trouble in so many places in this nation is because they have seen so little opportunity, so little responsibility, so little loving, caring community, that they literally cannot imagine the life we are calling them to lead. (Applause)

And so I say again: Where there is no vision, America will perish. What is the vision of our New Covenant?

An America with millions of new jobs and dozens of new industries, moving confidently toward the 21st century.

An America that says to entrepreneurs and businesspeople: We will give you more incentives and more opportunity than ever before to develop the skills of your workers and to create American jobs and American wealth in the new global economy. (Applause) But you must do your part, you must be responsible. American companies must act like American companies again, exporting products, not jobs. (Applause)

That’s what this New Covenant is all about.

An America in which the doors of colleges are thrown open once again to the sons and daughters of stenographers and steelworkers. (Applause) We will say: Everybody can borrow money to go to college. But you must do your part. You must pay it back, (Applause) from your paychecks or, better yet, by going back home and serving your communities. (Applause)

Just think of it. Think of it. Millions of energetic young men and women serving their country by policing the streets or teaching the children or caring for the sick. (Applause) Or working with the elderly and people with disabilities. Or helping young people to stay off drugs and out of gangs, giving us all a sense of new hope and limitless possibilities.

That’s what this New Covenant is all about. (Applause)

An America in which health care is a right, not a privilege (Applause), in which we say to all of our people: Your government has the courage finally to take on the health care profiteers and make health care affordable for every family. (Applause) But you must do your part. Preventive care, prenatal care, childhood immunization- saving lives, saving money, saving families from heartbreak.

That’s what the New Covenant is all about.

An America in which middle-class incomes, not middle-class taxes, are going up.

An America, yes, in which the wealthiest few, those making over $200,000 a year, are asked to pay their fair share. (Applause)

An America in which the rich are not soaked, but the middle class is not drowned, either. (Applause)

Responsibility starts at the top.

That’s what the New Covenant is all about.

An America where we end welfare as we know it. We will say to those on welfare: You will have, and you deserve, the opportunity, through training and education, through child care and medical coverage, to liberate yourself. (Applause) But then, when you can, you must work, because welfare should be a second chance, not a way of life. (Applause)

That’s what the New Covenant is all about.

An America with the world’s strongest defense, ready and willing to use force when necessary.

An America at the forefront of the global effort to preserve and protect our common environment- and promoting global growth.

An America that will not coddle tyrants, from Baghdad to Beijing. (Applause)

An America that champions the cause of freedom and democracy from Eastern Europe to Southern Africa- and in our own hemispheres, in Haiti and Cuba.

The end of the Cold War permits us to reduce defense spending while still maintaining the strongest defense in the world, but we must plow back every dollar of defense cuts into building American jobs right here at home. (Applause) I know well that the world needs a strong America, but we have learned that strength begins at home. (Applause)

But the New Covenant is about more than opportunities and responsibilities for you and your families. It’s also about our common community.

Tonight every one of you knows deep in your heart that we are too divided. It is time to heal America. (Applause)

And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other - all of us - we need each other. We don’t have a person to waste, and yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what’s really wrong with America is the rest of us- them.

Them, the minorities. Them, the liberals. Them, the poor. Them, the homeless. Them, the people with disabilities. Them, the gays.

We’ve gotten to where we’ve nearly them'ed ourselves to death. (Applause) Them, and them, and them. (Applause)

But this is America. There is no them. There is only us. (Applause)

One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. (Applause)

That is our Pledge of Allegiance, and that’s what the New Covenant is all about. (Applause)

How do I know we can come together and make change happen? Because I have seen it in my own state. In Arkansas, we are working together, and we are making progress. No, there’s no Arkansas Miracle, but there are a lot of miraculous people. (Applause) And because of them, our schools are better, our wages are higher, our factories are busier, our water is cleaner and our budget is balanced. We’re moving ahead. (Applause)

I wish I could say the same thing about America under the incumbent President. He took the richest country in the world and brought it down. (Applause)

We took on of the poorest states in America and lifted it up. (Applause)

And so I say to all of those, in this campaign season who would criticize Arkansas, come on down. (Applause) Especially if you’re from Washington, come on down. (Applause)

Sure, you’ll see us struggling against some of the problems that we haven’t solved yet, but you’ll also see a lot of great people doing amazing things, and you might even learn a thing or two. (Applause)

In the end, my fellow Americans, this New Covenant simply asks us all to be Americans again- old-fashioned Americans for a new time. Opportunity, responsibility, community.

When we pull together, America will pull ahead. Throughout the whole history of this country, we have seen, time and time and time again, that when we are united we are unstoppable. (Applause)

We can seize this moment, make it exciting and energizing and heroic to be American again. We can renew our faith in each other and in ourselves. We can restore our sense of unity and community.

As the Scripture says, “our eyes have not yet seen, nor our ears heard, nor minds imagined” what we can build. (Applause)

But I can’t do this alone. No President can. We must do it together. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick. We didn’t get into this mess overnight, and we won’t get out of it overnight. But we can do it- with commitment, creativity, diversity and drive. (Applause)

We can do it. We can do it. (Applause)

We can do it. We can do it. We can do it.

(Chants of “We can do it!”)

I want every person in this hall and every person in this land to reach out and join us in a great new adventures, to chart a bold new future.

As a teenager, I heard John Kennedy’s summons to citizenship. And then, as a student at Georgetown, I head that call clarified by a professor name Carol Quigley, who said to us that America was the greatest Nation in history because our people had always believed in two things- that tomorrow can be better than today and that every one of us has a personal moral responsibility to make it so. (Applause)

That kind of future entered my life the night our daughter, Chelsea, was born. As I stood in the delivery room, I was overcome with the thought that God had given me a blessing my own father never knew- the chance to hold my child in my arms.

Somewhere at this very moment a child is being born in America. Let it be our cause to give that child a happy home, a healthy family and a hopeful future. Let it be our cause to see that that child has a chance to live to the fullest of her God-given capacities. (Applause)

Let it be our cause to see that child grow up strong and secure, braced by her challenges but never struggling alone, with family and friends and a faith that in America, no one is left out; no one is left behind. (Applause)

Let it be our cause that when this child is able, she gives something back to her children, her community and her country. Let it be our cause that we give this child a country that is coming together, not coming apart, a country of boundless hopes and endless dreams, a country once again lifts its people and inspires the world. Let that be our cause our commitment and our New Covenant. (Applause)

My fellow Americans, I end tonight where it all began for me- I still believe in a place called Hope. God bless you, and God Bless America.

(Standing ovation and spontaneous demonstration)

Source: Democratic National Committee George Bush 1992 George Bush 1992 August 20, 1992










Remarks Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Houston

August 20, 1992

The President. Thank you all very much. Thank you, thank you very much. And I am proud to receive and I am honored to accept your nomination for President of the United States.

May I thank my dear friend and our great leader, Bob Dole, for that wonderful introduction.

Let me say this: This nomination's not for me alone. It is for the ideas, principles, and values that we stand for.

My job has been made easier by a leader who's taken a lot of unfair criticism with grace and humor, the Vice President of the United States, Dan Quayle. And I am very grateful to him.

I want to talk tonight about the sharp choice that I intend to offer Americans this fall, a choice between different agendas, different directions, and yes, a choice about the character of the man you want to lead this Nation. I know that Americans have many questions about our economy, about our country's future, even questions about me. I'll answer them tonight.

First, I feel great. And I am heartened by the polls, the ones that say that I look better in my jogging shorts than the Governor of Arkansas.

Four years ago, I spoke about missions for my life and for our country. I spoke of one urgent mission, defending our security and promoting the American ideal abroad.

Just pause for a moment to reflect on what we've done. Germany is united, and a slab of the Berlin Wall sits right outside this Astrodome. Arabs and Israelis now sit face to face and talk peace, and every hostage held in Lebanon is free. The conflict in El Salvador is over, and free elections brought democracy to Nicaragua. Black and white South Africans cheered each other at the Olympics. The Soviet Union can only be found in history books. The captive nations of Eastern Europe and the Baltics are captive no more. And today on the rural streets of Poland, merchants sell cans of air labeled ``the last breath of communism.''

If I had stood before you 4 years ago and described this as the world we would help to build, you would have said, ``George Bush, you must have been smoking something, and you must have inhaled.''

This convention is the first at which an American President can say the cold war is over, and freedom finished first.

Audience members. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

The President. We have a lot to be proud of, a lot. Some want to rewrite history, want to skip over the struggle, claim the outcome was inevitable. And while the U.S. postwar strategy was largely bipartisan, the fact remains that the liberal McGovern wing of the other party, including my opponent, consistently made the wrong choices. In the seventies, they wanted a hollow army. We wanted a strong fighting force. In the eighties -- and you remember this one -- in the eighties, they wanted a nuclear freeze, and we insisted on peace through strength. From Angola to Central America, they said, ``Let's negotiate, deliberate, procrastinate.'' We said, ``Just stand up for freedom.'' Now the cold war is over, and they claim, ``Hey, we were with you all the way.''

Audience members. Boo-o-o!

The President. You know, their behavior reminds me of the old con man's advice to the new kid. He said, ``Son, if you're being run out of town, just get out in front and make it look like a parade.''

Well, make no mistake: The demise of communism wasn't a sure thing. It took the strong leadership of Presidents from both parties, including Republicans like Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Without their vision and the support of the American people, the Soviet Union would be a strong superpower today, and we'd be facing a nuclear threat tonight.

My opponents say I spend too much time on foreign policy, as if it didn't matter that schoolchildren once hid under their desks in drills to prepare for nuclear war. I saw the chance to rid our children's dreams of the nuclear nightmare, and I did. Over the past 4 years, more people have breathed the fresh air of freedom than in all of human history. I saw a chance to help, and I did. These were the two defining opportunities not of a year, not of a decade, but of an entire span of human history. I seized those opportunities for our kids and our grandkids, and I make no apologies for that.

Now, the Soviet bear may be gone, but there are still wolves in the woods. We saw that when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The Mideast might have become a nuclear powder keg, our energy supplies held hostage. So we did what was right and what was necessary. We destroyed a threat, freed a people, and locked a tyrant in the prison of his own country.

What about the leader of the Arkansas National Guard, the man who hopes to be Commander in Chief? Well, I bit the bullet, and he bit his nails. Listen to this now. Two days after Congress followed my lead, my opponent said this, and I quote directly: ``I guess I would have voted with the majority if it was a close vote. But I agree with the arguments the minority made.'' Now, sounds to me like his policy can be summed up by a road sign he's probably seen on his bus tour, ``Slippery When Wet.''

Look, this is serious business. Think about the impact of our foreign policy failures the last time the Democrats controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue: gas lines, grain embargoes, American hostages blindfolded.

There will be more foreign policy challenges like Kuwait in the next 4 years, terrorists and aggressors to stand up to, dangerous weapons to be controlled and destroyed. Freedom's fight is not finished. I look forward to being the first President to visit a free, democratic Cuba. Who will lead the world in the face of these challenges? Not my opponent. In his acceptance speech he devoted just 65 seconds to telling us about the world.

Then he said that America was, and I quote again -- I want to be fair and factual -- I quote, being ``ridiculed'' everywhere. Well, tell that to the people around the world, for whom America is still a dream. Tell that to leaders around the world, from whom America commands respect. Ridiculed? Tell that to the men and women of Desert Storm.

Audience members. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

The President. Let me just make an aside comment here because of what you've been reading in the paper. This is a political year, but there's a lot of danger in the world. You can be sure I will never let politics interfere with a foreign policy decision. Forget the election; I will do right, what is right for the national security of the United States of America, and that is a pledge from my heart.

Fifty years ago this summer, I was 18 years of age. I see some young people in the audience tonight, and I remember how I felt in those days. I believed deeply in this country, and we were faced with a world war. So I made a decision to go off and fight a battle much different from political battles.

I was scared, but I was willing. I was young, but I was ready. I had barely lived when I began to watch men die. I began to see the special place of America in the world. I began to see, even then, that the world would become a much smaller place, and faraway places could become more and more like America.

Fifty years later, after change of almost Biblical proportions, we know that when freedom grows, America grows. Just as a strong America means a safer world, we have learned that a safer world means a stronger America.

This election is about change. But that's not unusual, because the American revolution is never ending. Today, the pace of change is accelerating. We face new opportunities and new challenges. The question is: Who do you trust to make change work for you?

Audience members. George Bush! George Bush! George Bush!

The President. My opponent says America is a nation in decline. Of our economy, he says we are somewhere on the list beneath Germany, heading south toward Sri Lanka. Well, don't let anyone tell you that America is second-rate, especially somebody running for President.

Maybe he hasn't heard that we are still the world's largest economy. No other nation sells more outside its borders. The Germans, the British, the Japanese can't touch the productivity of you, the American worker and the American farmer. My opponent won't mention that. He won't remind you that interest rates are the lowest they've been in 20 years, and millions of Americans have refinanced their homes. You just won't hear that inflation, the thief of the middle class, has been locked in a maximum security prison.

You don't hear much about this good news because the media also tends to focus only on the bad. When the Berlin Wall fell, I half expected to see a headline, ``Wall Falls, Three Border Guards Lose Jobs.'' [Laughter] And underneath, it probably says, ``Clinton Blames Bush.'' [Laughter]

You don't hear a lot about progress in America. So let me tell you about some good things we've done together.

Just two weeks ago, all three nations of North America agreed to trade freely from Manitoba to Mexico. This will bring good jobs to Main Street, U.S.A.

We passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, bringing 43 million people into the economic mainstream. I must say, it's about time.

Our children will breathe easier because of our new clean air pact.

We are rebuilding our roads, providing jobs for more than half a million Americans.

We passed a child care law, and we took a stand for family values by saying that when it comes to raising children, Government doesn't know best; parents know best.

I have fought against prejudice and anti-Semitism all my life. I am proud that we strengthened our civil rights laws, and we did it without resorting to quotas.

One more thing of vital importance to all: Today, cocaine use has fallen by 60 percent among young people. To the teenagers, the parents, and the volunteers who are helping us battle the scourge of drugs in America, we say, thank you; thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Do I want to do more? You bet. Nothing hurts me more than to meet with soldiers home from the Persian Gulf who can't find a job or workers who have a job but worry that the next day will bring a pink slip. And what about parents who scrape and struggle to send their kids to college, only to find them back living at home because they can't get work.

The world is in transition, and we are feeling that transition in our homes. The defining challenge of the nineties is to win the economic competition, to win the peace. We must be a military superpower, an economic superpower, and an export superpower.

In this election, you'll hear two versions of how to do this. Theirs is to look inward and protect what we already have. Ours is to look forward, to open new markets, prepare our people to compete, to restore our social fabric, to save and invest so we can win.

We believe that now that the world looks more like America, it's time for America to look more like herself. And so we offer a philosophy that puts faith in the individual, not the bureaucracy; a philosophy that empowers people to do their best, so America can be at its best. In a world that is safer and freer, this is how we will build an America that is stronger, safer, and more secure.

We start with a simple fact: Government is too big and spends too much.

I have asked Congress to put a lid on mandatory spending, except Social Security. I've proposed doing away with over 200 programs and 4,000 wasteful projects and to freeze all other spending.

The gridlock Democrat Congress said no.

Audience members. Boo - o - o!

The President. So, beginning tonight, I will enforce the spending freeze on my own. If Congress sends me a bill spending more than I asked for in my budget, I will veto it fast, veto it fast, faster than copies of Millie's book sold.

Now, Congress won't cut spending, but refuses to give the President the power to eliminate pork-barrel projects that waste your money. Forty-three Governors have that power. So I ask you, the American people: Give me a Congress that will give me the line-item veto.

Let me tell you about a recent battle fought with the Congress, a battle in which I was aided by Bob Michel and his troops, and Bob Dole and his. This spring, I worked day and night to get two-thirds of the House Members to approve a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We almost had it, but we lost by just nine votes. Now, listen how. Just before the vote, the liberal leaders of the Congress convinced 12 Members who cosponsored the bill to switch sides and vote no. Keep in mind, they voted against a bill they had already put their names on. Something fishy is going on.

And look at my opponent on this issue. Look at my opponent. He says he's for balanced budgets. But he came out against the amendment. He's like that on a lot of issues, first on one side, then the other. He's been spotted in more places than Elvis Presley.

After all these years, Congress has become pretty creative at finding ways to waste your money. So we need to be just as creative at finding ways to stop them. I have a brandnew idea. Taxpayers should be given the right to check a box on their tax returns so that up to 10 percent of their payments can go for one purpose alone: to reduce the national debt.

But we also need to make sure that Congress doesn't just turn around and borrow more money to spend more money. So I will require that for every tax dollar set aside to cut the debt, the ceilings on spending will be cut by an equal amount. That way, we will cut both debt and spending and take a whack out of the budget deficit.

My feelings about big government come from my experience; I spent half my adult life in the private sector. My opponent has a different experience; he's been in government nearly all his life. His passion to expand government knows no bounds.

He's already proposed, and listen to this carefully, he has already proposed $220 billion in new spending, along with the biggest tax increase in history, $150 billion. And that's just to start.

Audience members. Boo-o-o!

The President. He says he wants to tax the rich. But folks, he defines rich as anyone who has a job. [Laughter]

You've heard of the separations of powers. Well, my opponent practices a different theory: the power of separations. Government has the power to separate you from your wallet. [Laughter]

Now let me say this: When it comes to taxes, I've learned the hard way. There's an old saying, ``Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.'' Two years ago, I made a bad call on the Democrats tax increase. I underestimated Congress' addiction to taxes. With my back against the wall, I agreed to a hard bargain: One tax increase one time in return for the toughest spending limits ever.

Well, it was a mistake to go along with the Democratic tax increase, and I admit it. But here's the question for the American people. Who do you trust in this election? The candidate who's raised taxes one time and regrets it, or the other candidate who raised taxes and fees 128 times and enjoyed it every time?

Audience members. Viva Bush! Viva Bush! Viva Bush!

The President. Thank you very much.

Audience members. Hit 'em again! Hit 'em again, harder, harder! Hit 'em again! Hit 'em again, harder, harder!

The President. When the new Congress convenes next January, I will propose to further reduce taxes across the board, provided we pay for these cuts with specific spending reductions that I consider appropriate, so that we do not increase the deficit. I will also continue to fight to increase the personal exemption and to create jobs by winning a cut in capital gains taxes.

That will especially help small businesses. You know, they create -- small businesses -- they create two-thirds of the new jobs in America. But my opponent's plan for small business is clear, present, and dangerous. Beside new income taxes, his plan will lead to a new payroll tax to pay for a Government takeover of health care and another new tax to pay for training. That is just the beginning.

If he gets his way, hardware stores across America will have a new sign up, ``Closed for despair.'' I guess you'd say his plan really is ``Elvis economics.'' America will be checking into the ``Heartbreak Hotel.''

I believe that small business needs relief from taxation, regulation, and litigation. And thus, I will extend for one year the freeze on paperwork and unnecessary Federal regulation that I imposed last winter. There is no reason that Federal regulations should live longer than my friend George Burns. I will issue an order to get rid of any rule whose time has come and gone.

I see something happening in our towns and in our neighborhoods. Sharp lawyers are running wild. Doctors are afraid to practice medicine, and some moms and pops won't even coach Little League any more. We must sue each other less and care for each other more. I am fighting to reform our legal system, to put an end to crazy lawsuits. If that means climbing into the ring with the trial lawyers, well, let me just say, round one starts tonight.

After all, my opponent's campaign is being backed by practically every trial lawyer who ever wore a tasselled loafer. He's not in the ring with them; he's in the tank.

There are other things we need to do to get our economy up to speed, prepare our kids for the next century. We must have new incentives for research and new training for workers. Small businesses need capital and credit, and defense workers need new jobs. I have a plan to provide affordable health care for every American, controlling costs by cutting paperwork and lawsuits and expanding coverage to the poorest of the poor.

We do not need my opponent's plan for a massive Government takeover of health care, which would ration care and deny you the right to choose a doctor. Who wants health care with a system with the efficiency of the House post office and the compassion of the KGB?

What about our schools? What about our schools? My opponent and I both want to change the way our kids learn. He wants to change our schools a little bit, and I want to change them a lot. Take the issue of whether parents should be able to choose the best school for their kids. My opponent says that's okay, as long as the school is run by government. And I say every parent and child should have a real choice of schools, public, private, or religious.

So we have a clear choice to fix our problems. Do we turn to the tattered blanket of bureaucracy that other nations are tossing away? Or do we give our people the freedom and incentives to build security for themselves?

Here's what I'm fighting for: Open markets for American products; lower Government spending; tax relief; opportunities for small business; legal and health reform; job training; and new schools built on competition, ready for the 21st century.

Now, okay, why are these proposals not in effect today? Only one reason: the gridlock Democratic Congress.

Audience members. Clean your House! Clean your House! Clean your House!

The President. A very good idea, a very good idea.

Now, I know Americans are tired of the blame game, tired of people in Washington acting like they're candidates for the next episode of ``American Gladiators.'' I don't like it, either. Neither should you. But the truth is the truth. Our policies have not failed. They haven't even been tried.

Americans want jobs, and on January 28th, I put before Congress a plan to create jobs. If it'd been passed back then, 500,000 more Americans would be at work right now. But in a Nation that demands action, Congress has become the master of inaction.

It wasn't always this way. I heard President Ford tonight. I served in Congress 22 years ago, under him. And back then, we cooperated. We didn't get personal. We put the people above everything else. Heck, we didn't even own blow dryers back in those days.

At my first Inauguration, I said that people didn't send us to bicker. I extended my hand, and I think the American people know this, I extended my hand to the congressional leaders, the Democratic leaders, and they bit it.

The House leadership has not changed in 38 years. It is a body caught in a hopelessly tangled web of PAC's, perks, privileges, partnership, and paralysis. Every day, Congress puts politics ahead of principle and above progress.

Now, let me give you just one example: February 20th, 1991. It was at the height of the Gulf war. On that very same day, I asked American pilots to risk their lives to fly missions over Baghdad. I also wanted to strengthen our economic security for the future. So that very same day, I introduced a new domestic energy strategy which would cut our dependence on foreign oil by 7 million barrels a day.

How many days did it take to win the Gulf war? Forty-three. How many did it take Congress to pass a national energy strategy? Five hundred and thirty-two, and still counting. I have ridden stationary bikes that can move faster than the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, controlled by the Democrat leadership.

Audience members. Hit 'em again! Hit 'em again, harder, harder! Hit 'em again! Hit 'em again, harder, harder!

The President. Okay. All right. You wait. I'm fixing to.

Where does my opponent stand with Congress? Well, up in New York at their convention, they kept the congressional leaders away from the podium, hid them away. They didn't want America to hear from the people who really make the decisions. They hid them for a very good reason, because the American people would recognize a dangerous combination: a rubber-check Congress and a rubber-stamp President.

Governor Clinton and Congress know that you've caught on to their lingo. They know when they say ``spending,'' you say ``uh-oh.'' So now they have a new word, ``investment.'' They want to ``invest'' $220 billion more of your money, but I want you to keep it.

Governor Clinton and Congress want to put through the largest tax increase in history, but I will not let that happen. Governor Clinton and Congress don't want kids to have the option of praying in school, but I do. Clinton and Congress don't want to close legal loopholes and keep criminals behind bars, but I will. Clinton and Congress will stock the judiciary with liberal judges who write laws they can't get approved by the voters.

Governor Clinton even says that Mario Cuomo belongs on the Supreme Court. [Laughter] Wait a minute, though. No, wait. Maybe not a bad idea. If you believe in judicial restraint, you probably ought to be happy. After all, the good Governor of New York can't make up his mind between chocolate and vanilla at Baskin Robbins. He's there, we won't have another court decision for 35 years, and maybe that's all right, too.

Are my opponent and Congress really in cahoots? Look at one important question: Should we limit the terms of Congress?

Audience members. Yes.

The President. Governor Clinton says no. Congress says no. I say yes.

We tried this -- look, we tried this once before, combining the Democratic Governor of a small southern State with a very liberal Vice President and a Democratic Congress. America does not need Carter II. We do not want to take America back to those days of malaise. But Americans want to know: Where's proof that we will have better days in Washington?

I'll give you 150 reasons. That's how many Members of Congress are expected to leave Washington this year. Some are tainted by scandal; the voters have bounced them the way they bounced their own checks. But others are good Members, Republican and Democrat, and they agree with me. The place just doesn't work anymore.

One hundred-fifty new Members, from both parties, will be coming to Washington this fall. Every one will have a fresh view of America's future.

I pledge today to the American people, immediately after this election, I will meet with every one of these Members, before they get attacked by the PAC's, overwhelmed by their staffs, and cornered by some camera crew. I will lay out my case for change, change that matters, real change that makes a difference, change that is right for America.

You see, there is a yearning in America, a feeling that maybe it's time to get back to our roots. Sure we must change, but some values are timeless. I believe in families that stick together, fathers who stick around. I happen to believe very deeply in the worth of each individual human being, born or unborn. I believe in teaching our kids the difference between what's wrong and what's right, teaching them respect for hard work and to love their neighbors. I believe that America will always have a special place in God's heart, as long as He has a special place in ours. Maybe that's why I've always believed that patriotism is not just another point of view.

There are times in every young person's life when God introduces you to yourself. I remember such a time. It was back many years ago, when I stood watch at 4 a.m. up on the bridge of a submarine, the United States Finback, U.S.S. Finback. And I would stand there and look out on the blackness of the sky, broken only by the sparkling stars above. And I would think about friends I lost, a country I loved, and about a girl named Barbara. I remember those nights as clearly as any in my life.

You know, you can see things from up there that other people don't see. You can see storm clouds rise and then disappear, the first hint of the sun over the horizon, and the first outline of the shore far away.

Now, I know that Americans are uneasy today. There is anxious talk around our kitchen tables. But from where I stand, I see not America's sunset but a sunrise.

The world changes for which we've sacrificed for a generation have finally come to pass, and with them a rare and unprecedented opportunity to pass the sweet cup of prosperity around our American table.

Are we up to it? I know we are. As I travel our land, I meet veterans who once worked the turrets of a tank and can now master the keyboards of high-tech economy. I see teachers blessed with the incredible American capacity for innovation who are teaching our children a new way to learn for a new century. I meet parents, some working two jobs with hectic schedules, who still find new ways to teach old values to steady their kids in a turbulent world.

I take heart from what is happening in America, not from those who profess a new passion for government but from those with an old and enduring faith in the human potential, those who understand that the genius of America is our capacity for rebirth and renewal. America is the land where the sun is always peeking over the horizon.

Tonight I appeal to that unyielding, undying, undeniable American spirit. I ask you to consider, now that the entire world is moving our way, why would we want to go back their way? I ask not just for your support for my agenda but for your commitment to renew and rebuild our Nation by shaking up the one institution that has withstood change for over four decades. Join me in rolling away the roadblock at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, so that in the next 4 years, we will match our accomplishments outside by building a stronger, safer, more secure America inside.

Forty-four years ago in another age of uncertainty a different President embarked on a similar mission. His name was Harry S Truman. As he stood before his party to accept their nomination, Harry Truman knew the freedom I know this evening, the freedom to talk about what's right for America, and let the chips fall where they may.

Harry Truman said this: This is more than a political call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win this new crusade and keep America safe and secure for its own people.

Well, tonight I say to you: Join me in our new crusade, to reap the rewards of our global victory, to win the peace, so that we may make America safer and stronger for all our people.

May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 9:20 p.m. at the Houston Astrodome.

Source: George Bush Presidential Library and Museum George Bush 1992 George Bush 1992 February 12, 1992











REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCEMENT

J.W. Marriott Hotel - Washington, D.C.

10:10 A.M. EST

February 12, 1992

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. And Barbara, thank you for those kind remarks. And may I salute Vice President Dan Quayle, just back from overseas; and Marilyn. (Applause.) And my respects to the members of our great Cabinet, and friends all. Thanks to all of you for this wonderful, warm reception.

I have an announcement to make. (Laughter.) I want to continue serving as your President -- four more years. (Applause.) So from this moment on, I'm a candidate for President of the United States, officially. (Applause.)

Let me tell you why I'm running. I came here to do important work -- and I finish what I start.

In 1980 I came to Washington as part of a team. We started a revolution to free America from -- you remember -- the politics of malaise -- and to set sail toward America's destiny. Then in 1988, Dan Quayle and I began our own partnership, built on the same principles.

My message then and my message now is simple: I believe government is too big and it costs too much. (Applause.) I believe in a strong defense for this country -- (Applause) -and good schools, safe streets -- a government really worthy of the people. (Applause.)

I believe that parents, not government, should make the important decisions -- about health, child care, and education.

I believe in personal responsibility. (Applause.) I believe in opportunity for all. We should throw open wide the doors of possibility to anyone who has been locked out.

And I believe in a piece of wisdom passed on by my favorite political philosopher, Barbara Bush -- (laughter) -- "What happens in your house is more important than what happens in the White House." (Applause.)

You see America's future doesn't take shape in small rooms with heavily polished wooden desks. It takes place in homes, where parents read to their children, talk about responsibility, teach them values, show them how to love one another, respect one another, and work hard, and live good lives.

We must encourage families to remain strong and whole. We must extend our hearts and hands to children who have no one to hold them or call them by their names.

We're gathered here because the American people wanted leadership -- and we answered the call. We didn't do the easy things. We did the right things. (Applause.)

From day one, I fought for strong and effective national defense. I stuck to my principles, and we kept strong and we won the Cold War. (Applause.) And we stayed strong -- and that enabled us to win a battle called Desert Storm. (Applause.)

But we did far more than that. We liberated the entire world from old fears -- fears of tense, endless confrontation; fears of nuclear holocaust. Now our children grow up freed from the looming specter of nuclear war. (Applause.)

But having won the Cold War, we did more. We led nations away from ancient hatreds and toward a table of peace. And we still did more than that. We forged a new world order an order shaped by the sweat and sacrifice of our families -- the sweat and sacrifice of generations upon generations of American men and women.

Think of it: two years ago,the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. And last year, the Soviet Union collapsed. (Applause.) "Imperial Communism" became a four lettered word: D-E-A-D -- dead. (Applause.)

And today, because we stood firm, because we did the right things, America stands alone, the undisputed leader of the world. (Applause.)

We put an end to the decades of Cold War and reaped a springtime harvest of peace. The American people should be proud of what together we have achieved.

Now together we will transform the Arsenal of Democracy into the Engine of Growth.

I understand the world. That's crucial. But that's not enough. I understand America. And I know that American workers are the most productive in the world -- bar none. (Applause.) And I know, to succeed economically at home, we need to lead economically abroad. If you want to lead in the world, you've got to know the neighborhood. Economic leadership means markets for American products, jobs for American workers -- and growing room for the American Dream. (Applause.)

The American people do not believe in isolationism because they believe in themselves. (Applause.) We Americans don't hide from a good test of our abilities. We rise to the challenge. And after all our national bird is the eagle, not the ostrich. (Applause.)

In 1992, the American people will decide what kind of leadership they want. They'll decide which team has the character, the experience and the toughness to make the important decisions. They could cast their lot with a lot of fresh faces who tout stale ideas. But they won't. Voters know the difference between a sound bite and a sound policy. (Applause.)

Let's not kid ourselves. We're in a tough fight. But you know me: I don't seek unnecessary conflict, but when principle is at stake, I fight to win. And I am determined to win. And I will win. (Applause.)

This will be a long campaign. That's all right. Our campaign will focus on the future -- the only subject that counts. We'll fight hard. We'll fight fair. And we'll win. (Applause.)

Abraham Lincoln -- whose birth we celebrate today -- once told fellow Republicans, "We will make converts day by day -- and unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority after a while. The battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle."

And so be it. That's the way it will be. For three years an entrenched opposition in Washington has clung to the old failed ways -- not out of principle, but out of sheer politics. They blocked our comprehensive efforts to fight crime and drugs. They refused to join the revolution in American education. They stalled our efforts to cut taxes and slash regulation and encourage economic growth. And then they complained that nothing got done. (Applause.)

This year we say, no more. To those who want to obstruct programs, we say, get moving or get out of the way. We've got an agenda. (Applause.)

THE AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.

THE PRESIDENT: We've got an agenda, and here's what we'll do:

Together, we'll get our economy up and running -- at full speed. We'll restore decency to the American way of life. We will silence the voices of hatred and gloom. And we will attack our dismal welfare program. (Applause.) And we will, in the process, provide the best kind of a welfare system imaginable -- good jobs for Americans able to work. And we will build the America of our dreams.

In my life, I've seen miracles, and I've learned that no dream is too big for the American heart.

When I was a little boy, this world moved at an easy pace. Then came a depression; then came a world war. And in the fires of battle I learned freedom's painful price. And I've seen wondrous changes -- new ideas and technologies, tempered by the humanity that makes us what we are. Amid the swells of change, gentle fundamentals anchor us still. Decency, honor, hard work, caring: that's the America I know.

And I have been blessed in my life -- blessed by Barbara and by a family that fills me with wonder and joy and love. And I'm blessed with so many friends, friends like you. And I have been especially blessed because I have been given the opportunity to serve as your President -- the President of the United States.

The glory of this century is America. And history will call this the American Century because we fought the battle of freedom -- and we won. And history will tell of a second American Century -- when we led the world to new heights of achievement and liberty.

This is our legacy. This is our challenge. And this is our destiny. And together, we will win. I am certain of that. (Applause.)

Thank you very, very much. And may God bless you. (Applause.) May God bless each and every one of you and our great country the United States of America. Thank you very, very much. (Applause.)

END
10:25 A.M. EST

Source: White House Pat Buchanan 1992 Pat Buchanan 1992 December 10, 1991










A Crossroads in Our Country's History

New Hampshire State Legislative Office Building

December 10, 1991

My friends, we come to New Hampshire at a crossroads in our country's history.

The long Cold War between Communism and freedom, in which many of us invested lives and careers, is ending. Some of us thought we would never see the day that Communism was defeated, and the empire of Lenin and Stalin dismantled. By the grace of God, America won the Cold War.

But victory has not brought with it an end to history.

Beyond these shores, a new world is being born for which our government is unprepared, and we are unprepared. The dynamic force shaping that world is nationalism.

From Ukraine to Croatia, old nations are breaking up, new nations are being born. And as we Americans have always stood for freedom and self-determination, we should not fear the future. We should be the first to welcome them into the family of nations. For they all look to America as the ideal of what they too might one day become.

In the Far East, however, nationalism has taken on a different and harder aspect. The rising economic power of Japan has filed a claim to displace the United States as the dominant power of the 21st Century. In Europe, many of the ancient states are signing up to exchange their national birthright for a limited partnership in an economic co-op called the EC. In Holland, a conservative prime minister is today being pressed to lead the Mother of Parliaments into yielding up to bureaucrats in Brussels what generations of British soldiers fought to preserve.

We Americans must not let that happen here.

We must not trade in our sovereignty for a cushioned seat at the head table of anyone's New World Order.

The first challenge we face, then, is economic, presented by the rise of a European super state and a dynamic Asia led by Japan. The 20th Century was the American Century, but they intend to make the 21st, the century of Europe or the Century of Asia.

So, as we Americans congratulate one another on the victory for freedom that we, first and foremost, won, and won together for all mankind in the Cold War, we must begin to prepare for the new struggles already underway.

All the institutions of the Cold War, from vast permanent U.S. armies on foreign soil, to old alliances against Communist enemies that no longer exist, to billions in foreign aid, must be re-examined. With a $4 trillion debt, with a U.S. budget chronically out of balance, should the United States be required to carry indefinitely the burden of defending rich and prosperous allies who take America's generosity for granted as they invade our markets?

Whenever there is a natural disaster, anywhere, from Armenia to Kurdistan to Bangladesh, we Americans will be there, first, with aid and relief. That is our tradition, a tradition that will never change. But it is time to end these routinized annual transfers of our national wealth to global bureaucrats, who ship it off to regimes that pay us back in compound ingratitude. It is time to phase out foreign aid, and start looking out for the needs of the forgotten Americans right here in the United States.

So, today, we call for a new patriotism, where Americans begin to put the needs of Americans first, for a new nationalism where in every negotiation, be it arms control or trade, the American side seeks advantage and victory for the United States.

The people of this country need to recapture our capital city from an occupying army of lobbyists, and registered agents of foreign powers hired to look out for everybody and everything except the national interest of the United States.

It is time also to take a hard look at the welfare state.

Over a quarter century we have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into Great Society programs. Whatever the motives of those who built this mammoth state enterprise, our financial loss has been exceeded only by the social catastrophe it created. High school test scores drop almost every year, as the levels of violent crime reach new heights. Narcotics have ravaged a generation. Our popular culture of books, movies and films is as polluted as Lake Eerie once was. The welfare state has bred a generation of children and youth with no fathers, no faith and no dreams - other than the lure of the streets.

To our economic crisis, however, we Americans know the answer.

It is to end the steadily rising drain of wealth and resources to Washington; to ease up on - not add to, Mr. President - the tax burden on American business; to unleash, not tie down, the genius and energy of American enterprise. As for the predatory traders of Europe or Asia, who have targeted this or that American industry for dumping and destruction, if I am elected, they will find themselves on a collision course with the President of the United States.

When we say we will put America first, we mean also that our Judeo-Christian values are going to be preserved, and our Western heritage is going to be handed down to future generations, not dumped onto some land fill called multi-culturalism.

At the root of America's social crisis - be it AIDS, ethnic hatred, crime or the social decomposition of our cities - lies a spiritual crisis. Solzhenitsyn was right. Men have forgotten God. Not in the redistribution of wealth, but in the words of the Old and New Testament will be found not only salvation, but the cure for a society suffering a chronic moral sickness.

But as we search for the answers we all used to know, we need to take back our streets from the criminals. We need to persuade pastors and preachers to return to their pulpits to reinstruct us in the Commandments and the truths of our traditional faiths, and to leave government to the politicians. We must do what we can to reconstruct the old conscience-forming and character-forming institutions of society - family and church, home and school.

We need God's help, and we need your help.

Why am I running? Because we Republicans can no longer say it is all the liberals' fault. It was not some liberal Democrat who declared, "Read my lips! No new taxes!," then broke his word to cut a back room budget deal with the big spenders. It was not Edward Kennedy who railed against a quota bill, then embraced its twin. It was not Congress alone who set off on the greatest social spending spree in 60 years, running up the largest deficits in modern history. No, that was done by men in whom we placed our confidence and our trust, and who turned their backs, and walked away from us.

What is the White House answer to the recession caused by its own breach of faith? It is to deny we even have a recession.

Well, let them come to New Hampshire.

My friends, we are the sons and daughters of the men and women who brought America through the Depression and crushed fascism on two sides of the world. We ourselves are the men and women who won the Cold War with Communism. We can win the future and we can hand down to those who come after us a country as great and grand and good as the one that was given to us. But first we must take America back.

So we are taking this campaign not just to Republicans, and not just to conservatives. Every American is invited to join, the middle-class of both parties, and of no party. For the establishment that has dominated Congress for four decades is as ossified and out-of-touch with America as the establishment that resides in the White House.

This race will not be about personality; and this campaign will not get into personalities.

George Bush served bravely in America's great war. He is a man of graciousness, honor, and integrity, who has given half a lifetime to his nation's service. But the differences between us now are too deep.

He is yesterday and we are tomorrow. He is a globalist and we are nationalists. He believes in some Pax Universalis; we believe in the Old Republic. He would put American's wealth and power at the service of some vague New World Order; we will put America first. So, to take my party back and take our country back, I am today declaring my candidacy for the Republican nomination for the President of the United States.

Source: Field Guide to the 1992 Presidential Campaign Democracy in Action Jerry Brown 1992 Jerry Brown 1992 October 21, 1991










BROWN FOR PRESIDENT

Edmund G. Brown Jr.'s Announcement Speech

Independence Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

October 21, 1991

Good Afternoon.

We gather today at the most sacred site of American democracy. It was right here two centuries ago that our forebearers forged the miracle of America, and they called it "A New Order of the Ages."

In that hall, ordinary people not any different from you and me, struggled and argued and finally agreed on the ideas which make our government and the people of the United States stand apart from all others.

I have come here today because I care about my country and its future, and I care about the future of this earth on which we all depend.

I love being an American and I love the freedom and the creativity it makes possible.

I love the things which our democracy stands for--the ideals and truths which were worked out just a few feet away. These ideas have power and they are stirring the human imagination in Eastern Europe and Burma and the furthest reaches of Asia.

In that spirit, I am here in Philadelphia to stand as a candidate for President of the United States in 1992.

I am here today to make a commitment to each of you that I intend to keep and honor: That I will work with all my energy and that I will do whatever is necessary to bring about real change.

This candidacy is not simply about me. It is about us. You and you and you.

Because we Americans confront a Great Crisis. The swelling tide of Decline looming on the horizon constitutes a threat to America as deadly as any faced by our forebears.

And we have only begun to reap the whirlwind of decline. Without decisive action on a large scale--of a nature totally unacknowledged in current political debate-the decline--will accelerate.

Our founder's greatest fear was the danger posed by the merger of economic and political power. Indeed, when 200 years ago Jefferson started the Democratic Party, he proclaimed its purpose thus: "We must put it out of the power of the few to riot on the labors of the many."

The calamity which our forefathers feared most has, in our time, come to pass--an unholy alliance of private greed and corrupt politics. Our deteriorating economy, our collapsing political process, and our eroding system of common values, are the direct consequences of a few allowed to satisfy their appetites for greed and privilege.

While the net worth of the average American family declined, the Forbes 400 richest families in America saw their collective wealth increase by 300%! Did any other American families see their net worth triple? Even double?

However, the stunning gains by the very rich did not result from the success of hard work or as a reward earned by expanding the nation's prosperity to the benefit of all.

The triumph of the forces of special privilege with its devastating consequences to the entire nation, was engineered with the complicity of Washington's entrenched politicians, Democrat and Republican alike.

Our democratic system has been the object of a hostile takeover engineered by a confederacy of corruption, careerism and campaign consulting.

And money has been the lubricant greasing the deal. Incredible sums--literally hundreds of millions of dollars--from political action committees (PACs), lobbyists, and wealthy patrons have flooded into the campaign war chests of Washington's entrenched political elite--Democrats and Republicans alike.

Seeking to secure careers of unlimited tenure, these politicians use this cash to fuel monstrous campaigns. Captained by political consultants, these campaigns are designed to crush any challenge to their power.

And, of course, the forces of greed are rewarded richly for the campaign contributions. Unjust tax breaks are only one form of acknowledgement. Agreeing to look the other way, these politicians opened the door to the plunder of Savings and Loans and a merger mania which gutted some of our most respected companies.

The insatiable appetite for campaign dollars has turned the government into a stop and shop for every conceivable greedy and narrow interest.

The quid pro quo could not be more straightforward. The legality of the barter cannot mask its inherent corruptness. Nor can any degree of dissembling obscure the truth that this bargain has been executed--almost without exception--to the detriment of the national interest and at the expense of the American people.

The cost of this corruption has been staggering. Can it be a coincidence that our cities became engulfed in a flood of rising crime and rampaging drugs exactly when the poorest among us were experiencing drastic reductions in their standard of living?

Together, private greed and corrupt power have launched a deadly assault on our common values.

To rationalize greed, they championed materialism and self-interest over moral responsibility and community. "What is in it for me?" To protect their power they inject poisons into the body politic; appeals to fear and selfishness replace calls to hope and sacrifice.

Despairing of their inability to influence the political process, legions of Americans-numbered in the millions--swell the ranks of the party of non voters.

How ironic that the spirit of Democracy is aflame around the world, while in America democratic choice is rendered illusory and Jefferson's "consent of the governed" is mostly engineered and rarely earned.

Shortly after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln explained that the central idea pervading the struggle was the "necessity of proving that popular government is not an absurdity."

The crisis which led to our bloody Civil War was triggered by the secession of one third of the states. Today, one half of our people have stopped voting and "seceded" from the political democracy.

Politics is at the heart of democracy. When the political system loses respect and trust, then the decline of democracy will surely follow. And when democracy declines, the survival of America is put in jeopardy.

This crisis has been triggered by the collapse of our two party system. In reality, there is only one party: It's the Incumbent Party. There are, of course, two major political organizations with different names, but at their core they are the same. They share the same world view and they serve the power of the same private interests which, in return, finance the campaigns of both. When there are no substantial differences, there is no choice to be made. And without choices, there is no democracy, and when there is no democracy there is no freedom; only a system which entertains us with illusions.

As one historian wrote nearly a half century ago: "When there is no alternative, no threat of defeat, there is no incentive to hold together, and in the end, no policy, merely a scramble for special privileges."

The recent Congressional Pay Raises are but the most egregious example.

Bouncing checks, skipping out on restaurant tabs, and self-serving pay increase are all manifestations of the insensitivity and contempt of entrenched elected officials.

When our leaders fail to do their job and betray the people's confidence, then it is our inalienable right to strip them of their power through the great engine of democracy.

The leaders of Washington's Incumbent Party--both Democrats and Republicans--have failed their duty. Placing their own interests above the national interest, they have allowed themselves to be trapped and to varying degrees corrupted by the powerful forces of greed.

It is time for them to go.

As always, the strength necessary to create the change we need must come from each of us.

As it was at the beginning, America hinges on, "We the People" exercising the sovereignty we claimed in this city of Philadelphia.

For 200 years, each generation has earned the title "American" by following a simple moral command: That we give our children better than we received; that we pass on a greater future with more freedom and more opportunity.

However, we are now in danger of becoming the first generation to leave our children with a lesser America.

In that hall, our forebears chose armed rebellion in defense of the very ideas and principles which are now being betrayed by a corrupted political process.

On July 6, 1775--a full year before they declared Independence--the Second Continental Congress issued a "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms." In it they proclaimed:

"Honor, justice, and humanity forbid us to tamely surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors and which our innocent posterity

have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them."

If we continue to allow our children's rightful heritage to be plundered by politicians and greedy interests, if we do not halt the auctioning off of this nation's assets to foreigners to underwrite our debts, if we force succeeding generations to sell with their future to pay for our excesses--then we will certainly have betrayed our heritage.

The future of America's children and their children is nothing less than our moral test.

At stake is everything that Philadelphia means, not only to us but to the whole world.

I run for President because I believe that America is at the crossroads.

If we, right now, are prepared in the spirit of our ancestors to join in common cause, putting principle before party and patriotism before profits, then we can reclaim for ourselves and our children the Idea and Promise of America.

The hour has rung for us, "We the People" to rise up and take back our democracy and our country!

This election is not simply about changing elected officials. It's about changing the country.

And restoring what our forbears brought forth here 200 years ago.

What is required is not just a candidate, but a candidacy, not merely a campaign, but a cause.

The goal of this candidacy is a government that embodies the hope and the promise of our country and insures that we never abandon our heritage.

I am here to make a solemn promise that I am committed to be the catalyst for change.

But, I can not work change alone. No woman or man can do that.

I need each of you to commit yourselves with me to work change for the common good.

You and I must make our voice heard.

Both you and I will need to sacrifice in order to achieve higher goals: decency, respect, duty and honor--the very things that were embraced in that hall 200 years ago.

You and I, each in our small way, must stand up to forces that overwhelm us.

You and I must deliver a message to those who run the United States of America like a private club that we are going to work change.

We must change and move beyond inwardly--fuming self-interest to interest in the greater good. We must see one another as brothers and sisters.

I am only one person with flaws and faults. And in my 53 years I have made many mistakes.

But I commit to each of you that I will strive to my utmost to continually change within myself.

I do not pretend to know all the right questions, much less have all the right answers. And even if I did, it wouldn't make much difference unless we first decisively break the political gridlock that is undermining our country.

The campaign I propose must be an ongoing dynamic process in which the people are not only heard, but truly engaged. Only then can a consensus of action emerge which speaks the will of the people.

Our cause is clear. We must: restore commitment to our nation, vitality to the values of our society, vigor to our economy, real democracy to our government, and purpose to our national life. And above all secure our children's birthright of a greater America than we ourselves inherited.

First and overriding is the priority to restore to the people what is rightfully ours--the power of democracy. In corrupted hands it is lifeless; in the people's hands it possesses an irrepressible magic.

The current system promotes tenure over statesmanship. It erects barriers to real participation. Reelection upon reelection of the same incumbents occurs at the expense of new ideas, new energy, and honest representation.

That's why I favor limiting the number of terms of those who serve in Congress.

We will never revitalize our market economy--until the strangle-hold of unrestrained greed is broken and until every American is protected by an Economic Bill of Rights.

We know we must overhaul the fiscal management of our nation. And we know the answer is not to pour more tax dollars down the same bottomless pit.

We know we must reform our system of National Health Care to cover every single person.

But as long as the medical industry and the insurance companies are allowed to pour tens of millions of dollars in to the political process, nothing is ever going to change.

We know we must improve the education we give our kids. But that will never happen until we break the shackles of restraining our teachers and make the same commitment to developing technology for learning as we have for defense.

We know that we will not really be free until the rights of every American are secured-including the right of women to control their own bodies.

We will never insure the dignity and security of our senior citizens until their retirement and pension systems are safe from the danger of being looted.

We must save our cities and the generations of innocent children who are being destroyed by drugs and crime and hopelessness. But that will never happen until we are willing to risk political defeat, if necessary, over this moral issue.

I run for president because I believe that this country deserves a real political choice. This election must be about something more than Democratic "insiders" against Republican "insiders" debating over incremental change.

It is time to choose. The entrenched political establishment and their media allies believe that our country is on the right track and that its problems can be met with incremental efforts. If you believe that, please do not vote for me.

However, if you search your heart and if my message rings true to you--then I tell you, it is not enough to vote for me. If you share my vision, then you must join me in this candidacy.

It is time to choose: stand with them or join with us.

This candidacy rests on a real faith in the people. That is why I will not accept any contribution over $100. If the corruption of political money is the issue, then the answer is not to take it.

No normal Presidential campaign could hope to survive on $100 contributions. Thus this candidacy will only succeed if millions of Americans claim it as their own and carry it on their shoulders.

The experts say I cannot win. Some say that a campaign based on broad participation and $100 contributions is not serious, and can be ignored. Others dismiss the effort saying that I lack the backing of powerful people or that my message is too idealistic, even too extreme.

I don't question the right of the Washington establishment to criticize, to scrutinize or to form opinions on substance or political viability. It is their privilege to believe that only card carrying members of the Incumbent Party are worthy of election. However, when they assume the power to confer legitimacy, and thus determine who will be heard and who will not, then they steal what belongs to the voters--the right to choose.

Some of you are saying to yourselves that there is not much that one person can do. But I tell you that together, we can prevail.

Against their money, we have something stronger--the strength of countless hands; against their propaganda machines, we have something more powerful, the voice of the People;

against their professional organizations we have something better--the votes. And ultimately against their authority, we can call forth forces much greater-an Idea--which matched to dedication creates an unconquerable moral energy.

My optimism flows from an unshakable belief in the kind of people we Americans are and the kind of Americans from whom we descend. We carry in our hearts the true country and that cannot be stolen. We follow in the spirit of our ancestors and that cannot be broken.

America lives today because for 200 years there have been women and men who prized freedom above life itself.

When our ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, they did so literally in the shadow of the hangman's noose. Within weeks of the signing, the prospect of a United States appeared a lost cause.

The fledgling American army under George Washington had been routed on Long Island and in Manhattan by the British army.

Retreating across New Jersey, the American troops barely escaped. The Congress fled Philadelphia, thousands of Americans gave up the cause, and by December everything seemed lost.

And then, at that darkest moment, a spark of hope appeared--a pamphlet written by a private, and simply titled, "The Crisis."

"These are the times that try men's souls," it began, "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Thomas Paine's words electrified the countryside. It was read in the churches and town squares. Washington ordered it read to groups of his suffering soldiers, huddling in the cold.

There was little else to sustain them when Washington on Christmas Eve led 2500 Americans, starving and freezing, across the ice packed Delaware River, in a snow storm, to take on 10,000 of the world's best army.

And on Christmas, these brave men won a miraculous victory at Trenton.

But only half the gamble had been won. Next was the British force at Princeton. However, by that moment the term of enlistment of almost all Washington's continentals were to expire in one day.

Standing on the ground bloodstained by their feet, in bitter cold, the regiments were formed on ranks to be addressed by Washington. For a year they had fought and suffered while others stayed home.

Washington explained that these veterans were needed now and if they would just agree to stay a few more weeks they could do more than anything ever for their country. When he finished, he rode off to the side and waited.

Not one man moved.

Their silent refusal meant the end of everything--there would be no America. In shock, Washington rode back in front, his usual reserve gave way as he pleaded with them to stay.

"You have done all I asked and more than could be reasonably expected; but your country is at stake, your wives, your homes, and all you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigues and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay only one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you probably never can do under any other circumstance. "

"We are facing," he concluded, "the crisis which is to decide our destiny."

There was nothing left to be said and he rode to the side to await their response.

For a moment no one stirred.

And then, a lone veteran, whose name is lost to history, stepped forward, saying that he could not go home if his country needed him.

Then others stepped forward, by the twos, by the threes, until only a few, too enfeebled soldiers, remained in the original line.

At that moment, America was born. These were the Winter Soldiers. And they are why we are here in Philadelphia today.

Let each of us step forward and enlist as Winter soldiers in the Cause of America.

Join with me. And then, first by the tens, then by the hundreds, then by the thousands and hundreds of thousands, until by the millions, "We the People" reclaim our Democracy.

"ANNUIT COEPTIS." May God bless this undertaking!

FOOTNOTES:

1. Page 2: John Hay Diary: Lincoln's Secretary, April 1861

2. Page 3: Price of Union, by Horatio Alger

3. Page 7: Lines on true country and ancestors were paraphrased from Midnight Oil-Diesel and Dust, 1988

4. Page 7-10: Winter Soldiers was taken from The Winter Soldier: Battle for Trenton In Princeton, by Richard Ketchum; Double Day 1973 and 1991, Ch. 5 The Army Was in the Most Desperate Situation, p.268-283.

Source: Field Guide to the 1992 Presidential Campaign Democracy in Action Bill Clinton 1992 Bill Clinton 1992 October 3, 1991










Old State House, Little Rock, Arkansas

October 3, 1991

Thank you all for being here today, for your friendship and support, for giving me the opportunity to serve as your Governor for 11 years, for filling my life full of blessings beyond anything I ever deserved.

I want to thank especially Hillary and Chelsea for taking this big step in our life's journey together. Hillary, for being my wife, my friend, and my partner in our efforts to build a better future for the children and families of Arkansas and America. Chelsea, in ways she is only now coming to understand, has been our constant joy and reminder of what our public efforts are really all about: a better life for all who will work for it, a better future for the next generation.

All of you, in different ways, have brought me here today, to step beyond a life and a job I love, to make a commitment to a larger cause: Preserving the American Dream ... Restoring the hopes of the forgotten middle class... Reclaiming the future for our children.

I refuse to be part of a generation that celebrates the death of Communism abroad with the loss of the American Dream at home.

I refuse to be part of a generation that fails to compete in the global economy and so condemns hard-working Americans to a life of struggle without reward or security.

That is why I stand here today...because I refuse to stand by and let our children become part of the first generation to do worse than their parents. I don't want my child or your child to be part of a country that's coming apart instead of coming together.

Over 25 years ago, I had a professor at Georgetown who taught me that America was the greatest country in history because our people believed in and acted on two simple ideas: first, that the future can be better than the present; and second, that each of us has a personal, moral responsibility to make it so.

That fundamental truth has guided my public career, and brings me here today. It is what we've devoted ourselves to here in Arkansas. I'm proud of what we've done here in Arkansas together. Proud of the work we've done to become a laboratory of democracy and innovation. And proud that we've done it without giving up the things we cherish and honor most about our way of life. Solid, middle-class values of work, Will, family, individual responsibility, and community.

As I’ve traveled across our state, I've found that everything we believe in, everything we've fought for, is threatened by an administration that refuses to take care of our own, has turned its back on the middle class, and is afraid to change while the world is changing.

The historic events In the Soviet Union in recent months teach us an important lesson: National security begins at home. For the Soviet Empire never lost to us on the field of battle. Their system rotted from the inside out, from economic, political and spiritual failure.

To be sure, the collapse of communism requires a new national security policy. I applaud the President's recent initiative in reducing nuclear weapons. It is an important beginning. But make no mistake - the end of the Cold War is not the end of threats to America. The world is still a dangerous and uncertain place. The first and most solemn obligation of the president is to keep America strong and safe from foreign dangers, and promote democracy around the world.

But we cannot build a safe and secure world unless we can first make America strong at home. It is our ability to take care of our own at home that gives us the strength to stand up for what we believe around the world.

As governor for 11 years, working to preserve and create jobs in a global economy, I know our competition for the future is Germany and the rest of Europe, Japan and the rest of Asia. And I know that we are losing America's leadership in the world because we're losing the American dream right here at home.

Middle class people are spending more hours on the job, spending less time with their children, bringing home a smaller paycheck to pay more for health care and housing and education. Our streets are meaner, our families are broken, our health care is the costliest in the world and we get less for it.

The country is headed in the wrong direction fast, slipping behind, losing our way...and all we have out of Washington is status quo paralysis. No vision, no action. Just neglect, selfishness, and division.

For 12 years, Republicans have tried to divide us - race against race - so we get mad at each other and not at them. They want us to look at each other across a racial divide so we don't turn and look to the White House and ask, why are all of our incomes going down, why are all of us losing jobs? Why are we losing our future?

Where I come from we know about race-baiting. They've used it to divide us for years. I know this tactic well and I'm not going to let them get away with it.

For 12 years, the Republicans have talked about choice without really believing in it. George Bush says he wants school choice even if it bankrupts the public schools, and yet he's more than willing to make it a crime for the women of America to exercise their individual right to choose.

For 12 years, the Republicans have been telling us chat America's problems aren't their problem. They washed their hands of responsibility for the economy and education and health care and social policy and turned it over to fifty states and a thousand points of light. Well, here in Arkansas we've done our best to create jobs and educate our people. And each of us has tried to be one of those thousand points of light But I can tell you, where there is no national vision, no national partnership, no national leadership, a thousand points of light leaves a lot of darkness.

We must provide the answers...the solutions. And we will. We're going to turn this country around and get it moving again, and we're going to fight for the hard-working middle-class families of America for a change.

Make no mistake - this election is about change: in our party, in our national leadership, and in our country.

And we're not going to get positive change just by Bush-bashing. We have to do a better job of the old-fashioned work of confronting the real problems of real people and pointing the way to a better future. That is our challenge in 1992.

Today, as we stand on the threshold of a new era, a new millennium, I believe we need a new kind of leadership, leadership committed to change. Leadership not mired in the politics of the past, not limited by old ideologies...Proven leadership that knows how to reinvent government to help solve the real problem of real people.

That is why today I am declaring my candidacy for President of the United States. Together I believe we can provide leadership that will restore the American dream - that will fight for the forgotten middle class - that will provide more opportunity, Insist on more responsibility and create a greater sense of community for this great country.

The change we must make isn't liberal or conservative. It’s both, and it's different. The small towns and main streets of America aren't like the corridors and backrooms of Washington. People out here don't care about the idle rhetoric of "left" and "right" and "liberal" and "conservative" and all the other words that have made our politics a substitute for action. These families are crying out desperately for someone who believes the promise of America is to help them with their struggle to get ahead, to offer them a green light instead of a pink slip.

This must be a campaign of ideas, not slogans. We don't need another President who doesn't know what he wants to do for America. I'm going to tell you in plain language what I intend to do as President. How we can meet the challenges we face - that's the test for all the Democratic candidates in this campaign. Americans know what we're against Let's show them what we're for.

We need a new covenant to rebuild America. It's just common sense. Government's responsibility is to create more opportunity. The people's responsibility is to make the most of it.

In a Clinton Administration, we are going to create opportunity for all. We've got to grow this economy, not shrink it. We need to give people Incentives to make long-term investment in America and reward people who produce goods and services, not those who speculate with other people's money. We've got to invest more money in emerging technologies to help keep high-paying jobs here at home. We've got to convert from a defense to a domestic economy.

We've got to expand world trade, tear down barriers, but demand fair trade policies if we're going to provide good jobs for our people. The American people don't want to run from the world. We must meet the competition and win.

0pportunity for all means world-class skills and world-class education. We need more than photo ops and empty rhetoric - we need standards and accountability and excellence in education. On this issue, I'm proud to say that Arkansas has led the way.

In a Clinton Administration, students and parents and teachers will get a real education President.

Opportunity for all means pre-school for every child who needs it, and an apprenticeship program for kids who don't want to go to college but do want good jobs. It means teaching everybody with a job to read, and passing a domestic GI Bill that would give every young American the chance to borrow the money necessary to go to college and ask them to pay it back either as a small percentage of their income over time, or through national service as teachers or policemen or nurses or child care workers.

In. a Clinton Administration, everyone will be able to get a college loan as long as they're willing to give something back to their country In return.

Opportunity for all means reforming the health care system to control costs, improve quality, expand preventive and long-term care, maintain consumer choice, and cover everybody. And we don't have to bankrupt the taxpayers to do it. We do have to take on the big insurance companies and health care bureaucracies and get some real cost control into the system. I pledge to the American people that in the first year of a Clinton Administration, we will present a plan to Congress and the American people to provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans.

Opportunity for all means making our cities and our streets safe from crime and drugs. Across America, citizens are banding together to take their streets and neighborhoods back. In a Clinton Administration, we'll be on their side with new initiatives like community policing, drug treatment for those who need it, and boot camps for first-time offenders.

Opportunity for all means making taxes fair. I'm not out to soak the rich. I wouldn't mind being rich. But I do believe the rich should pay their fair share. For 12 years, the Republicans have raised taxes on the middle class. It's time to give the middle class tax relief.

Finally, opportunity for all means we must protect our environment and develop an energy policy that relies more on conservation and clean natural gas so all our children will inherit a world that is cleaner, safer, and more beautiful.

But hear me now. I honestly believe that if we try to do these things, we will still not solve the problems of today or move into the next century with confidence unless we do what President Kennedy did and ask every American citizen to assume personal responsibility for the future of our country.

The government owes our people more opportunity, but we all have to make the most of it through responsible citizenship.

We should insist that people move off welfare rolls and onto work rolls. We should give people on welfare the skills they need to succeed, but we should demand that everybody who can work and become a productive member of society.

We should insist on the toughest possible child support enforcement. Governments don't raise children, parents do. And when they don't, their children pay forever and so do we.

And we have got to say, as we've tried to do in Arkansas, that students have a responsibility to stay in school. If you drop out for no good reason, you should lose your driver's license. But its important to remember that the most irresponsible people of all in the 1980s were those at the top...not those who were doing worse, not the hard-working middle class, but those who sold out our savings and loans with bad deals and spent billions on wasteful takeovers and mergers - money that could have been spent to create better products and new jobs.

Do you know that in the 1980s, while middle-class income went down, charitable giving by working people went up? And while rich peoples incomes went up, charitable giving by the wealthy went down. Why? Because our leaders had an ethic of get it while you can and to heck with everybody else.

How can you ask people who work or who are poor to behave responsibly, when they know that the heads of our biggest companies raised their own pay in the last decade by four times the percentage their workers' pay went up? Three times as much as their profits went up. When they ran their companies into the ground and their employees were on the street, what did they do? They bailed out with golden parachutes to a cushy life. That's just wrong.

Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John Kennedy didn't hesitate to use the bully pulpit of the Presidency. They changed America by standing up for what’s right. When Salomon Brothers abused the Treasury markets, the President was silent. When the

rip-off artists looted our S&L's the President Was Silent. In a Clinton Administration, when people sell their companies and their workers and their country down the river, they'll get called on the carpet. We're going to insist that they invest In this country and create jobs for our people.

In the 1980s, Washington failed us too. We spent more money on the present and the past and less on the future. We spent $500 billion to recycle assets in the S&L mess, but we couldn't afford $5 billion for unemployed workers or to give every kid in this country the chance to be in Head Start. We can do better than that, and we will.

A Clinton Administration won't spend our money on programs that don't solve problems and a government that doesn't work. I want to reinvent government to make it more efficient and more effective. I want to give citizens more choices in the services they get, and empower them to make those choices. That's what we've tried to do in Arkansas. We've balanced the budget every year and improved services. We've treated taxpayers like our customers and our bosses, because they are.

I want the American people to know that a Clinton Administration will defend our national interests abroad, put their values into our social policy at home, and spend their tax money with discipline. Well put government back on the side of the hard-working middle-class families of America who think most of the help goes to those at the top of the ladder, some goes to the bottom, and no one speaks for them.

But we need more than new laws, new promises, or new program. We need a new spirit of community, a sense that we are all in this together. If we have no sense of community the American dream will continue to wither. Our destiny is bound up with the destiny of every other American. Were all in this together, and we will rise or fail together.

A few years ago, Hillary and I visited a classroom in Los Angeles, in an area plagued by drugs and gangs. We talked to a dozen sixth graders, whose number one concern was being shot going to and from school. Their second worry was turning 12 or 13 and being forced to join a gang or be beaten. And finally, they were worried about their own parents' drug abuse.

Newly half a century ago, I was born not far from here in Hope, Arkansas. My mother had been widowed three months before I was born. I was raised for four years by my grandparents, while she went back to nursing school. They didn't have much money. I spent a lot of time with my great-grandparents. By any standard, they were poor. But we didn't blame other people. We took responsibility for ourselves and for each other because we knew we could do better. I was raised to believe In the American dream, in family values, in individual responsibility, and in the obligation of government to help people who were doing the best they could.

Its a long way in America from that loving family which is embodied today in a picture on my wall in the Governor's office of me at the age of six holding my great-grandfather's hand to an America where children on the streets of our cities don't know who their grandparents are and have to worry about their own parents' drug abuse.

I tell you, by making common cause with those children, we give new life to the American dream. And that is our generation's responsibility - to form a new covenant... more opportunity for all, more responsibility from everyone, and a greater sense of common purpose.

I believe with all my heart that together, we can make this happen. We can usher in a new era of progress, prosperity and renewal. We can – we must. This is not just a campaign for the Presidency – it is a campaign for the future, for the forgotten hard-working middle class families of America who deserve a government that fights for them. A campaign to keep America strong at home and around the world. Join with us. I ask for your prayers, your help, your hands, and your hearts. Together we can make America great again, and build a community of hope that will inspire the world. Bob Kerrey 1992 Bob Kerrey 1992 September 30, 1991










U.S. SENATOR BOB KERREY

ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH FOR THE CANDIDACY OF

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

SEPTEMBER 30, 1991

LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

At the center of this great country and on the edge of a new century, I am today announcing my candidacy to be the next President of the United States of America.

This announcement is to all America. But the first message is to Nebraska. You are the people who supported me each time I've asked for help. In my family, business and in politics.

I have never done anything alone; I have always needed you and you have never disappointed me.

At the beginning of this campaign I remember this community most for what you did for me during my life's most difficult time: when I came home wounded and disillusioned from the Vietnam War. Through your collective kindness, you helped a weakened, lonely and altogether unpleasant young man to renew his sense of purpose and to rediscover his spirit.

You did not ask what was in it for you. You didn't calculate the return you might receive on

your investment. You simply and powerfully extended love and friendship ... and I will never be able to thank you enough.

Ten years ago I came to you and asked for your help in a campaign to be Governor of Nebraska. I ran for Governor because it did not make any sense to me that government should avoid facing the most important issues just because they were controversial. As Governor, and as Senator, I have tried above all things to never waiver in my dedication to doing what I believed was right. In government, as in life, truth is always more valuable than approval.

Once more I come to you and ask: Will you help me now become the next President of the United States of America?

I know the greatness of America, and I know what is at stake. Too often, we take our democratic system for granted. And too often, particularly over the past two decades, we forget that all of us have the right to demand more from our leaders -- that we should expect our President to live up to the standards set by our Founding Fathers.

I want to lead a process of renewal in America in order to bring about new possibilities for us as individuals, families and businesses. Only then can we build greatness back into American life. Greatness should animate and motivate our work today.

I want to lead America's fearless, restless voyage of generational progress. We have been led off course by a Federal government whose engine has become inertia; whose direction is adrift; and whose compass is cynicism. I am running for President because America urgently needs better, bolder leadership that will build for greatness again.

I want to lead because I believe almost everyone but our present leadership knows what we must do. I believe Americans know deep in their bones that something is terribly wrong and that business as usual -- the prescription for the 80s -- cannot work for our future. What we need is a renewal ... a renewal that leads to a willingness to act upon the idea of building for greatness.

My generation is uniquely positioned to understand what must now be done. I am repeatedly drawn to the difference between the world I inherited as a young man and the world I am preparing to pass on to my children.

When I graduated from high school in 1961, I and my classmates faced a future of great promise, the direct result of our parents' determination to make our lives better than their own.

Our parents' generation had taken our nation into the forefront of world leadership. They had defeated fascism, and were in the process of implementing a network of arms and alliances that would eventually contain communism.

And my parents' generation was doing great things for us at home. In 1961 they were in the midst of building a brand new interstate highway system to be paid for with cash. The schools they provided us were respected throughout the world. They gave us a thriving economy that enabled us to double our standard of living within a single generation; to buy a house; to purchase health care; to afford higher education for our own children.

Next year, my own son will graduate from high school. What kind of legacy will he inherit?

My generation understands that the power of those earlier gifts is dwindling because our leadership simply has not renewed them.

I can feel thankful that the threat of communism has receded, and that my son does not face the likelihood of war. But the benefits of this historic victory have not been brought home to the people who deserve to claim them.

The staggering cost of that malignant neglect can be seen in the frustrated faces of the millions who cannot find work, or pay for health care, or make ends meet. And that neglect will carve even deeper scars on our next generation: the Americans of the next century.

At the end of this century, my daughter will be graduating from college. Unless we do things differently now, she will assume title to a far different inheritance than we received in 1961.

Unless we do things differently now, she and her classmates could each inherit an $84,000 I.O.U. in the year 2000 -- their share of a massively enlarged federal debt that will crimp their standard of living and that of their children.

Unless we do things differently now, these turn of the century graduates can expect family lives where stagnant incomes will force them into more hours at work and less time with their children, where home ownership and college tuition and even adequate health care will be beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest.

Unless we do things differently now, today's children will inherit a land where their daily lives are diminished by highways and communications systems that are inadequate by the standards of our international competitors; by natural resources depleted by wasteful use; and by divisions of race and income that tear at our cities filled with human lives wasted by drugs, violence and neglect.

I am running for President because the future I fear for my children is already a reality for far too many Americans. I am ready to serve because none of it has to be. It is time for leadership committed to posterity rather than popularity and focused on the next century instead of the next election.

The year 1992 offers us a chance to break from a decade in which our leaders invited a season of cynicism. They invoked morality but winked at greed. They criticized the public sector but then robbed it blind. They spoke of balanced budgets but never submitted one. They railed against taxes but raised them on the middle class. They called for civil rights but practiced racial politics. They wrapped their cause in motherhood but tried to strip motherhood of choice or meaningful opportunities.

In our hearts, we all know that the unchecked selfishness and greed that dominated the policies of the eighties has taken its toll on our nation. Our enthusiasm for the dream and our willingness to believe has been cooled by leaders who have betrayed our trust.

This campaign is grounded in the belief that we can and should trust again. As such its not so much a fight against George Bush as a fight for what America can be.

The year 1992 offers a chance to end the feeling that our economic future is impaired.

President Bush simply has not done all he could or should be doing.

In truth he reminds me of some managers I've known in business; great person to be around; all his employees love him. But the business is losing money, and all he's offering is excuses as to why nothing can be done. It is time for America to change managers.

Still, President Bush is not the enemy. A more difficult enemy for us to defeat is our own pessimism -- particularly in the Democratic Party -- that any effort matters, that anything we do will change the dangerous direction which America is heading today.

I want the Democratic Party to become a can-do party again. We should become the party that put America back to work as we did during the Depression. We should become the party that reached out to those bent low and raised our sights up to the moon as we did in my generation. It is time again for us to do great things. If we do, we can stand at the dawn of the next century proud of what we gave the Class of 2000.

Proud that we got our economy moving again by investing in our nation, spurring its growth, and corralling the deficit.

Proud that we changed our system of financing health care so that medical care is established as a right, and no American -- young or old -- is ever priced out of the care they need.

Proud that we created an America where no child is hungry for food, but every child is hungry for learning.

Proud that we built schools that work because they had the resources and freedom to get the job done right.

Proud that we transformed our communication system into a bridge between the work of our schools and the work of our homes and a window onto new worlds of learning.

This campaign is not just about America taking care of the business at home. It is about a new role for America in the world.

The confrontational nature of the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union will soon be a distant memory. Still present will be the perennial dangers of totalitarianism, national piracy and unchecked aggression.

It is crucial that America give new attention as well to an old conflict: the conflict between developed and undeveloped nations.

In this bipolar conflict between the haves and have-nots the United States will have a special dual role. We must compete hard with those nations that are our equals. But at the same time we must not relinquish our role as the champion of individual freedoms. We must work hard to give citizens of less developed nations the opportunity to participate in a growing international economy ... not as an act of charity but as act of enlightened self interest.

As we compete with our equals, America's President must fight the battle at home AND our President must use the authority given by Congress to fight a trade war which is endangering our economy and those of the non-developed world. In particular, and most difficult, will be our friends and allies, the Japanese whose adversarial policies undermine much more than the economic prosperity of Americans. Restrictive, purely nationalistic trade policies by developed nations will make life more miserable for the growing number of people on this planet who are unable to support themselves.

In addition to helping to settle economic conflicts America must lead the effort on population control, global warming, soil loss, deforestation and the status of the world's children. On this short list of issues we must lead not impede progress on this earth.

It is crucial for America's President to understand the power of our words. When President Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire he did much to bring down these totalitarian regimes. And as the wall of secrecy drops on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Republics we are seeing that the evil was worse than most imagined. Our words can cut the lies from the mouths of those who speak them and embolden people to act. And we still must be prepared to speak and act -- in China, where repressive acts have been rewarded not with condemnation, but with most-favored-nation trade status. And in Vietnam, where the cruelties of the communist takeover sixteen years ago are only now beginning to become apparent.

As we wonder whether to raise our voices to oppose the world's remaining dictators and to defend the right of all men and women to be free, we should remember this: Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and Nelson Mandela came to America to thank us for saving them, not for saving ourselves. The cause of the Cold War was not just to defend America; it was to liberate four hundred million people.

In the 1990s and beyond we will need new strategies and new partnerships to lead America through the intense economic competition, ethnic strife, shifting coalitions and proliferation of weapons. What should not change is the rudder that has guided America for the past forty-five years. The essence of our success was America's willingness to pay a price to secure the freedom of others.

I am proud and grateful for the effort made by the architects and implementers of the policies of containment. Friday night America heard President Bush -- a proud man has been fighting cold war battles for most of his thirty-five years in public life -- take the first concrete step beyond containment.

It was an exciting and serious moment. Exciting because we are heading in the direction of increased freedom, stability and prosperity. Serious because we need to change our military force structure with an alert mind that focuses on our safety and security. It is also a serious moment because we are aware that the next battle will be an economic fight, and we are not yet fully prepared for the effort. Perhaps the most important change we need is that our political leaders are going to have to risk a little if we hope to gain a lot.

Nothing better symbolizes the sense of new purpose we need to demand of our leaders than the building that stands behind me -- Nebraska's State Capitol. It was built by Nebraskans at the start of the Great Depression. If ever a people had the right to give up it was the people who built this building.

But just look at what they did. They built this building with cash. They built it to last and to be enjoyed beyond their lifetimes. They were not motivated by a depreciation schedule or the desire to brag about their accomplishment on their campaign brochures. They built this building for generations yet unborn. And they did something else we should notice and emulate -- they built it to inspire.

This building turns our eyes and spirits upward. It should occur to us that if God gave the Nebraskans of our past the strength and courage to overcome pessimism and build for greatness, then we ought not doubt our capacity to do the same.

It requires us to believe. It requires us to risk. Most of all it requires us to look towards and work for the future.

The words of a martyr to the cause of freedom should guide our work today:

"It may be that the day of judgment will dawn tomorrow; in that case, we shall gladly stop working for a better future. But not before."

Let us go now ... and begin the good work of building greatness in America again.

Source: Field Guide to the 1992 Presidential Campaign Democracy in Action Tom Harkin 1992 Tom Harkin 1992 September 15, 1991










Remarks Prepared for Delivery

Senator Tom Harkin

Harkin Steak Fry

September 15, 1991

Are you ready?

Are you ready for a new direction in this country?

Are you ready for a president who will declare a peace dividend and turn Star Wars into Star Schools?

Are you ready for a president who will give the middle class a break instead of tax breaks to the rich?

Are you ready for a president who will make America our most favored nation and educated children our most important product?

If that's the kind of leader you want, let me introduce myself: I'm Tom Harkin. And I'm running for President.

There are those who say that we're a long shot, that we can't win, that George Herbert Walker Bush is too powerful, and can't be beat. Well I'm here to tell you that George Herbert Walker Bush has feet of clay and I intend to take a hammer to them.

I'm running for president because I believe the American people are hungry for a New Vision of America. A New Vision of America based on strong, fundamental, enduring values.

The values that my parents gave to me and your parents gave to you.

You know, the older I get, and the more I learn, the more I realize that all I ever needed to know I learned growing up in the small town of Cumming, Iowa -- population 151, up the dusty road about 20 miles north of here.

In Cumming, being a neighbor meant more than sharing the same street. We could count on each other. We looked out for each other. And when one of us did well, all of us were proud.

We could walk the streets at night and feel safe. We used to leave the milk money on the porch when we went to bed at night and we know that it would be there in the morning.

And in Cumming, we worked hard, because we knew if we worked hard, and we saved, and we studied, that we'd be rewarded, that we'd find a good job and live a better life than our parents.

In Cumming, we lived by those fundamental values of hard work . . . and being frugal . . . family . . . taking responsibility for your actions . . . faith in God . . . love of country . . . and having a care and concern for those less fortunate than yourselves.

Those are my values, and they're yours, too. They're the values of ordinary, hardworking people all over America. They unite us as a people.

But for the last four years, we've been led by a different vision of America and we've seen a different set of values coming out of the White House.

For the last four years, their message has been that you should "get as much as you can in the shortest amount of time, take what you can, and to hell with everybody else."

Their vision is to pit race against race, class against class, sex against sex, and old against young.

Their values say that those on the top are privileged and deserve special treatment and favors.

And for the last four years, the hardworking men and women, the farmers, the small business owners, the people who pull the load and pay the taxes in this country have been getting hit below the belt by Bush/Quayle economic policies.

And that's why I say that what's wrong in this country today is that there are too many people making money on money and not enough people making money in agriculture and mining and manufacturing and transportation and doing the things that create real wealth in our society.

It's time to go to the American people with a new message. And like Franklin Roosevelt said in the 30s, after taking over from the gluttons of privilege who used the 20s for their own gain at the expense of the rest of the country, "We've always known that greed was bad morals. Now we know it's bad economics."

I believe there's a hunger in America. A hunger to turn away from the greed and selfishness of George Herbert Walker Bush and J. Danforth Quayle.

I think the American people want to believe that we're more than a nation of 250 million greedy individuals each out for ourselves. That instead we're a nation, as FDR said, where the interests of one are bound by the welfare of all.

We don't want divisions in America. We don't want race against race and class against class. We want to work together.

We need to challenge our young people to something else. To ask, not what can you get out of it in the shortest amount of time, but what can you put into this country? What can you do for this country to build a better life for your children and your grandchildren?

That's the kind of challenge that John Kennedy gave to me. What can you do for your country? And that's the kind of challenge I intend to offer the American people. Because I have a New Vision of America.

I see an America challenged to be better, to work together, an America where those fundamental values serve as a bridge between the America we are and the promise of the America we can be.

I see an America where people are working well-paying, secure jobs where they can raise their families, educate their kids, buy a home, buy a car, take a nice vacation, and retire in dignity with good health care.

I see an America where our schools are second to none.

I see an America where health care is available and affordable to all.

I see an America where our streets are safe, our water is clean, and our nation is strong.

I see an America that has the physical infrastructure that will allow private business to be more effective, more efficient, and more competitive.

And I see an America where people of different races and creeds can live together in peace and harmony and have an equal chance to achieve the American Dream.

But we're not going to get there if we have a president who thinks that the real threats to our national security are half way around the world, when they're really half way down our streets.

That's the America I see. That's my New Vision of America.

And don't tell me we can't get there. Don't tell me that if we work together, it can't be done. We're Americans. We can do anything we set our minds to. We the People have never backed down from a challenge before.

We the People created the bravest, freest country on the face of the earth.

We the People built the strongest economy in the world.

We the People worked out of the Great Depression.

We the People turned back Nazism and Fascism and Communism.

We the People put a man on the moon.

And I say it's time for We the People to take back government from the privileged few and the special interests and make it work for us for a change.

Twelve years ago, the Republicans went to the American people and asked if you were better off then than you were four years before. Well, it's time we turned the tables on them.

It's time for Republicans to be measured by their own yardstick.

It's time we go to the American people and say: Okay, you've had four years of George Herbert Walker Bush.

Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Are your roads better? Are your streets safer? How about your kids schools, are they better? How about your jobs, are your jobs paying you a little more, is it easier for you to make ends meet? How about your health care, is your health care more affordable?

And if your answer is no, then like Harry Truman asked my farmers back in 1948, "How many times do you have to get hit on the head before you figure out what's hitting you on the head?

We know what's hitting us on the head, and that's why my first act as president will be to throw that failed economic experiment of trickle down economics out the window.

You know, we've had a drought in Iowa this year. We've had a drought in California.

But nothing compares to the drought we've seen waiting for something to trickle down to us.

I say it's time to turn away from supply side economics, and throw that failed economic experiment on the trash heap of history with that other failed economic experiment called communism.

Both experiments failed. And in both cases, the only people that benefited were the privileged few on the top.

I say it's time for a new economic agenda. We need a now economic system that is resource-based, that invests in people. Don't put it in at the top. Put it in at the bottom and let it percolate up for a while.

I say it's time to invest in the people of America, to make them the smartest, healthiest, most productive workforce in the world.

And we're going to do it with American products and American work.

Abraham Lincoln, right toward the end of the Civil War, had a meeting with his economic advisors. They were planning to finish the transcontinental railroad. And Lincoln's economic advisors advised him to buy the rails from England because we could get them cheaper than we could get them in America.

Lincoln thought about this for a minute, and he replied, "You know, it seems to me that if we buy the rails from England, then we've got the rails, and they've got our money. But if we build the rails here, we've got our rails, and we've got our money."

Now that's one Republican I like. He knew what it meant to create real wealth in this country.

And we can create real wealth if we start investing here in America. And quit sending our money and our jobs overseas.

People say, "Where are you going to get the money for this? Well, we don't need additional revenues to do this. We don't need to spend more or tax more. But we do need to make some choices.

And I intend to go the American people and say "you've got a choice. This is your choice. You know what it's called? It's called a ballot.

If you think we need to continue to spend $160 billion to subsidize Europe's defense against the Soviet Union, or whatever it's called now, put your ballot in the Bush box.

But if you believe like I do that Europe is strong enough and rich enough and powerful enough to defend itself, and that we can take that wealth and invest it in better roads and mass transit and education and better health care for our people, you take your ballot and put it in the Harkin box and come home to the Democratic Party.

Together, we'll get America going. By investing in the people in this country, giving them the opportunity to climb that ladder of success.

You know, I've always said that was the difference between George Herbert Walker Bush and me. We both say you should climb that ladder of success... to make money ... to become a success.

There's nothing wrong with that. That's the American Dream.

But his policies say once you get to the top, pull the ladder up behind you. What I'm saying is that you should go ahead and climb that ladder, but make sure you leave it down there for others to climb, too.

I don't need to read about this in any history books. And I don't need to be told about this.

You all know where I come from. And if you don't, let me tell you.

I come from the wrong side of the tracks.

My father was a coal miner who didn't even have an eighth grade education. My mother was an immigrant with no formal education.

My parents raised six kids in a small, two-bedroom house. And I was the youngest. My father was 54 years old and working on WPA when I was born.

We were poor. But my parents instilled in us those traditional values.

My mother died when I was ten. Through high school, I worked on a number of jobs on road crews, building the interstate highway.

To get through college, I continued to work on construction crews, then was fortunate to earn an ROTC scholarship.

To pay back my time, I served 8 years, 8 months, and 8 days as a jet pilot in the U.S. Navy. And I was proud to do so. Proud to serve my country.

Then Ruth and I got married 23 years ago. We both worked during the day and went to law school at night. I also got help from the GI Bill.

Then I ran for Congress in a solidly Republican district, and was in Congress for 10 years.

And today, this son of a coal miner and an immigrant mother is seeking the highest office in the land.

Now that's the American Dream. That's what it's all about.

But now I read there's a new American Dream. I read about it in the paper. And here's what it said.

It said: "Vietnamese Couple Achieve American Dream. Win New Jersey State Lottery."

Now doesn't that just about say it all. That's the American Dream of George Herbert Walker Bush.

One in a million chance. And if you don't win, so long, adios sucker.

Well, I say it's time to get back to our parent's American Dream, where if you work hard, and you save, and you study, that you get rewarded.

We can reclaim the American Dream if we start investing in America.

After 8 years of investing in America, you'll see people off welfare rolls, on payrolls and climbing that ladder of opportunity.

After 8 years of investing in America, you'll see Japanese and German newspaper articles entitled "what we can learn from the Americans."

After 8 years of investing in America, you'll see people with disabilities working next to you, or eating next to you in a restaurant, and you won't think twice about it.

After 8 years of investing in America, you'll see more women and minorities working high-paying jobs because they'll have the same opportunities as everyone else.

After 8 years of investing in America, you'll see cities and neighborhoods where the streets are so safe that your kids can have a paper route.

And after 8 years of a Harkin presidency leading that kind of investment in America, you'll see that flag flying beside the best highways and freeways and railroads in the world.

You'll see that flag -- that red, white, and blue -- flying outside the best schools anywhere in the world.

You'll see that flag flying outside houses that are owned by the people who live inside them.

You'll see that flag flying outside of hospitals and health care clinics where all people can get care and everyone can pay their medical bills.

And after 8 years of a Harkin presidency, you'll see that flag flying over a White House that is fighting to make this a better country and standing up for the ordinary people of America.

I believe there are people in every city and town who share that New Vision, who are ready to roll up their sleeves, put the axe to the grindstone, and make it happen.

If you're ready for that kind of America, then give me your support, and together, we'll put a good, common sense, progressive Democrat in the White House.

Thank you.

Source: Field Guide to the 1992 Presidential Campaign Democracy in Action Doug Wilder 1992 Doug Wilder 1992 September 13, 1991











REMARKS MADE TO THE PEOPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH

12:30 P.M.

SEPTEMBER 13, 1991

SOUTH PORTICO

STATE CAPITOL

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

BY

GOVERNOR L. DOUGLAS WILDER

My fellow Virginians:

I want to talk to you today about the future .... your future; your children's future; Virginia's future; America's future; and --- yes --- my future. Perhaps most importantly, I want to talk about the future of those Americans and Virginians who have continued to wait to enjoy the opportunities of those basic freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.

We Virginians know the price that has been paid to make freedom ring from Valley Forge to Stone Mountain. It was Thomas Jefferson who risked everything to write the music; .... and it was a Virginian, George Mason, who sacrificed everything by refusing to sing until all Americans could be included in the chorus. We overcame tyranny at Yorktown .... and slavery was defeated at Appomattox.

Our heritage is clear:

.... in the struggle to make America even greater than it is;

.... in the fight to live out our creed that all individuals are created equal with certain inalienable rights endowed on the them by their Creator; ....

.... Virginians, too, have been there when our country needed them.

As a State Senator, a Lieutenant Governor, and now as Governor, I have followed this hallowed tradition. When Virginia needed someone to challenge us to be our best, to redeem that which makes us so special, I have been on the front lines, working to move Virginia ever forward. Together, we have fought for positive, enduring change --- and at the same time --- together, we have rendered to dust many of the mistakes of the past.

For more than twenty years, I have challenged the old ways, the old thinking, in pursuit of a better and more promising tomorrow for all Virginians.

But like you, my involvement, my passion for making this Commonwealth, this country, and --- through our example --- this entire global community better, is not of recent origin. It did not begin with my election to the Senate in 1969 .... anymore than it ended with my election to the Governorship in 1989.

Like you, my passion came early, and has never wavered. As the grandson of slaves, I read about the Constitution, and I knew America and Virginia wanted more for me and my friends than did the politicians in power at that time: and history has proven us right.

As a soldier in Korea, I knew my fight and that of my fellow soldiers --- many of whom never returned home --- against Communism was also a fight against the denial of freedom everywhere: and history has proven us right.

As I entered public life, and stood --- often alone --- against the political establishment, I knew positive change was not only possible .... but absolutely necessary: and history has since spoken.

Like many others, my entire adult life has been devoted to positive change; to making America and Virginia even greater than they are. For this is that special passion which has made our county the greatest upon this Earth .... a beacon for all those who dream what can and should be.

The vision of America that I dreamed about as a boy;

.... that I thought about on those front lines in Korea;

.... that fired my passion as a lawyer and as I rose through the ranks in public service;

.... cannot be described in mere words.

Those who have been touched by it; those who have been moved by it; know of what I speak.

In 1969, and again in 1985, and once again in 1989, it was this force; it was this vision which overcame more than 200 years of history and opened up the doors to the Governor's Mansion for all Americans for all time.

It was not "my" victory..... I was merely the recipient of what others --- so many of whom could not even enter the Governor's Mansion --- had done for me, my state and my nation.

They lived a life of denial --- yet made certain that those who would some day follow..... were not born into a world of similar denial.

As some of you know, a book on my 1989 gubernatorial campaign was titled: Claiming the Dream. To so many who had worked so hard and to the relatives of those throughout the ages who had died still believing, the Dream needed no further elucidation.

For it was not a dream about winning a particular office or winning an election.... it was about the conditions that had to first exist before victory was possible.

Victory was a result; the dream was about the cause.

And what a cause it is: equality of rights and equal opportunity for all.

If men and women were angels, as James Madison once observed, this cause would be achieved without the need for government.

But --- as this is not the case --- government of, for and by the people is needed to be our partner.... so that all of us can Claim the Dream .... and live the dream.

I remember looking over the crowd that gathered for my Inauguration, feeling their pride, remembering the title of another book that had been written about my campaign for Lieutenant Governor: When Hell Froze Over ...... the odds given for my chance of ever being elected statewide.

Perhaps --- I recall someone joking --- that explained why it was so cold that morning as a new Governor took his oath.

But there we were..... bursting with what could be --- and yet, at the same time --- I was becoming worried about the dark clouds already on the horizon that threatened the dream.

The sunlight of economic vitality that fueled the hopes of the middle class and those trying to struggle up the ladder of success was being increasingly blocked by the growing fiscal mess that consumed more and more of our limited resources to pay for Washington's fiscal follies.

Washington's fiscal mismanagement was pushing Virginia into its worst budget crunch in forty years, and --- according to analysts --- just about the worst revenue in all the fifty states.

Although a great many of the Washington Insiders did not personally make it down to Richmond for my Inauguration, I can assure you: their presence was felt..... in the fiscal impact of their mushrooming deficits; in their inaugural "present" to me of $2.2 billion shortfall; sky-rocketing debts; and a decade of unprecedented scandals whose initials have become as well-known as MTV: HUD, S&L, and now BCCI.

Indeed, Washington has so mismanaged the nation's finances that --- in order to save their own skins --- the leaders of both parties met behind closed doors for weeks, and then emerged to join hands in the Rose Garden .... to support the most regressive tax package in history, and a set of budget priorities that lock us into the status quo for several years --- all so everyone can get reelected.

As I have noted previously, this nation has become polarized into a two party system:

The Party Inside Washington which makes the deals .... and ....the rest of us --- the Party Outside---that has to pay for the deals, with higher regressive taxes, and wasteful spending that gives our families and children a less secure present .... a far less promising future.

That's why, beginning with my first speech as Governor, I have taken the lead in fighting the conventional wisdom in Washington.

I have already outlined my plan "Put America First," to begin the process of getting the economy moving again;

.... to put us on a path that will attack federal spending;

.... to begin the process of relieving the regressive tax burden on the middle class families; and

.... to aid localities that provide innovative leadership in attacking the pernicious evil of drugs and drug-related crimes.

And now, I have found an even more worrisome cloud on the nation's horizon: Washington seems to have lost the passion to fight the deterioration in race relations in this nation..... a result --- in large measure --- of Washington's fiscal mess and the noose it has become around America's future economic prosperity.

Moreover, I ask: when was the last time we had a President of the United States who went out of his way to raise the phony and divisive issue of racial quotas in hopes of turning back the clock on Civil Rights?

Ever since Franklin Roosevelt, America has always had a President who understood that it was his self-evident obligation to lead America in this area --- a responsibility which is not merely a matter of policy .... but a matter of morality, humanity and eternal justice.

Truman answered the call. Eisenhower answered. Kennedy answered. Johnson took the clarion firmly in hand. Nixon heard and answered the call. Ford did his duty .... and .... even Ronald Reagan was forced to heed that call.

But not George Bush. For the first time in a great many years, the President of the United States is leading the retreat.

Instead of healing leadership, he offers divisive rhetoric that can only result in pitting one group of Americans against another.

Thus, on the very issues that are at the heart of that American dream ---- the fight to have a rising tide of prosperity and opportunity to lift all the boats and the fight against the bigotry and intolerance that has kept too many for too long out of all the boats --- this nation has a President who is deliberately attempting to take us backward.

As Democrats and as Americans, we cannot afford to compromise on these issues.

We must speak out forcefully and honestly on why the Dream is fading for all too many of our people.

Until we succeed in getting our fiscal house in order, the standard of living for the American people cannot --- and will not --- grow as fast as it should, and --- in some instances --- will both stagnate and even fall backwards. And --- as our leaders in Washington continue to let this happen --- the ugly residue of man's inhumanity to man starts to creep to the surface, as one group is pitted against another for their share of a pie.

We have no choice but to tell the people this simply truth: we must rethink the priorities of the federal budget; we must cut tens of billions in federal spending that we cannot afford.... if we are to ever begin spending the money in those areas which we can no longer continue to neglect. For unless we do better with the trillions we will be spending in the next few years, we will see the American Dream becoming all the more elusive for an alarming number of Americans and their families.

As a Governor; as an American;

....as someone who has fought for positive change and the American Dream for all these years, I cannot stand on the sidelines while the country I love stumbles further backwards.

The past twelve years of pandering has insulted Americans into silence. Who has been listening to their deafening cries for leadership? Why have they lost hope to the degree they no longer see fit to vote? This is the question I asked myself and the answers I set out to find.

Those of us who have the opportunity to influence the electorate must once again look deep in to the recesses of our fortitude to both the good and the difficult answers that only truth can tell. We must seek the solutions---not the headlines---as we are in the fortunate and God-given opportunities to serve our neighbors.

This is the moment to rise with the courage of conviction and serve the country, the citizens of these United States with the honor and the fortitude our Forefathers granted us.

After many months of deliberation and hours of private thought and reflection on my commitment to Virginia and my obligation to my country...

I have decided to run for President of the United States in 1992.

I ask for your patience, support and---above all---your prayers in this effort for Virginia and the nation.

The most wrenching and prayerful consideration in my decision has been my commitment and promise to Virginia.

Twenty months ago, I committed and promised Virginians that I would work to solve the pressing problems of Virginia and position Virginia for the future. I will not shirk from that commitment one iota, nor fall short on my promise one scintilla.

In seeking the Presidency, I recognize that I am the longest of long shots. I may not win. I may not get but a few votes.

But I would not be doing my job as Governor---indeed, I would not deserve to be who I am---if I failed to step forward at this critical juncture in our nation's history.

For if we fail to heal this nation in 1992, it may not be healed in my lifetime. If we fail to put this country on a sound fiscal posture in 1992, then order may not be restored in my lifetime.

If elected, I pledge to all of you that I will do everything in my power to heal the growing divisions among us; to restore economic vitality....so that more people can enter the middle class....and to secure peace around the world through American economic and military strength.

I want my legacy to be that I expanded the economic and political rights of all men and women;

.... and that --- as we enter the next century --- America will have secured peace and prosperity for those Americans who will work for it .... and for all countries who will join us in this quest.

May God bless you, the Commonwealth ... and may God bless America.

Source: Field Guide to the 1992 Presidential Campaign Democracy in Action Paul Tsongas 1992 Paul Tsongas 1992 April 30, 1991










PAUL E. TSONGAS

ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH

Lowell, Massachusetts

April 30, 1991

Two hundred years ago, our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy. It was based upon the simple, yet noble, idea that government derives its validity from the consent of the governed.

That consent must be constantly renewed.

And it can only be renewed by a full and vigorous debate on the issues that confront our nation.

Today that search for renewal begins.

Today that search for consent proceeds as the Constitution has provided.

Today the national debate will commence.

It begins here in this city.

Lowell is my home. It is where I drew my first breath. It is where I will always derive a sense of place and a sense of belonging.

It is what I am. And you, my neighbors and friends, are what I am as well.

I am an American. I love this country.

You are Americans. You love this country. Together we are entrusted with the principles that represent mankind's greatest political and social achievement.

America is hope. It is compassion. It is excellence. It is valor.

It is humanity. Its values have drawn us from every corner of the globe.

These values are our manifest destiny.

The leadership in Washington has squandered that promise.

We were never meant to be the world's greatest debtor nation. We were never meant to have our ancestors' patrimony sold to the highest foreign bidder.

We were never meant to have American workers rank ninth in the world in wage scales.

We were never meant to have dysfunctional schools or imploding cities or racial disharmony or an environment at risk.

America is more than this. We are more than this. Our destiny is greatness and we must return to its fulfillment.

Enough of this is Washington avoidance.

Enough of this is Washington mediocrity.

We must return to the glory of our forebearers by unleashing the greatness of our people. We need leadership that calls upon the best of what we are. We need leadership that embraces a higher vision.

Today that leadership is not in Washington.

That leadership is here and across America. It is in the hearts and minds and souls of the American people.

I want to deploy the leadership to meet the challenges that face us and to restore America's greatness.

That is why I declare today my candidacy for the President of the United States.

Today I begin a journey of purpose. I ask you to come with me.

On this journey we will reaffirm the values of our ancestors -- hard work, determination, will, thrift, productivity, perseverance. And through that affirmation we will again be the greatest economic power on earth.

On this journey we will rediscover the caring and compassing for one another that has been dishonored during the Reagan-Bush years. And in that discovery we will look upon each other as brothers and sisters, as a community which nurtures its young and its ailing and its less fortunate.

On this journey we will reach into the future and commit ourselves to thinking in generations.

We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.

That sense of sacredness, that thinking in generations, must begin with reverence for this earth. This land, this water, this air, this planet-this is our legacy to our young. Yet the Reagan-Bush years have been a time of cynical avoidance of one environmental issue after another -- acid rain to energy conservation to depletion of the ozone layer to global warming to uncontrolled world population.

Journey with me to a true commitment to our environment. Journey with me to the serenity of leaving to our children a planet in equilibrium.

Thinking in generations also means enabling our young to have a decent standard of living.

Not the Reagan-Bush legacy to our children of an additional $3 trillion of debt. That debt will forever burden and handicap them.

George Bush promised "Read my lips, no new taxes." It won an election. But what he meant was "Read my lips, add more debt." That is generationally immoral.

Our children deserve better. On this journey of purpose, I commit myself to making this country a thriving, striving, triumphant competitor in the world marketplace. I commit myself to an America where our standard of living, our educational and health care systems and our industrial output are second to none. I commit myself to economic security for this generation and those that follow.

This obligation to our young is as old as civilization. In the Apache tongue the world for grandfather and grandson is the same. They understood linkage. They understood honor.

They understood mutual obligation.

In Washington there is no such wisdom. It is all here and now. It is all polling data. The vision extends only to the next election.

It is time to look to our children and feel our responsibility to then.

That is my journey of purpose. I want to meet that responsibility so that we can rest easy in our guardianship of this time and this place.

From a viable economy to the full funding of Headstart, from a clean environment to true equality for women, from a strong military to a commitment to racial brotherhood, from schools that are honored to streets free of excessive violence.

These are our responsibilities to them. I will devote myself to the search for their fulfillment.

Finally, this journey of purpose must be a journey of choice. We must choose action.

We must choose commitment.

I offer a different path: harder but more hopeful. Longer but more compelling. Steeper but more worthy.

Seven and half years ago I began my own journey. For me and my family it was a time of adversity. But during that adversity I derived a deeper faith. And born out of that adversity was a commitment to devote myself to those people and to those issues that truly matter to me.

Today, together with Niki and Ashley and Katina and Molly, I pledge to fulfill that commitment.

We all journey in this world. It is our calling. America is the sum of all our journeys as we search for our national community and our national culture.

Come with me.

We are a great nation.

We are a great people.

May God give us strength to be worthy of this greatness.

# # #

Source: Field Guide to the 1992 Presidential Campaign Democracy in Action

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