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George Bush 1988 George Bush 1988 August 18, 1988










George Bush Acceptance Speech

Republican National Convention

August 18, 1988

I have many friends to thank tonight. I thank the voters who supported me. I thank the gallant men who entered the contest for the presidency this year, and who have honored me with their support. And, for their kind and stirring words, I thank Governor Tom Kean of New Jersey - Senator Phil Gramm of Texas - President Gerald Ford - and my friend, President Ronald Reagan.

I accept your nomination for President. I mean to run hard, to fight hard, to stand on the issues - and I mean to win.

There are a lot of great stories in politics about the underdog winning - and this is going to be one of them.

And we're going to win with the help of Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana - a young leader who has become a forceful voice in preparing America's workers for the labor force of the future. Born in the middle of the century, in the middle of America, and holding the promise of the future - I'm proud to have Dan Quayle at my side.

Many of you have asked, "When will this campaign really begin?" I have come to this hall to tell you, and to tell America: Tonight is the night.

For seven and a half years I have helped a President conduct the most difficult job on earth. Ronald Reagan asked for, and received, my candor. He never asked for, but he did receive, my loyalty. Those of you who saw the President's speech this week, and listened to the simple truth of his words, will understand my loyalty all these years.

But now you must see me for what I am: The Republican candidate for President of the United States. And now I turn to the American people to share my hopes and intentions, and why - and where - I wish to lead.

And so tonight is for big things. But I'll try to be fair to the other side. I'll try to hold my charisma in check. I reject the temptation to engage in personal references. My approach this evening is, as Sergeant Joe Friday used to say, "Just the facts, ma'm."

After all, the facts are on our side.

I seek the presidency for a single purpose, a purpose that has motivated millions of Americans across the years and the ocean voyages. I seek the presidency to build a better America. It is that simple - and that big.

I am a man who sees life in terms of missions - missions defined and missions completed. When I was a torpedo bomber pilot they defined the mission for us. Before we took off we all understood that no matter what, you try to reach the target. There have been other missions for me - Congress, China, the CIA. But I am here tonight - and I am your candidate - because the most important work of my life is to complete the mission we started in 1980. How do we complete it? We build it.

The stakes are high this year and the choice is crucial, for the differences between the two candidates are as deep and wide as they have ever been in our long history.

Not only two very different men, but two very different ideas of the future will be voted on this election day.

What it all comes down to is this:

My opponent's view of the world sees a long slow decline for our country, an inevitable fall mandated by impersonal historical forces.

But America is not a decline. America is a rising nation.

He sees America as another pleasant country on the UN roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe. I see America as the leader - a unique nation with a special role in the world.

This has been called the American Century, because in it we were the dominant force for good in the world. We saved Europe, cured polio, we went to the moon, and lit the world with our culture. Now we are on the verge of a new century, and what country's name will it bear? I say it will be another American century.

Our work is not done - our force is not spent.

There are those who say there isn't much of a difference this year.

But America, don't let 'em fool ya.

Two parties this year ask for your support. Both will speak of growth and peace. But only one has proved it can deliver. Two parties this year ask for your trust, but only one has earned it.

Eight years ago I stood here with Ronald Reagan and we promised, together, to break with the past and return America to her greatness. Eight years later look at what the American people have produced: the highest level of economic growth in our entire history - and the lowest level of world tensions in more than fifty years.

Some say this isn't an election about ideology, it's an election about competence. Well, it's nice of them to want to play on our field. But this election isn't only about competence, for competence is a narrow ideal. Competence makes the trains run on time but doesn't know where they're going. Competence is the creed of the technocrat who makes sure the gears mesh but doesn't for a second understand the magic of the machine.

The truth is, this election is about the beliefs we share, the values we honor, the principles we hold dear.

But since someone brought up competence. ...

Consider the size of our triumph: A record high percentage of Americans with jobs, a record high rate of new businesses - a record high rate of real personal income.

These are the facts. And one way you know our opponents know the facts is that to attack the record they have to misrepresent it. They call it a Swiss cheese economy. Well, that's the way it may look to the three blind mice. But when they were in charge it was all holes and no cheese.

Inflation was 12 percent when we came in. We got it down to four. Interest rates were more than 21. We cut them in half. Unemployment was up and climbing, now it's the lowest in 14 years.

My friends, eight years ago this economy was flat on its back - intensive care. We came in and gave it emergency treatment: Got the temperature down by lowering regulation, got the blood pressure down when we lowered taxes. Pretty soon the patient was up, back on his feet, and stronger than ever.

And now who do we hear knocking on the door but the doctors who made him sick. And they're telling us to put them in charge of the case again. My friends, they're lucky we don't hit them with a malpractice suit!

We've created seventeen million new jobs in the past five years - more than twice as many as Europe and Japan combined. And they're good jobs. The majority of them created in the past six years paid an average of more than $22,000 a year. Someone better take 'a message to Michael': Tell him we've been creating good jobs at good wages. The fact is, they talk - we deliver. They promise - we perform.

There are millions of young Americans in their 20's who barely remember the days of gas lines and unemployment lines. Now they're marrying and starting careers. To those young people I say " You have the opportunity you deserve - and I'm not going to let them take it away from you."

There are millions of older Americans who were brutalized by inflation. We arrested it - and we're not going to let it out on furlough. We're going to keep the social security trust fund sound, and out of reach of the big spenders. To America's elderly I say, "Once again you have the security that is your right - and I'm not going to let them take it away from you."

I know the liberal democrats are worried about the economy. They're worried it's going to remain strong. And they're right, it is. With the right leadership.

But let's be frank. Things aren't perfect in this country. There are people who haven't tasted the fruits of the expansion. I've talked to farmers about the bills they can't pay. I've been to the factories that feel the strain of change. I've seen the urban children who play amidst the shattered glass and shattered lives. And there are the homeless. And you know, it doesn't do any good to debate endlessly which policy mistake of the '70's is responsible. They're there. We have to help them.

But what we must remember if we are to be responsible - and compassionate - is that economic growth is the key to our endeavors.

I want growth that stays, that broadens, and that touches, finally, all Americans, form the hollows of Kentucky to the sunlit streets of Denver, from the suburbs of Chicago to the broad avenues of New York, from the oil fields of Oklahoma to the farms of the great plains.

Can we do it? Of course we can. We know how. We've done it. If we continue to grow at our current rate, we will be able to produce 30 million jobs in the next eight years. We will do it - by maintaining our commitment to free and fair trade, by keeping government spending down, and by keeping taxes down.

Our economic life is not the only test of our success, overwhelms all the others, and that is the issue of peace.

One issue Look at the world on this bright August night. The spirit of Democracy is sweeping the Pacific rim. China feels the winds of change. New democracies assert themselves in South America. One by one the unfree places fall, not to the force of arms but to the force of an idea: freedom works.

We have a new relationship with the Soviet Union. The INF treaty - the beginning of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan - the beginning of the end of the Soviet proxy war in Angola, and with it the independence of Namibia. Iran and Iraq move toward peace.

It is a watershed.

It is no accident.

It happened when we acted on the ancient knowledge that strength and clarity lead to peace - weakness and ambivalence lead to war. Weakness and ambivalence lead to war. Weakness tempts aggressors. Strength stops them. I will not allow this country to be made weak again.

The tremors in the Soviet world continue. The hard earth there has not yet settled. Perhaps what is happening will change our world forever. Perhaps what is happening will change our world forever. Perhaps not. A prudent skepticism is in order. And so is hope. Either way, we're in an unprecedented position to change the nature of our relationship. Not by preemptive concession - but by keeping our strength. Not by yielding up defense systems with nothing won in return - but by hard cool engagement in the tug and pull of diplomacy.

My life has been lived in the shadow of war - I almost lost my life in one.

I hate war.

I love peace. We have peace.

And I am not going to let anyone take it away from us.

Our economy is strong but not invulnerable, and the peace is broad but can be broken. And now we must decide. We will surely have change this year, but will it be change that moves us forward? Or change that risks retreat?

In 1940, when I was barely more than a boy, Franklin Roosevelt said we shouldn't change horses in midstream.

My friends, these days the world moves even more quickly, and now, after two great terms, a switch will be made. But when you have to change horses in midstream, doesn't it make sense to switch to the one who's going the same way?

An election that is about ideas and values is also about philosophy. And I have one.

At the bright center is the individual. And radiating out from him or her is the family, the essential unit of closeness and of love. For it is the family that communicates to our children - to the 21st century - our culture, our religious faith, our traditions and history.

From the individual to the family to the community, and on out to the town, to the church and school, and, still echoing out, to the county, the state, the nation - each doing 'only what it does well, and no more. And I believe that power must always be kept close to the individual - close to the hands that raise the family and run the home.

I am guided by certain traditions. One is that there is a God and He is good, and his love, while free, has a self imposed cost: We must be good to one another.

I believe in another tradition that is, by now, embedded in the national soul. It is that learning is good in and of itself. The mothers of the Jewish ghettos of the east would pour honey on a book so the children would learn that learning is sweet. And the parents who settled hungry Kansas would take their children in from the fields when a teacher came. That is our history.

And there is another tradition. And that is the idea of community - a beautiful word with a big meaning. Though liberal democrats have an odd view of it. They see "community" as a limited cluster of interest groups, locked in odd conformity. In this view, the country waits passive while Washington sets the rules.

But that's not what community means - not to me.

For we are a nation of communities, of thousands and tens of thousands of ethnic, religious, social, business, labor union, neighborhood, regional and other organizations, all of them varied, voluntary and unique.

This is America: the Knights of Columbus, the Grange, Hadassah, the Disabled American Veterans, the Order of Ahepa, the Business and Professional Women of America, the union hall, the Bible study group, LULAC, "Holy Name" - a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

Does government have a place? Yes. Government is part of the nation of communities - not the whole, just a part.

I do not hate government. A government that remembers that the people are its master is a good and needed thing.

I respect old fashioned common sense, and have no great love for the imaginings of social planners. I like what's been tested and found to be true.

For instance:

Should public school teachers be required to lead our children in the pledge of allegiance? My opponent says no - but I say yes.

Should society be allowed to impose the death penalty on those who commit crimes of extraordinary cruelty and violence? My opponent says no - but I say yes.

Should our children have the right to say a voluntary prayer, or even observe a moment of silence in the schools? My opponent says no - but I say yes.

Should free men and women have the right to own a gun to protect their home? My opponent says no - but I say yes.

Is it right to believe in the sanctity of life and protect the lives of innocent children? My opponent says no - but I say yes. We must change from abortion - to adoption. I have an adopted granddaughter. The day of her christening we wept with joy. I thank God her parents chose life.

I'm the one who believes it is a scandal to give a weekend furlough to a hardened first degree killer who hasn't even served enough time to be eligible for parole.

I'm the one who says a drug dealer who is responsible for the death of a policeman should be subject to capital punishment.

I'm the one who won't raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. When a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. The Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I'll say no, and they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say to them, "Read my lips: no new taxes."

Let me tell you more about the mission.

On jobs, my mission is: 30 in 8.

Thirty million jobs in the next eight years.

Every one of our children deserves a first rate school. The liberal democrats want power in the hands of the federal government. I want power in the hands of parents. I will increase the power of parents. I will encourage merit schools. I will give more kids a Head Start. And I'll make it easier to save for college.

I want a drug free America - and this will not be easy to achieve. But I want to enlist the help of some people who are rarely included. Tonight I challenge the young people of our country to shut down the drug dealers around the world. Unite with us, work with us. "Zero tolerance" isn't just a policy, it's an attitude. Tell them what you think of people who underwrite the dealers who put poison in our society. And while you're doing that, my administration will be telling the dealers: whatever we have to do we'll do, but your day is over, you're history.

I am going to do whatever it takes to make sure the disabled are included in the mainstream. For too long they've been left out. But they're not going to be left out anymore.

I am going to stop ocean dumping. Our beaches should not be garbage dumps and our harbors should not be cesspools. I am going to have the FBI trace the medical wastes and we are going to punish the people who dump those infected needles into our oceans, lakes and rivers. And we must clean the air. We must reduce the harm done by acid rain.

I will put incentives back into the domestic energy industry, for I know from personal experience there is no security for the United States in further dependence on foreign oil.

In foreign affairs I will continue our policy of peace through strength. I will move toward further cuts in the strategic and conventional arsenals of both the United States and the Soviet Union. I will modernize and preserve our technological edge. I will ban chemical and biological weapons from the face of the earth. And I intend to speak for freedom, stand for freedom, and be a patient friend to anyone, east or west, who will fight for freedom.

It seems to me the Presidency provides an incomparable opportunity for "gentle persuasion."

I hope to stand for a new harmony, a greater tolerance. We've come far, but I think we need a new harmony among the races in our country. We're on a journey to a new century, and we've got to leave the tired old baggage of bigotry behind.

Some people who are enjoying our prosperity have forgotten what it's for. But they diminish our triumph when they act as if wealth is an end in itself.

There are those who have dropped their standards along the way, as if ethics were too heavy and slowed their rise to the top. There's graft in city hall, the greed on Wall Street; there's influence peddling in Washington, and the small corruptions of everyday ambition.

But you see, I believe public service is honorable. And every time I hear someone has breached the public trust it breaks my heart.

I wonder sometimes if we have forgotten who we are. But we're the people who sundered a nation rather than allow a sin called slavery - we're the people who rose from the ghettos and the deserts.

We weren't saints - but we lived by standards. We celebrated the individual - but we weren't self -centered. We were practical - but we didn't live only for material things. We believed in getting ahead - but blind ambition wasn't our way.

The fact is prosperity has a purpose. It is to allow us to pursue "the better angels," to give us time to think and grow. Prosperity with a purpose means taking your idealism and making it concrete by certain acts of goodness. It means helping a child from an unhappy home learn how to read - and I thank my wife Barbara for all her work in literacy. It means teaching troubled children through your presence that there's such a thing as reliable love. Some would say it's soft and insufficiently tough to care about these things. But where is it written that we must act as if we do not care, as if we are not moved?

Well I am moved. I want a kinder, gentler nation.

Two men this year ask for your support. And you must know us.

As for me, I have held high office and done the work of democracy day by day. My parents were prosperous; their children were lucky. But there were lessons we had to learn about life. John Kennedy discovered poverty when he campaigned in West Virginia; there were children there who had no milk. Young Teddy Roosevelt met the new America when he roamed the immigrant streets of New York. And I learned a few things about life in a place called Texas.

We moved to west Texas 40 years ago. The war was over, and we wanted to get out and make it on our own. Those were exciting days. Lived in a little shotgun house, one room for the three of us. Worked in the oil business, started my own.

In time we had six children. Moved from the shotgun to a duplex apartment to a house. Lived the dream - high school football on Friday night, Little League, neighborhood barbecue.

People don't see their experience as symbolic of an era - but of course we were. So was everyone else who was taking a chance and pushing into unknown territory with kids and a dog and a car. But the big thing I learned is the satisfaction of creating jobs, which meant creating opportunity, which meant happy families, who in turn could do more to help others and enhance their own lives. I learned that the good done by a single good job can be felt in ways you can't imagine.

I may not be the most eloquent, but I learned early that eloquence won't draw oil from the ground. I may sometimes be a little awkward, but there's nothing self-conscious in my love of country. I am a quiet man - but I hear the quiet people others don't. The ones who raise the family, pay the taxes, meet the mortgage. I hear them and I am moved, and their concerns are mine.

A President must be many things.

He must be a shrewd protector of America's interests; And he must be an idealist who leads those who move for a freer and more democratic planet.

He must see to it that government intrudes as little as possible in the lives of the people; and yet remember that it is the nation's character.

And he must be able to define - and lead - a mission.

For seven and a half years I have worked with a President - and I have seen what crosses that big desk. I have seen the unexpected crisis that arrive in a cable in a young aide's hand. And I have seen problems that simmer on for decades and suddenly demand resolution. I have seen modest decisions made with anguish, and crucial decisions made with dispatch.

And so I know that what it all comes down to, this election - what it all comes down to, after all the shouting and the cheers - is the man at the desk.

My friends, I am that man.

I say it without boast or bravado, I've fought for my country, I've served, I've built - and I will go from the hills to the hollows, from the cities to the suburbs to the loneliest town on the quietest street to take our message of hope and growth for every American to every American.

I will keep America moving forward, always forward - for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of light.

That is my mission. And I will complete it.

Thank you. God bless you.

Source: George Bush Presidential Library and Museum Mike Dukakis 1988 Mike Dukakis 1988 July 21, 1988










(as delivered)

A NEW ERA OF GREATNESS FOR AMERICA

MICHAEL S. DUKAKIS

ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION FOR THE

PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

JULY 21, 1988

Mr. Chairman.

A few months ago when Olympia Dukakis, in front of about a billion and a half television viewers all over the world, raised that Oscar over her head and said, "O.K., Michael, let’s go," she wasn't kidding.

Kitty and I are grateful to her for that wonderful introduction and grateful to all of you for making this possible. This is a wonderful evening for us and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

My fellow Democrats. My fellow Americans.

Sixteen months ago, when I announced my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States, I said this campaign would be a marathon. Tonight, with the wind at our backs; with friends by our side; with courage in our hearts; the race to the finish line begins.

And we're going to win this race.

We're going to win because we are the party that believes in the American dream.

A dream so powerful that no distance of ground, no expanse of ocean, no barrier of language, no distinction of race or creed or color can weaken its hold on the human heart.

And I know, because my friends, I'm a product of that dream and I'm proud of it"

A dream that brought my father to this country 76 years ago; that brought my mother and her family here one year later--poor, unable to speak English; but with a burning desire to succeed in their new land of opportunity.

And tonight, in the presence of that marvelous woman who is my mother and who, came here 75 years ago; with the memory in my heart of the young man, who arrived at Ellis Island with only $25 in his pocket, but with a deep and abiding faith in the promise of America--and how I wish he was here tonight; he'd be very proud of his son, and he'd be very proud of his adopted country, I can assure you--tonight, as a son of immigrants with a wonderful wife and now with Lisa our lovely daughter-in-law, four terrific children; and as a proud public servant who has cherished every minute of the last sixteen months on the campaign trail, I accept your nomination for the Presidency of the United States.

The dream that carried me to this platform is alive tonight in every part of this country--and it's what the Democratic party is all about.

Henry Cisneros of Texas; Bob Matsui of California; Barbara Mikulski of Maryland; Mario Cuomo of New York; Claude Pepper of Florida.

And Jesse Louis Jackson.

A man who has lifted so many hearts with the dignity and the hope of his message throughout this campaign; a man whose very candidacy has said to every child--aim high; to every citizen--you count; to every voter--you can make a difference; to every American--you are a full shareholder in our dream.

And my friends, if anyone tells you that the American dream belongs to the privileged few and not to all of us; you tell them that the Reagan era is over and a new era is about to begin.

Because it's time to raise our sights--to look beyond the cramped ideals and limited ambitions of the past eight years--to recapture the spirit of energy and of confidence and of idealism that John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson inspired a generation ago.

It's time to meet the challenge of the next American frontier—the challenge of building an economic future for our country that will create good jobs at good wages for every citizen in this land, no matter who they are or where they came from or what the color of their skin.

It's time to rekindle the American spirit of invention and daring; to exchange voodoo economics for can-do economics; to build the best America by bringing out the best in every American.

It's time to wake up to the new challenges that face the American family. Time to see that young families in this country are never again forced to choose between the jobs they need and the children they love; time to be sure that parents are never again told that no matter how long they work or how hard their child tries, a college education is a right they can't afford.

It's time to ask why it is that we have run up more debt in this country in the last eight years than we did in the previous 200; and to make sure it never happens again.

It's time to understand that the greatest threat to our national security in this hemisphere is not the Sandinistas--it's the avalanche of drugs that is pouring into this country and poisoning our kids.

I don't think I have to tell any of you how much we Americans expect of ourselves.

Or how much we have a right to expect from those we elect to public office.

Because this election isn't about ideology. It's about competence.

It's not about overthrowing governments in Central America; it's about creating good jobs in middle America. That's what this election is all about.

It's not about insider trading on Wall Street; it's about creating opportunity on Main Street.

And it's not about meaningless labels. It's about American values. Old-fashioned values like accountability and responsibility and respect for the truth.

And just as we Democrats believe that there are no limits to what each citizen can do; so we believe there are no limits to what America can do.

And yes, I know, this fall, we're going to be hearing a lot of Republican talk about how well some neighborhoods and some regions of this country are doing; about how easy it is for some families to buy a home or to find childcare or to pay their doctor's bills or to send their children to college.

But maintaining the status quo--running in place--standing still--isn't good enough for America. Opportunity for some isn't good enough for America.

Because working together, we're going to forge greatness for America.

We're going to take America's genius out of cold storage and challenge our youngsters; we're going to make our schools and universities and laboratories the finest in the world; and we're going to make teaching a valued and honored profession once again in this country.

We're going to light fires of innovation and enterprise from coast to coast and we're going to give those on welfare the chance to lift themselves out of poverty; to get the child care and the training they need; the chance to step out into the bright sunshine of opportunity and of hope and of dignity.

We're going to invest in our urban neighborhoods; and we're going to work to revitalize small town and rural America. We're going to give our farm families a price they can live on, and farm communities a future they can count on.

And we're going to build the kind of America that Lloyd Bentsen has been fighting for 40 years; the kind of America where hard work is rewarded; where American goods and American workmanship are the best in the world, the kind of America that provides American workers and their families with at least 60 days' notice when a factory or a plant shuts down.

Now, I know I have a reputation for being a somewhat frugal man. And let me state for the record that that snowblower is still in good working order, even it sits in our garage. In nine years, I've balanced nine more budgets than this administration has and I've just balanced a tenth. And I've worked with the citizens of my state--worked hard to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs--and I mean good jobs, jobs you can raise a family on, jobs you can build a future on, jobs you can count on.

And I'm very proud oft our progress, but I'm even prouder of the way we've made that progress--by working together; by excluding no one and including everyone; business and labor; educators and community leaders and just plain citizens--sharing responsibility; exchanging ideas; building confidence about the future.

What we have done reflects a simple but very profound idea--an idea as powerful as any in human history.

It is the idea of community. The kind of community that binds us here tonight.

It is the idea that we are in this together; that regardless of who we are or where we come from or how much money we have--each of us counts. And that by working together to create opportunity and a good life for all--all of us are enriched--not just in econom1c terms, but as citizens and as human beings.

The idea of community. An idea that was planted in the New World by the first Governor of Massachusetts.

"We must, " said John Winthrop, "love one another with a pure heart fervently. We must delight in each other," make each other's condition our own, rejoice together, mourn together, and suffer together...We must" he said "be knit together as one."

John Winthrop wasn't talking about material success. He was talking about a country where each of us asks not only what's in it for some of us, but what's good and what's right for all of us.

When a young mother named Dawn Lawson leaves 7 years of welfare to become a personnel specialist in a Fortune 500 company in Worcester, Massachusetts--we are all enriched and ennobled.

When a Catholic priest named Bill Kraus helps homeless families in Denver not just by giving them shelter, but by helping them to find the jobs they need to get back on their feet, we are all enriched and ennobled.

When a high school principal named George McKenna and his dedicated staff of teachers and counselors create an environment for learning at the George Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles; a high school in Los Angeles that is ninety percent black and ten percent Hispanic and has 80 percent of its graduates accepted to college; we are all enriched and ennobled.

When a dedicated new management team and a fine union in Milwaukee work together to turn Harley-Davidson around and help it come back to life, and save 1,200 good jobs, we are all enriched and ennobled.

And when a man named Willie Velasquez; y cuando un Willie Velasquez; can register tens of thousands of his fellow citizens as voters; puede inscribir decena de miles de sus conciudadanos para votar; and Willie Velasquez can bring new energy and new ideas and new people; brindando asi nuevas energias, nuevas ideas, nuevas personas; into court houses and city halls and state capitals of the Southwest; a los gobiernos municipales y estatales del suroeste -- my friends, we are all enriched and ennobled; todos nos enriquecemos y enoblecemos.

My friends, as President, I'm going to be setting goals for our country; not goals for our government working alone; I mean goals for our people working together.

I want businesses in this country to be wise enough and innovative enough to re-train their workers, to re-tool their factories, and to help rebuild their communities.

I want students and office workers and retired teachers to share with a neighbor the precious gift of literacy.

I want those of you who are bricklayers and carpenters and developers and housing advocates to work with us to help create decent and affordable housing for every family in America, so that we can once and for all end the shame of homelessness in the United States of America.

I want our young scientists to dedicate their great gifts not to the destruction of life, but to its preservation; I want them to wage war on hunger and pollution and infant mortality; and I want them to work with us to win the war against AIDS, the greatest public health emergency of our lifetimes, and a disease that must be conquered.

I want a new Attorney General to work with me and with law enforcement officials allover America to re-claim our streets and neighborhoods from those who commit violent crime.

And I want the members of congress to work with me and I'm going to work with them so that, at long last, we can make good on Harry Truman's commitment to basic health insurance for every family in America.

My friends, the dream that began in Philadelphia 200 years ago; the spirit that survived that terrible winter at Valley Forge and triumphed on the beach at Normandy; the courage that looked Khrushchev in the eye during the Cuban Missile crisis--is as strong and as vibrant today as it has ever been.

We must be—we are--and we will be--militarily strong.

But we must back that military strength with economic strength; we must give the men and women of our armed forces weapons that work; we must have a Secretary of Defense who will manage--and not be managed by--the Pentagon; and we must have a foreign policy that reflects the decency and the principles and the values of the American people.

President Reagan has set the stage for deep cuts in nuclear arms--and I salute him for that.

He has said that we should judge the Soviet Union not by what it says, but by what it does--and I agree with that.

But we can do a lot more to stop the spread of nuclear and chemical arms; we can do a lot more to bring peace to Central America and to the Middle East; and we can and we will do a lot more to end apartheid in South Africa.

John Kennedy once said that America "leads the world, not just because we are the richest or the strongest or the most powerful, but because we exert that leadership for the cause of freedom around the globe...and...because" in his words, "we are moving on the road to peace."

Yes, we must always be prepared to defend our freedom.

But we must always remember that our greatest strength comes not from what we possess, but from what we believe; not from what we have, but from who we are.

You know I've been asked many times over the past sixteen months if I have one very special goal for these next four years--something that reflects everything I stand for and believe in as an American.

And the answer to that question is yes, I do.

Four years from now, when our citizens walk along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., or when they see a picture of the White House on television, I want them to be proud of their government; I want them to be proud of a government that sets high standards not just for the American people, but high standards for itself.

We're going to have a Justice Department that isn't the laughing stock of the nation--we're going to have a Justice Department that understands what the word "justice" means.

We're going to have nominees to the federal bench who are men and women of integrity and intelligence and who understand the Constitution of the United States.

We're going to have an Environmental Protection Agency that is more interested in stopping pollution than in protecting the polluters.

We're going to have a real war and not a phony war against drugs; and, my friends, we won't be doing business with drug-running Panamanian dictators anymore.

We're going to have a Vice-President who won't sit silently by when somebody at the National Security Council comes up with the cockamamie idea that we should trade arms to the Ayatollah for hostages; we're going to have a Vice-President named Lloyd Bentsen who will walk into the Oval Office and say, "Mister President, this is outrageous and it's got to stop." That's the kind of Vice-President we're going to have.

In the Dukakis White House, as in the Dukakis State House; it you accept the privilege of public service, you had better understand the responsibilities of public service. If you violate that trust, you'll be fired; if you violate the law, you'll be prosecuted; and if you sell arms to the Ayatollah, don't expect a pardon from the President of the United States.

Monday night, like millions of Americans, I laughed and was moved by the wit and wisdom of Ann Richards.

And Tuesday night, along with millions of other Americans, I was inspired, as you were, by the powerful words of Jesse Jackson.

But what stirred me most on Monday was a grandmother talking about her "nearly perfect" granddaughter; and what stirred me most on Tuesday were those handsome and proud and articulate Jackson children talking about their hopes for the future of this country.

You know, young Jacqueline Jackson goes to school in my state. And last month, she visited with me in the State House in Boston. She's a remarkable young woman, and I know her parents are very, very proud of her.

And my thoughts tonight--and my dreams for America--are about Ann Richards' granddaughter Lily; about young Jackie Jackson; and about the baby that's going to be born to our son John and his wife Lisa in January. As a matter of fact, the baby is due on or about January 20.

God willing, our first grandchild will reach the age that Jackie Jackson is now at the beginning of a new century. And we pray that he or she will reach that age with eyes as filled with the sparkle of life and of pride and of optimism as that young woman we watched together two nights ago.

Yes, my friends, it's a time for wonderful new beginnings.

A little baby.

A new Administration.

A new era of greatness for America.

And when we leave here tonight, we will leave to build that future together.

To build the future so that when our children and grandchildren look back in their time on what we did in our time; they will say that we had the wisdom to carry on the dreams of those who came before us; the courage to make our own dreams come true; the foresight to blaze a trail for generations yet to come.

And as I accept your nomination tonight, I can't help recalling that the first marathon was run in ancient Greece, and that on important occasions like this one, the people of Athens would complete their ceremonies by taking a pledge.

That pledge--that covenant--is as eloquent and timely today as it was 2000 years ago.

"We will never bring disgrace to this, our country, by any act of dishonesty or of cowardice. We will fight for the ideals of this, our country. We will revere and obey the law. We will strive to quicken our sense of civic duty. Thus, in all these ways, we will transmit this country greater, stronger, prouder and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us."

That is my pledge to you, my fellow Democrats.

And that is my pledge to you, my fellow Americans.

Thank you all, very, very much.

Source: Michael Dukakis Bob Dole 1988 Bob Dole 1988 November 9, 1987










ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH OF SENATOR BOB DOLE

RUSSELL, KANSAS NOVEMBER 9, 1987

Thank you Nancy, and good morning everyone.

Elizabeth, Robin and I are grateful to all of you for joining us today. I appreciate Senator Kassebaum's remarks. The last time we were in Kansas together was at her father's 100th birthday. Alf Landon was a wonderful man. He never lost his sense of humor, his love of learning or his joy for living. We miss him very much.

I know many of you have come a good distance, and I'm thankful for that. I also recall a time in 1976 when President Gerald Ford joined me here, and that was another great day for Russell. I enjoy showing Russell off, although it doesn't take a whole lot longer now than it did when I was a boy.

When I look out on Main Street this morning, I see the faces of people who know me best -- or their children or grandchildren -- people who have always accepted me, and believed in me.

There are people standing here who long ago put quarters they couldn't spare in this cigar box. That generosity helped reshape my life.

I remember the experience -- many years ago -- that began when I felt a sting in the shoulder. I remember the first thing I thought about was home.

The goodness of the people of Russell over the years has been the source of my inspiration and my strength. The people who settled this community, like so many others across America, were immigrants and frontiersmen and homesteaders who knew that grit and endurance and reliance on one's neighbors were needed to build a better life for their children. They were optimists and builders; they harnessed invention and hard work to carve a life out of the wilderness. I have carried the spirit of this place with me throughout my life.

That is why I have come back home today to announce before family and friends, that I am a candidate for my party's nomination to the office of President of the United States.

I offer a record, not a resume.

A track record of nearly 11,000 votes in Congress, and 27 years of leadership that says:

I can make a difference.

I have made a difference.

I will make a difference.

Sometimes it isn't easy. Sometimes the cynics tell you it can't be done.

Social Security -- It was bankrupt, they said, and you couldn't fix it. But with leadership and hard work we fixed it.

Rural America -- It was on its back. They said you couldn't save it. But with leadership and hard work, we're bringing it back.

Voting Rights -- They said we'd lost our resolve, that a consensus couldn't be forged. But with leadership and hard work, we did it because all Americans, regardless of race, color, creed or physical disability should have the right to participate in the political process without fear or intimidation.

Taxes -- They said that taxes couldn't be reduced, that loopholes for the special interests couldn't be closed. But with leadership and hard work, we did it.

I'm talking about making a difference. One person who has is Ronald Reagan. He restored America's prosperity, rebuilt our military strength and revived our spiritual wellbeing. Ronald Reagan set us on a new course, and history will be grateful. But the Reagan record is not something to stand on. It's not something to run on. It's something to build on.

I want to lead America into an even greater era of opportunity for our people and security for our nation. And so I offer a lifetime of experience and a record that shows not merely where I stand, but the hopes of a lifetime rooted here in Russell. I offer a willingness to work hard, to hang tough, to go the distance. I offer the strength and determination -- molded in America's smalltown heartland and tempered during a career of public service -- to bring common-sense answers to the complex problems facing America in its third century.

America's great heartland Presidents were plain-speaking men whose clear-eyed vision enabled them to make the tough choices: Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. My vision, like theirs, is shaped by the aspirations of shopkeepers and farmers, workers and everyday Americans. Like them, I see the opportunities before us. Like them, I see the dangers. Like them, I'm willing to make the tough choices needed to preserve opportunities for generations to come.

The Federal budget deficit is the single greatest threat to a prosperous and dynamic America. We do not expand opportunity when we burden our children with debt from our own self-indulgence. We will either sacrifice for our children or we will continue to make our children sacrifice for us. We have the privilege of choosing. Our children do not.

Since the deficit problem began, every Administration and every Congress has tried to postpone true reckoning. At no point has our government been willing to face and weight the touch choices, to act resolutely to cut spending.

My pledge today is that we will tackle the runaway federal budget head-on -- without raising tax rates.

With the single exception of programs to assist vulnerable Americans, no area of Federal spending will be off-limits. Americans are fair-minded people. They are willing to endure some changes in federal programs -- if they know everyone is sharing equally.

There's nothing complicated about what needs to be done. It requires the same common sense and discipline every responsible wage-earner uses to balance the family books. We can no longer rely on stopgap economic fixes that only reel from one crisis to the next. I will sit down with Congressional leaders during my first weeks in office and we'll stay there as long as it takes, and we will not stop until we come up with a renewed commitment to a multi-year plan -- a new compact -- that ends with a balanced budget.

I will also seen an iron-clad assurance that we will never again confront such overwhelming deficits. That goal will require approval of two long-overdue measures.

First and foremost, it's time to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. Without a Constitutional restriction, Congress will always fall back on deficit spending.

The will of the people has been ignored for too long. I will once again ask Congress to give the people what they want. But if I can't get satisfaction, I will go over the heads of those in Congress and call for a Constitutional Convention to approve a balanced budget amendment.

Just as important, the President -- whatever his party -- must have a line-item veto. Today, the Chief Executive too often is faced with a take-it-or-leave-it choice when Congress approves huge, all-or-nothing spending bills. The President is put in the position of the car buyer forced to accept an automobile loaded with options he doesn't need or want. A line-item veto would allow the President to reach within massive spending bills and strike out wasteful and unnecessary pork-barrel projects.

A thriving economy must also include a new global community linked by fair and open trade. We cannot be seduced by the delusion that if only we build trade walls high enough, we can shut out a flood of foreign-built products. But neither will we play the patsy. Our workers are the best in the world, and we will fight for their right to compete. Where we are competitive, we will insist on access. And where we find a persistent pattern of unfair trade practices, we will act.

Our Nation is not only saddled with an economic deficit. We're also facing an education deficit. And making the tough choices means reexamining our priorities. At home, education must be at the top of the list. State and local governments, communities and parents bear the main responsibility for the education of our children. But the Federal Government can stimulate school systems to improve what goes on in our classrooms.

Certainly, we must accelerate the move to basics -- back to emphasizing English, math and science -- and we have to begin during the ore-school years.

We must reaffirm our commitment to education as the great equalizer -- as the door to opportunity for millions of children who may start a step behind others.

We must carefully target our assistance to programs of proven effectiveness -- merit pay for good teachers and magnet schools that focus on students with special needs and abilities.

In the highly competitive world of the 1990's, we can't afford to squander a single talent. As a start, we must cut the drop-out rate by at least 10 percent a year, and we must reduce by 2 million a year the 23 million adult Americans who can't read or write well enough to fill demanding jobs.

We are not going to produce qualified people for the workforce of the next century until we commit to programs that emphasize technical skills and scientific knowledge. We should establish national fellowships to train outstanding teachers in the uses of technology and encourage partnership programs that allow elementary and secondary schools to tap into the expertise of universities and the private sector. And finally we must remember that learning is for everyone, and it extends through a lifetime. But it is also necessary that those who borrow Federal tax dollars must repay their debt.

While we work to improve our schools, we must also remember that our national commitment to children cannot end in the classroom. We must nurture our children in the traditional values of home and family, and dependence on God. And as President I would continue my consistent and lifelong effort to protect the rights of the unborn -- the first of which is the right to life.

Just as our children's minds constitute a vital national resource, so too is the good health of our citizens. This Nation's health care system must be judged not only by its ability to cure us, but also by its ability to keep us well. As we balance the competing priorities on our national agenda, we must be certain that we provide adequate medical care at both ends of the age spectrum -- for infants and children as well as our elderly citizens. We're still not giving our infants the fighting chance they deserve to be born healthy, and prenatal care is the key.

At the same time, the graying of the baby-boom generation -and projections of a rapidly expanding elderly population -provide the impetus for a complete review of our health spending priorities.

Today's health care system has serious gaps and leaves many of the elderly and disabled without any assistance -- and strikes terror in the hearts of those who will need long-term care.

As we make the hard choices and re-examine what is most important, we must never lose sight of the fact that our number one priority is liberty and freedom -- hence a strong national defense.

Under President Reagan, we have rebuilt our defenses, revitalized our alliances, and rekindled our hopes for real nuclear arms control.

America has become strong again, but we must keep our guard up. We will not tolerate waste or inefficiency in defense spending. But we cannot afford to short-change the defense modernization programs that keep us strong.

Keeping our alliances vibrant is also vital to our own defense and security. Long-time friends achieve that status for a good reason: We share common concerns and mutual trust. Our European and Asian allies deserve first consideration in our foreign policy deliberations. But they must also recognize that an alliance is a two-way street. It's high time for those who owe their own security to America's military might to assume their rightful role, and bear their rightful burden, in the defense of our common interests. Let us start the next administration with an alliance summit -- aimed at forging a new formula for burden-sharing: our allies can afford to pay their share -- and they should.

Today, as we prepare for a summit with our adversaries in the Kremlin, we must also remember what brought them to the table, the linchpin of President Reagan's arms control strategy -- the development and phased deployment of the Strategic Defense initiative.

The American people understand, more clearly than many in Washington, that SDI is our best insurance policy against a still-uncertain future. The Soviets are working on strategic defenses at a furious pace, and so must we. There must be no curbs on our research effort. Ronald Reagan has galvanized the nation into action on SDI -- and I will begin phased deployment when it's ready.

Our security must always include a willingness to negotiate. But any missile reduction treaty has to provide for adequate verification, ensure firm compliance and strengthen -- not undermine -- the Western alliance. Abolition of intermediate-range nuclear missiles can only be the first step toward eventual reductions in long-range strategic missiles -those that can actually strike here, on the very soil where we stand. Any treaty must also be accompanied by a restored balance of conventional forces in Europe.

But arms control is not the only item on our agenda with the Soviet Union. Whatever Glasnost turns out to be, it is not democracy. We must use every opportunity to address the plight of Soviet Jews, the Poles, Armenians and the people of the Baltic States whose basic human rights continue to be crushed. we must press the Soviets to pull back from their reckless involvement in regional conflicts in Afghanistan, Kampuchea, Angola and Nicaragua. But our commitment to freedom should not end there. We must stand in support of genuine freedom fighters who hope to escape from terrorism, dictatorship and oppression. And this I pledge: When I am President, America will never retreat from those who need our help. We will act with the knowledge that freedom is indivisible not only for Americans, but for all humanity.

I came here today because my home is at the core of everything that I believe about America. Our families, our neighbors, our communities were at the center of everything we did. We welcomed all newcomers who were willing to band together for common goals. And if it does nothing else, my campaign will make clear that our party will never practice the politics of exclusion. The Republican Party, like our Nation, has an open door.

So we must never forget that there are some people in America -- be they poor or handicapped, black or brown, veterans, farmers, the young or the old -- who may be waiting for an invitation to participate, who are looking for hope, opportunity and security like the rest of us.

And so I will be sensitive to the needs of the left-out and the down-and-out in our society as they try to fulfill their own dreams.

For the hungry and the homeless -- for older Americans whose wage-earning years are behind them -- for children who are disadvantaged or abused -- for the disabled -- we will provide care and assistance. For those racked with addiction or disease, we will provide hope and help while restoring the moral values that are our best defense.

We will do these things because this is America and because we are a good and caring Nation.

To do these things will not be easy. The choices will be tough. It will require leadership, strength and determination to summon our national will to face them.

I am often asked if there is one fundamental theme to my campaign -- one critical quality or perspective that the next President of the United States must have. My answer is this:

America must stop living for today while ignoring the long-term implications of our decisions and actions for our children and for generations to come. When Congress passes a budget, when we establish trade policy, when we set educational and health priorities, when we sit across the table from the Soviet Union and negotiate reductions in nuclear weapons -- we must extend the lines of our planning beyond the immediate future.

The President of the United States should demonstrate in his every decision a sense of history and a sense of the future -- an understanding that what is efficient and appropriate in serving our national interest today must survive the test of protecting our national interest for years to come.

Last week, on a sunny Washington afternoon, I thought about what I would say here today. I sat on a balcony of the Capitol building overlooking Washington's inspiring panorama. Above me, the awesome Capitol dome -- the symbol of our democracy. On the horizon, the monuments to Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln -people who made a difference.

Just out of sight is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and across the river, Arlington Cemetery -- and they made a difference, too.

And I looked back on my career, and thought about the step I am taking today. Was I really ready? Was I strong enough? Could I really make a difference?

Then I thought about America, and what the giants of America's history -- our past Presidents and our people -- have been able to achieve over the last 200 years. And I realized that the President gets his strength from the people.

And then I thought about you, and this place. And the fact that people are my strength.

Together we are strong enough. Together we will make a difference.

Thank you, and God bless you all.

####

Source: Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, The University of Kansas George Bush 1988 George Bush 1988 October 12, 1987










GEORGE BUSH ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH

Houston, Texas

October 12, 1987

I am here today to announce my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. I mean to run hard, to fight hard, to stand on the issues -- and I mean to win.

For seven years, I have devoted myself, as a Vice President should and must, to helping a President conduct the most difficult job on earth. The President asked for, and received, my candor he never asked for, but received, my loyalty. I had much to say to him, and I spoke with trust. But now I am a candidate for President, and now it is my responsibility to turn to the American people and share with them my hopes and intentions, and why I wish to lead.

I am following a great Presidency -- and a great President. Ronald Reagan returned dignity and good sense to the high office he holds. Seven years ago, a nation that needed to trust again turned to him -- and refound its spirit. I am proud to have been his partner; I am proud to have been part of his great work.

But there are those who forget, in the warmth of 1987, how cold it was in 180. Seven years ago, our nation was rocked by high winds and heavy sees -- an economy buffeted by incompetence and intrusion -- a military without morale -- and an America of lost stature in the world.

But now, after seven years of hard work, we have righted ourselves. We have weathered the storm. Our economy has recovered to become the strongest in history. And once again, our flag is recognized as a force for good in the world.

We have righted ourselves -- the platform is firm again, the base is stable -- and from this strong platform we can now launch the great endeavors of the future.

We don't need radical new directions -- we need strong and steady leadership. We don't need to remake society -- we just need to remember who we are.

We are a great people in a great nation. We have earned our optimism, we have a right to our confidence -- and we have much to do.

We mark next week the longest peacetime economic expansion in our nation's recorded history. Us have made great strides in the economy, but there is new ground to be won. Our triumph is real -- but it is incomplete.

There are those who need help. There are those who've been hurt -- and as far as I'm concerned, we will never be a truly prosperous nation until all within it prosper.

I want a prosperity that we can rely on; I want a prosperity that stays, that broadens, that deepens and that touches, finally, all Americans, from the hollows of Kentucky to the sunlit streets of Denver, from the suburbs of Chicago to the coldest caverns of New York, from the farms of Iowa to the oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas.

We must continue to remove the barriers to growth. For five years now, steadily and surely, we have been lowering the unemployment rate. I mean to continue our pursuit of those three little words -- jobs, jobs, and jobs.

We must continue -- and accelerate -- our efforts to cut the federal budget deficit. There is much to be done in this area -- and an impasse to be broken. But I will not break it by breaking you.

There are those who say we must balance the budget on the backs of the workers -- and raise taxes again. But they are wrong. I am not going to raise your taxes -- period.

I want to add here that I do not hate government. I'm proud of my long experience in government. I've met some of the best people in the world doing the people's business in the Congress and the agencies. A government that serves the people effectively and economically, and that remembers that the people are its master, is a good and needed thing.

Our government has a proper and legitimate role in the collection and dispersal of tax revenues. And we must all pay our fair share. But for too long the rules of the game have been cloaked in The rules about what the IRS can do -- and what the taxpayer's rights are -- are often unclear. I think it's time on this anniversary of our Constitution, for a taxpayer's bill of rights, a bill of rights that spells out explicitly what the limits of IRS power are.

I will put the force of my Presidency behind this idea -- whose time has more than come.

Jobs, growth, a sound government and a sound economy -- these are great and good goals. But they are not enough. For our prosperity means little if it lacks purpose. We diminish our triumph when we act as if wealth is an end in itself.

The fact is prosperity is not an end, but a beginning. It has a point: It gives us time to think and care; it frees us up to learn, to grow, to be better than we are, to develop the things of the spirit and the heart.

Prosperity with a purpose means giving back to the country that has given you so much:

It means helping a child from a dysfunctional home learn how to read, and teaching him through your presence that there is such a thing as healthy and reliable affection:

It means taking your idealism and making it concrete by real action aimed at making life better for the people of our country;

It means helping a church when it asks for volunteers; it means helping a civic group build a library or a local theater. It means pitching in and building up.

And prosperity with a purpose means taking time after high school or college to serve and protect our nation in the armed forces of the United States,

Prosperity with a purpose means, in short, helping your brothers and sisters whoever they are, wherever they are, whatever their needs.

There are those who would say it's soft and insufficiently tough to care about these things. But where is it written that Republicans must act as if they do not care, as if they are not moved? I say to my fellow Republicans: We are the party of Lincoln. Our whole history was protecting those who needed our protection and making this a kinder nation.

We were also formed to stand for justice, and personal decency. But increasingly we see those who have dropped their standards along the way -- as if ethics were too heavy and slowed their rise to the top. There's greed on Wall Street and graft in city Hall, there's influence pedaling in Washington -- and it's all so shameful

Have we forgotten who we are? We're the people who sundered a nation rather than allow a sin called slavery -- we're the people who together pushed past the snows and deserts of the West. And when we got there what did we build, what did we care about? You could see the answer as you rode toward a new town and saw the silhouette against the sky: You'd see just two buildings, a church and a schoolhouse. A place for the spirit, and a place for our children to learn the great thoughts of man.

We weren't saints -- but we lived by standards.

We celebrated the individual -_ but we weren't self-centered. We were practical -- but we didn't live for material things. We believed in getting ahead -- but a narrow careerism wasn't our way.

We were shrewd idealists, and we believed in big things. These days, some of us act as if we've forgotten who we are. The truth is we make ourselves small by pursuing small things. And I find myself saying to my children: You've got to live by values if you want to live a life of meaning.

I have learned these past seven years that the Presidency provides an incomparable opportunity for moral leadership. A President must never intrude -- but a President can set a tone, an atmosphere, a mood.

I mean to stand for a new harmony, a greater tolerance, and a renewed recognition that this country is and always has been a partnership.

We need a new harmony, too, among the races in our country. The sadness of racial tensions in America should have ended completely by now. We are on a journey to a new century and we must, finally, leave the tired old baggage of bigotry behind us.

For all our faults, America is still a magnet for those people of the world who want a chance, who need a job, or who just don't want to be anywhere else in this "American age."

To those who have come to our country, to the Hispanics who have joined us, let me say: You are not only welcome, but needed. For who knows about family and faith better than you? We need your leadership.

Nuestro partido es su partido. Estamos todos en familia.

(Our party is your party. We are all family.)

All our hopes for our children will mean little if we don't make sure that the education they're given is outstanding. The founders knew this 200 years ago, they used to say: To plan for a decade, plant a tree -- but to plan for a century, teach the children.

We have made improvements, but it's not enough. The younger, hungrier nations are passing us by -- and we've got to compete and surpass.

We support an expanded college scholarship program to help those who need it -- and deserve it. And if we have to spend a little more money on our schools -- well, what could be a better investment?

There are two things that are permanent in this country, two things that we pass on from generation to generation without even speaking of our pride or their preciousness.

One is the treasure of our minds and hearts. The other is the treasure of our land -- the environment, the terrain. I don't think we've done enough to protect it these past dozen years or so. I don't think we've given the land its due.

Sooner or later, we're going to pay the price of our distraction -- unless we act now and recommit ourselves to protecting the land we love.

All of these things, these domestic concerns, mean a great deal. But one issue overwhelms the rest, and that is the issue of peace. It carries within it a host of challenges: how to make sure our yearning for calm does not become an acquiescence to injustice -- how to pursue peace wisely and deliberately and resist the clamor for a deal -- and how to avoid confusing stasis for stability.

We must continue to face the challenges of our times with high resolve and high hopes -- but also with a strength that is not only real, but is recognized by the world as real.

Today, we are on the verge of a historic arms agreement with the Soviet Union. It didn't come free, and it didn't come easy. We waited them out, we increased our strength, and we refused to budge until the agreement was good. Some people used that against us, saying we didn't really want a treaty at all -- when the truth was we just didn't want a bad one.

If this treaty is finalized, we will, for the first time in the nuclear age, actually reduce -- not just limit, but reduce -- the number of nuclear weapons in the world. It is a beginning -- and it was born of the stability and strength of the Reagan era. But it's not enough. We must do more. We must view a final agreement on nuclear arms as a prelude to serious talks on strategic arms, conventional weapons, chemical weapons, biological -- all these things.

And what is the proper attitude toward the Soviets as we pursue progress? Praise God -- and keep your guard up.

There are those who say that all's well, all's fine, everything's changed over there. And maybe they're right and maybe they're wrong and history will tell; and as we wait for history to render judgment, a prudent skepticism is in order.

We must recommit ourselves to a doctrine that expresses the best in our history and our heritage. We must be true to the knowledge that the interests of the world are best served -- and the cause of peace best served -- by not merely containing communism, but by spreading freedom.

Let me be very specific: I intend to help the freedom fighters of the world fight for freedom. In the hills of Afghanistan -- we will help them. In the plains of Africa -- we are on their side. And in a place called Nicaragua, we will help the Contras win democracy. This doctrine -- this doctrine of democracy -- must thunder on.

And so we have much ahead of us -- a triumph to complete, challenges to be met, and the essential question of who will lead.

Many this year will ask for your support; much will be made of our characters, our abilities, and our histories. And this is good. If I have learned anything in a lifetime in politics and government, it is the truth of the famous phrase, "History is biography" -- that decisions are made by people, and they make them based on what they know of the world and how they understand it. This is true of everyone, including Presidents. So you must know us.

As for me, I have held high office and done the work of democracy day by day. I am a practical man. I like what's real. I'm not much for the airy and abstract; I like what works. I am not a mystic, and I do not yearn to lead a crusade; my ambitions are perhaps less dramatic, but they are no less profound.

I am a man who, as a Navy flier in World War II, was shot down by the enemy and rescued by an American sub that just happened to come by -- and so I am a man who has learned how precious life is, and how frail our hold on it.

I am a man who 40 years ago threw everything he had into the back of a Studebaker and tooled on out to west Texas -- where I started a business and tried to meet a payroll and experienced the tensions and the satisfactions of having a business in America. I felt the deep joy of being able to provide for my wife and children; I felt joy when I was able to give a fellow a job and know that his children would be cared for. And so I am a man who knows in his heart that it all comes down to family -- that all our best endeavors come back to that core.

I am a man who in two terms in Congress learned that democracy stays new by reinventing itself every day in the interplay between the Hill and the White House.

I am a man who was chairman of a great political party at a painful time in our history; and so I am a man who learned that fidelity and loyalty reach their truest expression when they are applied not to individuals, but to unchanging principles.

I am a man who represented our country's interests in the oldest culture in the world, in China, when the door was newly open and our relations were as delicate as they were crucial.

I am a man who, as head of the CIA, learned that the world is full of danger for the decent, but will be safe as long as we keep our eyes wide open and see the world as it really is.

And I am a man who learned first hand in 7 years as Vice President that a modern President must be many things:

He must be a shrewd, cool watcher of the world who looks first and foremost to protect American interests.

And he must be an idealist who desires -- rightly -- to help those who move for a freer and more democratic planet.

He must keep government as little intrusive as possible in the lives of the people; and yet remember that it is right and proper that a nation's leader take an interest in the nation's character.

For seven years now, I have been with a President -- and I have seen what crosses that big desk. I have seen the unexpected crises that arrive in an urgent cable; I have seen the problems that simmer on for decades and suddenly demand a resolution. I have seen modest decisions made with anguish, and crucial decisions made with dispatch.

The Presidency isn't like anything else. It isn't like the Senate, only more so. And it isn't like a governorship. A presidency can shape an era -- and it can change our lives. A successful presidency can give meaning to an age; a failed presidency can give us problems it takes generations to undo.

And so I know what it all comes down to, this election -- what it all comes down to, after all the shouting and the cheers -- is the man at the desk. And who should sit at that desk.

I am that man.

I love my country too much -- I love my children and grandchildren too much -- to campaign for the job if I didn't think, if I didn't know that I am the best man for it.

And so it begins. And I ask for your help.

Will you join me?

Will you help me complete our triumph? It's going to be a great adventure. Come -- and we'll do it all, with trust in the future, with trust in each other -- together, as one nation, under God.

Thank you all -- thank you very much.

Source: George Bush Presidential Library and Museum Jesse Jackson 1988 Jesse Jackson 1988 October 10, 1987 Pat Roberston 1988 Pat Roberston 1988 October 2, 1987 Al Gore 1988 Al Gore 1988 June 29, 1987 Joe Biden 1988 Joe Biden 1988 June 9, 1987










U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Wilmington, Delaware

Tuesday, June 9, 1987

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Fifteen years ago, only a few blocks from here, many of you and I began a journey.

We began as young men and women, following of enthusiasm and fired more with passion and purpose than with political wisdom. We announced what most seasoned observers considered a hopeless candidacy. But through the unceasing labors of many of you here today – and the willingness of the people of this state to take a bold and generous chance – you elected the second youngest candidate ever to the United States Senate.

While the world has changed dramatically for me and for you during the decade and a half of our journey, in many ways, it remains the same, for although some progress has been made, many of the same issues that brought us together in 1972 now summon us again. The issues we spoke of that day: public confidence in our political institutions; the threat to environmental; the danger of ideological foreign policy; the dwindling commitment to education; the pressing needs of our unemployed and poor; and of the crisis of drugs confronting our children – remain today at the heart of our national agenda.

I ask you once again to join me, this time in an even more arduous and improbable quest, for you are my friends and this is my home. Your unyielding confidence and unbending support in good times and bad has been a source of strength and a never-ending joy. And it’s your help I seek first, as today, I announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America.

Fifteen years ago, we said that the key to restoring confidence in our traditions and our institutions was public officials who would “stand up and tell the people exactly what they think.” And to paraphrase what I said on that day, I mean to be that kind of candidate, and with the grace of God and the support of the American people, I mean to be that kind of President.

Today, on the surface, America seems to be a tranquil and prosperous nation. But though it is barely discernible to the naked eye, I tell you today, America is a nation at risk. And the greatest risk is not to ourselves, but rather to the next generation, our children.

I run for President because I believe the 1988 election, at its heart, can be reduced to a fundamental choice between two paths to our future: the easy path, in which we consolidate our current comfort and a quick and false prosperity by consuming our children’s future; and another, more typical path, that builds up more genuine prosperity for ourselves, while guaranteeing to our children and their birthright. If we choose the easy path, raiding the nation’s stores, and devouring the seed corn of our children, we will deliver them to a lesser America, the fading shadow of a dimming promise. And beyond a doubt, history will judge us to have failed to discharge our moral responsibility for the continuance of our heritage.

It is the obligation of this generation to care for and protect the future of our children, as much as our mothers and fathers cared for and protected us. For 200 years, the chronicle of our journey as a people and the legacy of the American idea has been the proposition that every generation of Americans passes on to its heirs a greater America, a better life, expanded opportunity and enhanced freedom. In 1988, the clarion call for my generation is not “It’s our turn,” but rather “It’s our moment of obligation and opportunity.”

It is an exciting and dangerous time, for this generation of Americans have the opportunity so rarely granted to others by fate and history. We literally have the chance to shape the future – to put our own stamp on the face and character of America. My parents’ generation, the last to have that opportunity, stepped up to that challenge, rescuing a nation from the depression, and the world from the greatest evil it has ever known. So our parents met the test. And so must we. That is not merely history – it is our destiny.

If we choose the second, more difficult path, rising to meet our destiny, we will be able to stand before our children, as our mother’s and father’s stood before us, and say: “We have kept the faith.” I am absolutely convinced that this generation is poised to respond to this challenge. And for my part, this is the issue upon which I will stake my candidacy.

Every issue before this nation in 1988 must be measured against our obligation to our children. In the spirit of another time, let us pledge that our generation of Americans will pay any price, bear any burden, accept any challenge, meet any hardship to secure the blessings of prosperity and the promise of America to our children. Today, their economic destiny is at risk.

I’m not satisfied that in order to finance our deficits, we must sell off American assets to foreigners, piece by piece by piece – $700 billion in the last five years – literally robbing our children of their inheritance. We cannot accept the naiveté of free traders who ignore the flagrant abuses of our trading partners, nor can we accept the morally bankrupt, easy answer on protectionism – an answer that smacks of defeatism. Protecting one job today at the cost of 10 of our children’s jobs tomorrow is unacceptable.

Nor am I satisfied to accept the idea that we should be “competitive” – which is the new political rage in Washington. To say that we want to be “competitive” acknowledges that we are already losing. I am not interested in losing. I want America to win – flat-out win. I want our children to the winners, too.

We must recognize that our education system is failing our children and cheating their future. We need to totally refashion our education system. And yes, it will cost money – excellence costs. But what choice do we have for our children?

And even as I speak, our very air, land and water are being poisoned by the silent shower of acid rain and the slow spread of toxic death under our feet. We can no longer allow short-sighted profiteering by polluters who are depleting our planet of the natural resources that are our children’s rightful legacy.

There are risks we must take in foreign policy and national security if we are going to shape our children’s world. America can not retreat from the world. We can not succumb to the isolationist instincts of those who would put up trade walls to keep out the world, or others who would pull a Star Wars cover over our heads – a modern “Maginot Line” – ravaging our economic capital, nuclearizing the heavens, and yielding the fate of our children’s world to the malfunction of the computer, Like it or not, our only choice is to compete and prosper in the world beyond our shores.

But no problem in our country is more urgent and more critical than the physical and moral plight of our children at this moment. A child born today in the heart of an American inner city has less chance of surviving the first year of life than a child born in Cuba or Kuwait. Poverty is one of the leading causes of death among our youth. One child is born into poverty every 30 seconds in this country, and unless we act today, America will lose more children in poverty in the next five years than we lost men in the Vietnam War. And these are not someone else’s children – they are our children, America’s children – blood of our blood, bone of our bone, heart of our soul.

Even in our richest schools, drug use is rampant. The needles may be cleaner and the cocaine may be purer, but the drug habits are just as severe. Our middle-class children are growing up to understand the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Our children – rich and poor – are growing less and less able to prosper in the world we leave them. Too many of their bodies are destroyed by drugs, too many of their minds are inadequately shaped by school – and too many of their values are being perverted by our culture. So of all the issues that confront us as a nation, is the plight of our children that is the moral test of our time.

But beyond developing the essential government policies and programs designed to meet the nation’s problems, this campaign must convince America that our future can not depend on the government alone. The government can lead. It can not be the catalyst for our society. But the ultimate solutions will lie in the attitudes and actions of our people.

However, while the solutions to our problems may lie beyond the grasp of traditional government, it does not mean that they lie beyond the responsibility of the next President. For if the president does not lay down the challenge, who will? For example, as President, I would tell the American people the truth: that no protectionist trade law can solve our economic problems when their workers work harder than ours, their managers manage better than ours, and their goods and services are of a higher quality than ours. It is a bitter truth, but one that must be told. And as President, I would tell our people that we must demand better of our nation, better of ourselves, and better of our political society.

For too long, we have a sacrificed personal excellence and moral values to the mere accumulation of material things. For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over our common community. For too long as a nation, we have been lulled by the anthem of self-interest, for a decade led by Ronald Reagan, self –aggrandizement has been the full-throated cry of our society: “Got mine, get yours!” “What’s in it for me?” This has become the operative ethic, until we have reached the point where Ivan Boesky, before his fall, would be applauded for telling a graduating class that “Greed is good.” In Ronald Reagan’s America, we have honored, not the valiant but the victors – not the worthy, but the winners.

We know what we must do. We must restore the primacy of enduring values in our society. Compassion for the poor, the hungry and the homeless among us can no longer be viewed as charity. After all, they are brothers and sisters – at the very least, are they not our countrymen? As a nation, excellence must be once again be the measure of our worth – in our government, in our economy, in our schools and in our personal lives.

And finally, we must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society – for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference. We must reclaim the tradition of community in our society. Only by recognizing that we share a common obligation to one another and to our country can we ever hope to maximize our national or personal potential. We must reassert the oneness of America. America has been and must once again be the seamless web of caring and community.

The centerpiece of my announcement 15 years ago was a concern over the declining confidence of our people in their political institutions and political leaders. Now, once again, a Presidency promises to end in disappointment. The current Administration has earned the dubious distinction of having more officials under indictment, more officials under attack, and more officials forced to resign in any in our history.

National debate has become a great pantomime, where the standard of judgment is no longer real results, but the flickering images of seriousness, skillfully crafted to squeeze into a 30-second spot on the nightly news. Have a problem? We have an answer – but rarely a solution. In this world, all emotion is suspect – the accepted style is smooth, antiseptic and the passionless.

The casualty of all this increasingly becomes the ethic of responsibility, all are to blame so none are responsible. How can we expect to mobilize our nation to the challenges at hand if our political institutions – literally the expressions of our national idea, continued to be moribund? How can we promote excellence if our political standard is mediocrity? How can we encourage the idealism if the political ethic is cynicism? How can we ask for meaningful long-term efforts throughout our society if our political currency is expediency?

Discontent over the failure of our political system is rampant throughout our citizenry. And bluntly, it is in this gathering of discontent that my candidacy intends to find its voice. For ultimately, success will not be measured by personal victory but by our efforts to heal this discontent among our fellow citizens. I believe that our citizenry contains untapped legions, whose success in other fields prepares them by disposition, experience, confidence and creativity to transfuse the tired blood of our politics with new ideas, new approaches and new energy. I fervently believe that our people are ready and anxious, and that they will rise to this challenge and opportunity like a mighty river surging through the public life of America.

I view this campaign not as a static exercise but as a journey, an evolutionary process to engage our fellow citizens. I’m convinced that from this process, we together will forge a national mandate and a national program upon which a successful governance can be founded. I believe that the next administration begins, not on January 20, 1989, but during the months ahead of this campaign.

It is in a spirit that this son of Delaware leaves now to begin this journey. I do not know what outcome the future holds. Even with years of preparation, I recognize that I do not begin to have all the answers to our nation’s problem. And I know, most of all, that no person – myself included – can pretend that he can be succeed alone, either as a candidate or as a President. But I depart in confidence, but confidence born in the enduring values instilled in me by my mother and father – who are here today – the same values passed on to you by your fathers and mothers; a confidence deepened by the immeasurable love I take from our family – my wife, Jill and our children, Beau, Hunter and Ashley; a confidence strengthened by the unwavering support I take from you, my lifelong friends and Delaware; a confidence heightened by the conviction I take that our generation is eager and ready to reclaim its special legacy and redeem the promise of America for ourselves and our children.

So with joy in our hearts and enthusiasm for our mission, let us begin this quest – asking God’s blessing for ourselves, and asking, for the country that we love, the fulfillment of the promise proclaimed in the Communion hymn that I have recited across the land, that he will raise America upon the eagle’s wings, and bear it on the breath of dawn, and make the sun to shine on it!

Source: Joe Biden Press Release, Courtesy Mike Swickey Political Collection.

Biden Announces for Presidency;

Calls Our Legacy To Children Overriding Issue in Coming Election

June 9, 1987 Wilmington, Delaware



“Every issue before this nation in 1988 must be measured against our obligation to our children.” This deep conviction, and his strong belief that it is his time to inspire a change in America, drives Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. to seek the Presidency, delivering his message over and over again: “I tell you today, America is at risk. And the greatest risk is not to ourselves, but rather to the next generation, our children.” Biden speaks of our time as one of deceptive tranquility, with apparent comfort and prosperity. But, Biden is convinced, we are paying a price, and this price is the hope of a promising future. “I run for President because I believe the 1988 election, at its heart, can be reduced to a fundamental choice between two paths to our future; the easy path, in which we consolidate our current comfort and a quick and false prosperity by consuming our children's future; and another, more difficult path, that builds a more genuine prosperity for ourselves, while guaranteeing to our children their birthright. If we choose the easy path, raiding our nation's stores, and devouring the seed corn of our children, we will deliver to them a lesser America, the fading shadow of a dimming promise. And beyond a doubt, history will judge us to have failed to discharge our moral responsibility for the continuance of our heritage…lf we choose the second, more difficult path, rising to meet our destiny, we will be able to stand before our children, as our mothers and fathers stood before us, and say: “We have kept the faith.”



Striking hard for his belief in rejuvenating a stronger and more idealistic sense of community in the country, Biden declares that “In 1988, the clarion call for my generation is not 'It's our turn', but rather 'It's our moment of obligation and opportunity'…ln the spirit of another time, let us pledge that our generation of Americans will pay any price, bear any burden, accept any challenge, meet any hardship to secure the blessings of prosperity and the promise of America for our children.”



“Beyond developing the essential government policies and programs designed to meet the nation's problems, this campaign must convince America that our future can not depend on the government alone,” argues Biden. “Government can lead. It can be the catalyst for our society. But the ultimate solutions will lie in the attitudes and actions of our people. However, while the solutions to our problems may lie beyond the grasp of traditional government, it does not mean that they lie beyond the responsibility of the next President. For if the President does not lay down the challenge, who will?”…As President, I will tell our people that we must demand better of our nation, better of ourselves, and better of our political society.”



“And finally,” Biden says, “we must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society -- for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference. We must reclaim the tradition of community in our society. We must reassert the oneness of America. America has been and must once again be a seamless web of caring and community...I am absolutely convinced that this generation is poised to respond to this challenge. And for my part, this is the issue upon which I will stake my candidacy.”

Source: "Biden Times" Joe Biden for President Paul Simon 1988 Paul Simon 1988 May 18, 1987










FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF CANDIDACY
U.S. SENATOR PAUL SIMON OF ILLINOIS
CARBONDALE, ILLINOIS

[Embargoed until 9 a.m. CDT, May 18, 1987]

I have come home today, to Illinois, to my friends and neighbors to declare that I am a candidate for President of the United States.

I seek the presidency because it is time to reclaim the hopes and dreams of America and to build on those hopes and dreams.

I am a candidate because I care and I want the government that speaks for our people to care.

I seek the presidency with a firm sense of who I am, what I stand for, and what I can and will do to advance the cause of this great nation, and the cause of peace and stability on this fragile planet.

There are those who say that to solve our problems, government should do nothing.

Neglect will not reinvigorate this nation. We need a working partnership between government and the private sector.

This nation cannot drift into prosperity. We will not solve the deficiencies of our cities and farms and schools by pretending problems do not exist. We will not help America' s working women and men by being indifferent. We will not find the cure for cancer or AIDS or cystic fibrosis or Bell's palsy or other plagues on humanity by wishing them away.

I am a candidate for president because I know our nation can do much better.

I stand here as one who is not running away from the Democratic tradition of caring and daring and dreaming. Some advise us to adjust our sails to the prevailing winds, however they may be blowing.

I do not join those who want the Democratic party to forget its heritage in order to become more acceptable to the wealthy and powerful e If we do that, we will lose our soul and do a great disservice to the nation. I'm glad there is a Republican party, but one Republican party is enough. We should not be a political party or a people whipped about by the latest public opinion polls or latest fads. Yes, the generosity of spirit of a Republican like Abraham Lincoln should guide us, and as a resident of Illinois, that has special meaning for me. But I am also proud of the Democratic tradition of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John Kennedy in fighting for working and retired families.

Building on that tradition, I seek an America where the middle income base of the nation is growing, not shrinking; that gives every citizen an opportunity for a job; that expands our industrial and research base; that gives tough and energetic leadership on trade so that we export high-quality American products, not high-quality American jobs; that strives for a decent income for all our citizens. We shall spend money either to create more jobs or more jails, and I seek an America with more jobs.

I seek an America where farmers and rural communities can prosper along with their corn and soybeans, where someone steers the vehicle of government who understands and cares about rural America, and I do. We must stop destroying America' s greatest agriculture resource, the family farm, and build an agricultural policy as creative and productive as the American farm family.

I seek an America where more--not fewer-—young families can fulfill the traditional American dream of owning a home and, by fulfilling their dream, put carpenters and painters and electricians to work.

I seek an America where we recognize that our finest investment is in education.

I want every young person to have an opportunity for quality schools, and I want their parents and grandparents to have the chance for training and retraining. I want a productive America, and a poorly educated America will not be a productive America.

I seek an America that pays its bills and does not shift them to future generations, an America that leads in economic opportunity not in indebtedness.

I seek an America where no citizen needs to fear being overwhelmed by hospital and medical bills, an America that is not tied for last place among the twenty industrialized countries in infant mortality, an America where long—term care is not a source of fear for seniors and crushing debt for their families.

I seek an America whose leaders live within the law and appeal to the noble in us, not the greed in us.

I seek an America that sends students and teachers and Peace Corps volunteers instead of weapons to Central America, an America that strongly stands by her traditional friends like Israel, and also vigorously leads toward peace in the Middle East.

And I seek an America strong enough to defend freedom against any foe, but unafraid to use the tools of diplomacy to bring greater security to the world.

There is much that we do not share with the Soviets, but we do share the yearning to survive, and we should be taking steps toward survival, not away from it.

In short, I seek an America at work in a world at peace. In building for that vision, I will draw on my experiences as small businessman, journalist, state official and on my years in the U.S. House and Senate.

But the issue in 1988 is more than experience, important as that is. For a person's resume tells you little about character and commitment. A resume does not answer one crucial question: Is he willing to stand alone courageously against great pressure to fight for the average citizen in this country? My record includes a willingness to stand alone if necessary for the protection of our people.

As a young newspaper publisher, I took on organized crime.

As a state legislator, I spoke publicly about the problems of corruption in the Illinois Legislature. In those days, the accepted political wisdom was that a southern Illinois legislator faced political suicide if he took the lead on civil rights, but I led.

As a member of the U.S. House and Senate, I have not hesitated to withstand pressure to protect the public. Last year, I was one of three in the Senate to vote against the tax bill.

In the last six years we've seen tax rates for million-dollar-a-year incomes cut from 70 percent to 28 percent, while our deficit grows. I’ m the only candidate in this race,
Democrat or Republican, who has voted against every one of these deficit-increasing tax rate cuts for the wealthy. I haven' t tried to do what is temporarily popular or politically fashionable or what will raise campaign funds, but what is right for the working men and women of this nation.

To become fashionable, some people tell me to get rid of my bow tie and my horn-rimmed glasses, and-—most of all-—to change my views. Harry Truman wore a bow tie and horn-rimmed glasses——and he didn't knuckle under to pressure to change his views as he fought for working and retired Americans.


As before, 1988 is not going to be the year for a candidate slickly packaged like some new soft drink. I am not a neo-anything. I am a Democrat.

There will be many issues in this campaign, but there will be only one choice.

Which candidate can average Americans depend on to stand up for them on every issue facing our next president?

At every level of government, I have tried to play it straight with the public.

I have always disclosed more in the way of personal income, assets and liabilities than the law requires.

And I have spoken candidly.

You get what you see and hear. I will be working for you.

To students and friends and neighbors gathered here, and to Americans of every race and religion and sex and age and heritage across this land, I offer an opportunity to get this nation moving toward a brighter future. We have a good and a great country, but I want your help in making it a better country.

Two decades ago, Robert Kennedy said in South Africa: "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of our generation."

My fellow Americans, I ask you to join me in bending history, to join me in seizing the opportunities that are ours today.

In that endeavor, I stand ready to lead.

Transcript by Mike Dec

Source:
Paul Simon Formal Announcement of Candidacy, Series 2-Campaigns, PP05, Senator Paul Simon Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Mike Dukakis 1988 Mike Dukakis 1988 April 29, 1987 Gary Hart 1988 Gary Hart 1988 April 13, 1987










FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

April 13, 1987

SENATOR GARY HART STATEMENT OF CANDIDACY

My wife Lee, our daughter Andrea, and, in absentia, our son John, want to thank all of you for coming up here and welcome you to Colorado. We had originally hoped to make this statement down at our house, and it turned out our yard just wasn’t large enough, and so we had to haul all of you here – we very much appreciate your being here.

We wanted you to come here not only because the spot is near our home, but because it represents the beauty of this state and this region. Construction was begun on this site using the WPA and the Conservation Corps in 1935 to make this public amphitheater one that has served this community, this state, and this region for about fifty years, and it is the symbol of what a benevolent government can do and, therefore, I think it is a appropriate for the statement I would like to make.

I intend to be a candidate for the Presidency of the United States in 1988.

And I do so for one single reason -- I love my country.

America is not an abstraction. It’s 250 million human beings -- united by common geography, history, and heritage. America is probably best represented to me by our children Andrea and John, and their generation -- for they are the hope of the future.

But America is also an ideal and always has been. This land has represented the equality and justice, and hope and opportunity for generations and millions of people around the world. We have come close to achieving that ideal when were at our best -- and we’ve been at our best when we’ve been tested or tried -- when we’ve been defending democracy, or struggling out of the depression, or achieving civil rights for our people.

But sadly, in recent years we’ve fallen far short of the ideal of America. We’ve let personal greed replace a sense of social justice and equity and the national good. We’ve let right wing ideology skew this nation’s basic priorities. We’ve increasingly let narrow single interests finance our campaigns and control our political process. And we’ve let high standards for public officials and public ethics be eroded.

Most of all, I think we’ve lost a sense of the national interest, and were in serious danger of letting our future pass us by.

This election in 1988 is not a question of whether our country should move left or right. It’s an issue of recapturing our basic principals, beliefs, and values. And -- as we did in 1932 and 1960 -- moving this country forward. Changing.

We’ve changed throughout our country’s history. In the 19th century, we opened up this vast frontier, including where we are today, and we entered the Industrial age

In the 20th century we moved onto the world stage and became world leaders and we unlocked the secret of the atom.

I believe in the 21st Century, this nation must lead the knowledge revolution and unleash the dynamo of democracy worldwide.

Mostly what I think we must do is rebuild America using a blueprint of new directions and ideas based upon a foundation of the national interest.

We must create the best education system in the world;

We must renew and revitalize our national economy -- modernize our factories, invent new technologies, and empower our workers;

I believe we must make a solemn and moral pledge to our children that we will turn over to them a natural heritage better and cleaner than it is today;

We must replace this era of debt with the new an era of investment in our people and in our nation;

We must reform our conventional defenses and sharply reduce our reliance on nuclear weapons for our security;

We must not be so preoccupied with the super power confrontation that we neglect as we have been in recent years the genuine human needs of our people here at home -- the poor, the elderly, our children, the sick, disadvantaged, and disabled -- and neglect the aspirations and hopes of nations to the South.

In helping the new world to the born, we must be neither bellicose, nor protectionist, nor isolationist.

We must, most of all, recapture that sense of the national interest and direct this country forward.

I believe our leaders in the future must match the reason with the rhetoric, and policy with passion, and foresight and with hindsight.

For ourselves we hope to enjoy this unique experience, because I’ve found from my own personal experience that’s the best way I have keeping perspective on myself and often chaotic nature of the national campaign.

As a candidate, I can almost guarantee that I’m going to make some mistakes.

But, sense we are running for the highest and most important office in the land, all of us must try to hold ourselves to the very highest possible standards of integrity and ethics, and soundness of judgment and ideas, of policies, of imagination, and vision for the future. Because if we, as candidates, hold ourselves to those highest standards, then the voters cannot do otherwise then select the strongest candidates from a strong field.

I intend -- as I always have -- to run a campaign of ideas. Ideas such as a strategic investment initiative to revitalize this nation’s economy. Ideas such as enlightened engagement as the basis for a new foreign policy, ideas such as military reform to fundamentally change the way we think about our defense. Ideas have power. Ideas are what governing is all about.

And governing is what this election is all about. Traditional politics must take second place in 1988. Because we are going to select not only a leader, we are going to select a future. We better know what we are doing.

This is serious business. Perhaps deadly serious. Our lives and our national future could depend on the outcome. We will select not only the person who is best qualified to govern this country, but the future leader of the free world. And we will select a future for this nation.

This election is nothing less than a referendum on America’s future, and I believe the contest will be won by the candidate with the clearest vision and the courage to challenge our nation.

I make this race because I love my country and I want America to do better and to move forward. And I believe -- with the assistance and support of the American people -- I can help lead America toward its future -- and to achieve its promise, its destiny, and its ideal.

Thank you very much

end

Source: Gary Hart for President Press Release

Courtesy: Archives University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries Jack Kemp 1988 Jack Kemp 1988 April 6, 1987










ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES

BY CONGRESSMAN JACK KEMP

APRIL 6, 1987

Ladies and gentlemen. Six years, ago the leadership of our President and our party helped jar our country from despondency, and a long retreat and rekindle a renaissance of hope here at home and throughout the Free World.

We rejoice at America's new beginning and our steady progress under Ronald Reagan's leadership these past six years. But we have so much to do and a long way to go, as we get ready for the 1990's. Like the good shepherd, America must reach out to the weak and to those who have fallen behind. That has always been the strength of America.

There are those, in both political parties, who look to the future with such anxiety and pessimism, that they can only think of ideas which would impose austerity and pain, protectionism and isolationism.

At a time when families are under stress, they would meet the challenge of budget deficits by increasing taxes, cutting back on Social Security and weakening our national defense. They would meet the challenge of global competition by raising new walls to foreign imports. And, they would meet the challenge of securing global peace by conceding territory and human freedom to those who respect the rights of neither.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a better way, a more confident way and that's why we're here!

America must have a vision for the future that includes victory: A victory for the idea that there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed; and that there are no limits to our future if we don't put limits on our people; a victory for the American Idea of peace, prosperity, democracy and freedom -- not just for America, but for the Americas; not just for our hemisphere, but for the whole world.

I believe that our future begins with faith -- faith in the Jeffersonian ideal that God is the Author of life and liberty; that He is the Author of our personal freedoms -- political, economic and religious -- and that these freedoms are at the heart of all human progress. No government in history has been able to do for people what they have been able to do for themselves, when they were free to follow their hopes and dreams.

The American Dream is not to make everyone level with everyone else, but to create the opportunity for all people to reach as high as their God-given potential allows. in this Nation, if you're born to be a mezzo soprano, or a master carpenter, or even an NFL quarterback, there ought not be anything standing in your way, not color, not creed, nor station in life.,

What a long - way we've come in the last six years, but what a long way we have to go. There is more hope and less poverty, but too many are left behind and there's too much despair.

As we look out on the world, we can take satisfaction that the Soviet Union has made no real territorial gains on President Reagan's watch. But we must continue to hope and plan realistically that the next President will win back to freedom what has been lost in both hemispheres. In short, there is much for our next President to do.

So where do we go from here? I believe there are three great challenges facing us in the decade ahead: The defense of peace and freedom; the defense of our children and the family; and a national commitment to the highest ideal of economic justice -- full employment without inflation for all Americans.

I believe in growth. I am proud to have carried the banner of growth for our party; proud to have fought for two historic pieces of legislation: The Kemp-Roth bill which lowered tax rates on workers and savers; and our historic tax reform which raises the personal exemption to $2,000, and lowers the tax rate to 15 percent for more than 80 percent of American families.

I believe in liberating both labor and capital from high taxes and bureaucratic tax forms, and I have opposed, and will continue to oppose, any plan, from any quarter, to raise taxes on the American people.

The biggest threat to our Federal budget is not American families being undertaxed, it is too much spending, too much unemployment and too little growth. More growth, more jobs, lower interest rates and less government spending is the only real way to balance our federal budget.

We must not only fight, we must win the war on poverty by enlisting the greatest weapon ever invented -- free enterprise.

We must enact free enterprise zone legislation to reach into the most stubborn pockets of urban and rural poverty with a helping hand of job creation; and we won't rest until we pass urban homesteading legislation, so that families in public housing who work hard and save will got the chance to become homeowners.

We must assist farm families whipsawed by the inflation/deflation cycles of the last decade. We must give our farms and factories a stable dollar, low, long-term interest rates, a chance to work out from under their debts and new markets for their products.

As we move forward, we must increase our vigilance against wasteful public spending. I favor strict limits an spending, starting with the line-item veto, which 43 governors-have but the President is still shamefully denied by big-spending liberals.

We have seen an end to the ruinous inflation of the 70's. But we, need- to, ensure the integrity of the currency, so that interest rates can drop further, and Americans will know that their job security, savings and ability to earn a living in the world marketers not at the mercy of fluctuating currencies and volatile exchange rates.

We must guarantee the purchasing power of the dollar, make the dollar, once again, an honest dollar, a dollar as good as gold. And we should move, without delay to convene an international conference to convince our trading partners to open their markets, stop their subsidies, and stabilize their currencies.

I believe in growth for the whole world. While we are an independent Nation, we live in an interdependent world. Encouraging greater growth abroad is an imperative for us at home. Growth in Asia and Europe, and particularly in the economies of Africa and Latin America will do more than anything else to help create new customers for American factories and farmers, while helping the world combat poverty and underdevelopment.

We should negotiate free trade zones to break down barriers to U.S. exports. We need an International Monetary Fund and a World Bank that understand growth, and that are willing to support it, rather than impose the austerity of endless tax hikes and currency devaluations upon developing nations. We must have a State Department that sees people as a resource, not as a drain on resources.

But all of our efforts to build opportunity and prosperity will be for naught if we do not meet our second great challenge: The defense of the West and the expansion of freedom in a world at peace.

The central drama of the 20th century is the struggle between democracy and totalitarianism; and the central dilemma of our day is that we lie defenseless against Soviet missiles.

As we speak, we have protection against tanks, submarines and aircraft, but we have no protection -- none -- against accidental or deliberate missile attack. America's survival rests precariously on a thin ledge of strategic deterrence -- and that ledge continues to erode under the growing Soviet strategic threat.

I want to be able to tell our children and our grandchildren that we found the way to protect America, to move the world from the Doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction to a far safer world of strategic defense. My friends, we can. The Strategic Defense Initiative is the greatest peace initiative in postwar history.

The sane technology that is revolutionizing medicine and industry can help protect this planet from the nightmare of nuclear war. Laser technology that can today eliminate a cancer cell could tomorrow neutralize a Soviet ballistic missile in space. What then prevents us from going forward with strategic defense? Not technological know-how, but political tunnel vision.

The State. Department and the Democratic Party would rather use SDI as a bargaining chip, and would rather bind this country to a treaty the Soviets have violated since day one, than give America and our allies the defenses we need. More important than any paper promise from the Soviets is the ability of the West to verify and enforce Soviet-compliance with treaties -- on this there can be no compromise.

The most urgent question facing this Nation is -- will America be defended in the 1990's or not? I believe our highest defense priority demands in 1988 a national referendum -- not just on the research and testing of SDI in the laboratory, but on the research, testing and deployment of SDI as soon as possible.

Ladies and gentlemen, all I have seen in my travels to Europe, Asia, the Middle East, throughout Latin America, and to the USSR, convinces me that freedom is the most powerful, progressive and successful political idea the world has ever known.

America is on the side of history. But we must be on the side of democracy for all people, on the side of human rights for men and women across the world struggling against the Soviet Colonial Empire. In a very real sense, America defends her own freedom and values when we help other brave people struggling to win their freedom. Sadly, the Democratic Party has all but turned its back on the noble tradition of Presidents Truman, Kennedy and Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson.

This country cannot abandon its friends or appease an adversary who defines "peace" as the final triumph of communism. Let us unite behind a strategy for victory that says we must go beyond containing communism to the ultimate triumph of freedom and democracy. We can start by formally acknowledging and marshalling support for the legitimacy of freedom fighter movements around the world.

Just as we must decide whether or not America will be defended, so, too, must we decide -- what kind of America will we defend, what values will we stand for, what kind of people will we be?

It all begins and ends in one place: The family. I believe our third great challenge for the 1990's is to fortify, nurture and protect the bedrock of our Judeo-Christian values - our families and our children.

Of all the challenges we face at home, none stand more menacing to the future of our democracy than the threats to families: we see these threats in the breakup of families, and in all too many cases, their failure even to form; we see the decline of discipline and erosion of values in education; the danger of sexually transmitted diseases; the loss of many young people to lives of crime, drugs, and even to suicide.

There is a common denominator here. America needs a rebirth of respect and compassion for the value, dignity and sanctity of each and every human life. And the first human value is what our Declaration of Independence called the inalienable right to life.

As we commemorate the. 200th anniversary of the world's oldest constitutional democracy, we must come to grips with this core constitutional question: Will the right to life be withheld by the Supreme Court, or can and shall it be protected democratically, by all the American people?

In 1857, a tragic Supreme Court decision, Dred Scott v. Sandford, declared that Congress could not outlaw slavery in the territories. But that decision was overturned five years later by a simple act of Congress, clearing the way for the Emancipation Proclamation. As democracy and human dignity prevailed over Dred Scott in Lincoln's time, so can democracy and human dignity prevail over Roe v. Wade in our time.

Let us press forward, appoint judges who uphold our Judeo-Christian values, and continue to seek Constitutional protection for human life. The time has come for Congress to pass legislation that permits the citizens of each state, for the first time since 1973, to protect the inalienable right to life of all children.

A compassionate society cares as much for each child's life after it is born as before. There are children to be loved and there are parents eager to love them. We need leadership and laws that honor and encourage adoption.

As our children grow, let us remember that the quality of our culture, as well as the security of our Nation are ultimately determined by the character of our children. Education must continue to be reformed along the lines of Secretary Bill Bennett -- rewarding excellence, and the teaching of values.

For example, in a pluralistic society, we need the competition and choice, as well as the quality, of Magnet schools, so successful in my hometown of Buffalo and other cities. This idea should be promoted and extended to other communities throughout the country.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is one office that can mobilize the ideas, talent and dedication to help unite America, make our lives more meaningful, and our world more secure.

Understanding the solemn responsibility of that high office, and the historic opportunity of this moment, I announce today that I am a candidate for President of the United States.

I am confident I can lead our party to victory in 1988 -- not for one person, nor for one party, but for one nation, under God.

I have spent the last 17 years developing ideas, building bridge&, advancing the strategy for jobs and freedom that captured people's imagination -- a strategy that can make the Republican Party the majority Party of America.

We will take this campaign to company halls and to union halls; to young people and to senior citizens; to entrepreneurs and yes, to inner city families so that we, the party of Lincoln, can once again hold up the dream of liberty and justice for all.

Like so many Americans, I remember the history of my family, who followed their dreams from England to America, who settled in New York, then founded a new town in South Dakota and eventually moved on to California.

The dream came alive for my Mother and Father as they started their own business -- a small trucking company in Los Angeles, which supported our family through the Depression, and helped provide a college education for their four sons.

I knew the dream was real when I married Joanne and we began our family. Our journey took us from college to pro football, from the San Diego Chargers to the Buffalo Bills, and in 1970, here to the Halls of the United States Congress.

Today we are embarking on a great new journey. I stand with colleagues whom I respect and esteem so very much. As I look at our family and sea Jeff, Jennifer, Judith, and Jimmy, and Jeff's dear wife Stacy -- I think of all our families -- all our hopes, our dreams, our future, our freedom and peace ... I know that's why I am in this race, and why I want to be President. Thank you. God bless you and God bless America.

Source: The Library & Archives of New Hampshire's Political Tradition Al Haig 1988 Al Haig 1988 March 24, 1987 Bruce Babbitt 1988 Bruce Babbitt 1988 March 10, 1987










SPEECH TEXT

GOVERNOR BRUCE BABBITT

STATEMENT OF CANDIDACY

Manchester/Des Moines/Atlanta/Phoenix

March 10-12, 1987

Every four years, our democracy affords us a season of national reckoning. It’s a time to take stock. To think about where we are, and where we’ve been, and where we’re going. A time to ask as Americans what we want to make of our country.

My own answer is what brings me here today and what drives me to embark upon the most challenging journey in American public life.

I began where we all began: with the town where I grew up, and the values I learned there, and the people and places I’ve known across the years. My roots are in the canyon country of northern Arizona, a land staked out and settled by my grandparents when they pushed west from Ohio a hundred years ago.

I come from a family of ranchers and frontier merchants. They helped build schools and towns in the wilderness and they lived by simple truths. You work hard. You do what’s right. You stand up for the things you believe in.

That is what I take from the Arizona.

In the sixties I took it down south – to Selma, Alabama, in the fight for civil rights, and from Mississippi to Texas in the war on poverty. And like the rest of my generation, which came of age in the sixties, I learned firsthand the power of ordinary people to take charge of their lives and transform society in the process.

In the seventies and eighties I took that lesson back to Arizona – first as a prosecutor and then as governor. And I found again that the hardest things to do were the things most worth doing. Like winning a liberal health care plan from the most conservative legislature in the country. Like taking on organized crime, and getting convictions on men who had a contract on my life. Like stepping in to negotiate labor disputes, but calling the National Guard when that’s what it took to keep the peace.

The America we grew up with was an America in charge. Confident of its purpose. Proud of its history. Certain of its future.

That’s America was proud and solid and real. It was an America of men and women who knew that they can do anything they set their minds on doing.

Today we have leaders who don’t set their minds on much of anything. We have a government by Teleprompter in which words and deeds have lost all logical connection.

For years we’ve heard fine words about balancing the federal budget … from the White House that never once submitted a budget within $100 billion dollars of balanc

And that’s not leadership.

For years we’ve heard courageous words about terrorists … from a President who sends them missiles for ransom and then plays and needs your when he’s called into account.

And that’s not courage.

For years we’ve heard patriotic words … from an administration that compares the Nicaraguan contras to our own founding fathers – and then sets up sultans and Saudis and Swiss bankers to fund them behind our backs.

And if that is a mockery.

In America in charge again is going to need leadership with its hands on the wheel.

Leadership that’s says what it means … does what it says … and holds itself accountable for the consequences.

The next President of the United States must dare to be different – willing to cast aside the tired orthodoxies that hold back our leaders.

The next President must chart a course that lets America take charge of its future.

He must say and do what other politicians dare not even think. He must risk offending some potential supporters. He must risk breaching the etiquette of Washington. He must lead.

The next President must show us the different ways to achieve an explosion of American productivity. He must do so even when change is not embraced by each and every interest group.

That is the only way to put America in charge of its economy – in charge of its future again.

In Arizona and we worked an economic miracle – creating more new jobs and more new investment than any other state in the union.

That’s what all American used to be like – dynamic, resilient, the wonder of the world economy.

Yet today our productivity is growing at half the rate of Germany, one third the rate of France, one fourth the rate of Japan.

Real family income – the bottom line value of our pay – isn’t a growing at all.

And on America’s farms, the thing that’s growing fastest is the suffering of families crushed between massive debt and lowered land values.

For the last six years, we haven’t been standing tall. We’ve been standing still.

I want to see an America in charge of its own economic future. And that is going to take nothing less than a transformation of our economy.

Where would I start? Where the economy starts. With the backbone of our economic strength: the individual American worker.

After six years of trickle down, it’s time to build an economy from the bottom up. And a bottom-up economy is an economy that shares its gains and losses among all the people who create them.

That means rewarding productivity. I’d say to every American worker:

If you make first-rate efforts – if you pay attention to detail, if you improve the quality of the product, if you find a better way to do the job – if you make those first-rate efforts, you’ll have first-rate rewards.

That’s not what we’re saying today. How many times that you heard executives push for wage cuts – and then rewarded themselves with bonuses for their frugality? America’s workers are not mindless commodities and they shouldn’t be treated that way.

So long as American labor and American management see themselves only as adversaries – so long as they fail to understand that they must pull together, and that one cannot succeed without the other – so long as these things are true, we will never return to our rightful place as the number one economy in the world.

The next President must set this national goal:

That by 1996 – after eight years of the next administration – the American workplace will reflect the common pursuit of labor and management: the pursuit of competitive success.

That by 1996 two-thirds of American workers will directly share in the profits and losses of their own business.

That they’ll earn new forms of compensation that give them a greater stake in the products they produce and the companies they work for.

That 1996 will signal the end of trickle down economics, and the arrival of an economy built from the bottom up.

The next president must say that no American company will be permitted to deduct an executive bonus as a business expense unless it offers productivity pay for all its employees. Productivity is a shared effort and must have shared rewards.

And those rewards must not be taxed into oblivion. If you perform well and if you earn a bonus for that performance, you should have the right to deposit that bonus in a tax-exempt account.

When American workers have a greater stake in the wealth of this nation – and when the American President has greater courage to stand up for our national economic interests – then we will be ready to take charge of the trade deficit.

Forty years ago we laid down the trading laws of nations. Things have changed since then. Those laws are obsolete, and it’s time for a new agreement.

I’m not talking about protectionism.

I’m not talking about spitting and bickering with the Europeans about the price of wine and cheese. Our whole trading position is under assault, and it’s no time to be fighting over hors d’oeuvres.

The next President must summon the leaders of the world’s industrial powers, and together they should tear up all the complicated agreements over who can sell how much of what to whom and at what price.

All we need is a new and simple international agreement for balanced trade. If you export, you import, and you do it in equal measure. The overall value of what you sell to the world must match the overall value of what you buy.

And if that is not the case, and if you won’t balance your accounts, then you’re victims will balance them for you – with across-the-board tariffs that increase every year. And your accounts will come to balance, like it our not.

The concept of balance is no less important for our domestic American budget.

This white house has run up the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth biggest deficits in American history. That’s unbelievable.

As governor of Arizona, I balanced nine budgets in a row.

Our next president must be aimed to match that. But we must be honest about it: Our leaders in Washington have spent so recklessly into deficit that it may take years to repair the damage.

There’s just one way to begin those repairs.

By making choices. By setting priorities. By deciding that some things really are more important than others.

And I say that if you don’t set priorities, and you can’t make choices, and you won’t stand by them – then you don’t belong in government and you should get out!

Being serious about choices means being honest and direct about both the additions and the difficult subtractions of federal budgeting.

Through the course of this campaign I mean to hold myself to that standard, and I challenge every candidate for president to do the same.

Government can’t do everything for everybody.

Do we really need to get a mortgage interest deduction to mansions and vacation homes? Do we really need to pay subsidies to corporate mega farms? Do you really need grants to subsidize projects that no mayor or governor would raise taxes to finance? Do we really need three new generations of nuclear missiles – all at once? Do the Vanderbilts and the Mellons really need just the same tax-exempt Social Security benefit as the widow in a cold water flat?

I say we don’t need those things. And in America in charge of its budget would put its money where really matters.

What does really matter? What are my priorities?

First: children.

In the greatest nation on earth, one in four American children lives in poverty. Literally – below the poverty line.

They go hungry. They have no doctors.

We must put an end to this.

What kind of economic future can we expect if our children are too hungry to learn and too sick to dream of a better life? And what kind of society have we become if we fail to extend them a hand?

We must have got to get at the causes. We must stop this downward spiral of children having children. We must rejuvenate the old and honorable value of individuals taking responsibility for themselves.

But we must also address the immediate crisis.

Every child in poverty should be eligible for Medicaid. Every child. Right now eight million aren’t.

Will it cost money to include them? Sure it will. And I am here to tell you it is worth it.

Another priority is education. We need a new emphasis on performance – on measurable progress by our children. And there’s no doubt about it: that will cost money too.

I would go to every statehouse and I’d propose a fair exchange. The federal government would take on the verge of funding for Medicaid. and the states would take their savings and apply them to the schools.

What about child care? We see more and more families now with two working parents. I ought to know: I’m part of one. And most of the time it takes two jobs to keep the family going.

I believe we need a national childcare voucher, funded cooperatively with every state. Every parent who works should have a decent choice of child care, and every family that needs it should have a voucher to help make that care affordable.

Then we have to ask ourselves, what kind of environment are we leaving for our children?

One in five American households now drinks water laced with lead. I’m tired of hearing about unscrupulous people who dump toxic waste and get away with it. I’m even more tired of hearing about the ones who get caught and have their wrist slapped with a fine.

It’s time we told every color: if you poisoned our water you will go to jail, and your money will be spent to clean up the mess.

When we look overseas, an America in charge would take advantage of the opportunities of the 1990’s.

For the first time in history, the civilizations of the East and West are coming together across the Pacific, and America stands at the meeting point.

While Marxist economies are stagnating, free market economies are expanding. Democracy is on the march from the Orient to the tip of South America.

There are those in this land who are fearful, who find a cloud around every silver lining, who detect advances by our enemies at every step. But I must tell you that they are refusing to take “yes” for an answer. It is time to look outward with confidence, because the world is looking toward us.

An American in charge would stamp out terrorism, and we must begin with a pledge to let our heads rule our hearts. We must never again trade anything of value for a hostage. And if we take that pledge seriously, then some of the hostages may not be coming home.

We cannot prevent every terrorist outrage, but we can deter them and we can punish them. If a nation is killing Americans and holding Americans against their will, then that nation must pay a price.

As for the Soviets, they remain a powerful and dangerous adversary. The values of their leaders have precious little in common with ours. But we must also come to realize that the terms of our competition – a battle for the loyalties of large masses of people on this earth – are distinctly to our advantage.

We should be secure enough in our strength to come to mutual agreements. Because we undeniably share an interest – and not only an interest, a duty – to prevent a nuclear war.

The vital task of our next President will be to bring the Soviets to the bargaining table and to keep them there until we have agreement.

We need a comprehensive test ban, because you can’t deploy a new weapon if you never get to test it. We need a 50% cut in offensive weapons, because it is long past time for a treaty which reduces nuclear weapons instead of ratifying an increase. And we need a mutual moratorium on Star Wars, because you don’t stop one arms race by starting another.

America does not have to leave arms merchants in charge of our diplomacy … terrorists in charge of our security … soldiers of fortune in charge of our Central America desk … Japanese traders in charge of our markets … embezzlers in charge of Wall Street … bigots in charge of our social agenda … pollsters in charge of our politics … and amateurs in charge of the White House.

I want to see in America in charge again.

All it will take is leadership.

Leadership that speaks plainly and specifically about what it means to accomplish.

Leadership that molds a government of purpose with one central goal – an explosion of productivity that builds the most prosperous economy in the world.

Leadership that gives all American workers a stake in the success of their businesses, and leadership that brings our toppling trade posture into balance.

Leadership that is bold, and different, with no fear of the unconventional or the unorthodox.

An America in charge again. I call it the cause of a lifetime. That’s why I’m here.

And that’s why I offer myself as a candidate for President of the United States.

Source: Babbitt for President News Release

Courtesy: Bruce Babbitt Collection, Cline Library, Northern Arizona University Dick Gephardt 1988 Dick Gephardt 1988 February 23, 1987










"Together, let's make America first again."

On February 23, 1987, Democrat Dick Gephardt announced his candidacy for President of the United States. This is the text of his speech.

Today, surrounded by my family and friends, and not far from where I grew up and on the site where Harry Truman accepted victory-I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. I am the first Democrat to declare And one year, eight months, and eight days from now, when America elects the next President, I Intend, with your help, to finish first.

We will do it by being the first to work each day and the last to quit each night.

We will succeed most of all because of the message we will carry from Missouri and Iowa to places all across this broad land: As we enter the new world of the twenty-first century, we are determined to make America first again- First in economic leadership, First in national strength, First in its commitment to the indication of human rights and the survival of the human race.

We see the problems, for they are all around us. At home, our wages are falling; the middle class is shrinking; the number of people in poverty is increasing. In foreign policy, we are adrift and things seem increasingly out of control. Our leaders say one thing, and do another They talk tough, and then make bad deals for Americans behind closed doors. In foreign policy, we have no policy.

Yet our aim-now and in the months ahead-is more than to complain, to blame, and to say what is wrong.

In facing issues honestly, some see only difficulties; I see challenges as great and engaging as any in our history.

Some campaigns focus primarily on problems; in this campaign and in the Presidency itself you and I will speak for the vast untapped potential and possibilities of America.

For a while, and at a high price, Ronald Reagan made us feel good. Now America must ask. What will it take for us to be good? How can we do better? How can we be the best?

Our people haven't failed; our government has failed the people. Instead of asking something of us, they have given us a call to selfishness. They have not summoned us to think about the future, but only to think about ourselves.

Government cannot deal with every problem; but if a President will lead, there is no problem too great for the American people to solve.

And the first task of national leadership is to narrow the barriers that limit what the people themselves can do.

The clearest case is international trade. In the last six years, our trade deficit has soared from nearly nothing to a hundred and seventy billion dollars. The world's greatest economic power has become the world's greatest debtor nation. A society so recently on the frontiers of high technology is now falling into the high tech rearguard.

We are exporting our industries and our jobs; we are selling our children's future for a fistful of Marks and Yen to finance a federal budget far out of balance-and federal spending out of control.

Not long ago we were invited to accept all this on the grounds that while some of our people were suffering, more of them were prospering. The snow belt might decline, but the sun belt was advancing. Now the economic shadows have fallen across the sun belt a well-and we are learning again that this nation has an indivisible economy and a common destiny.

So let us at long last address the question that is central to our generation: How do we resume the true capacity and competitiveness of the American economy?

The real answer is not to drive the dollar down endlessly. I don't want to see the American dollar reduced to the status of a Third World currency.

And the answer is not to rely on the untender mercies of our trading partners in the international marketplace. We can't afford more trade negotiations in which American workers and American farmers are always the losers.

The next President must be as tough in negotiating the terms of trade as this President has been in negotiating with the Russians.

For example-

Today we are supporting a military dictatorship in South Korea that deprives its own people of basic rights-and by its predatory trade practices deprives our people of jobs. We do have a security interest in that nation, but this does not mean that we can neglect our wider national interest. We must use our influence to make South Korea truly free, not fixed by government subsidies.

We can no longer accept a situation in which they can invade our market with Hyundais sold cheap because we are paying dearly for the tanks that defend their borders.

I know this position will not be popular with everyone. But people sitting in cushy offices, in secure jobs, have no right to tell workers on assembly line, that their hopes and livelihood have to be sacrificed on the altar of a false and rigid free trade ideology.

I know that we live in a global marketplace. But we cannot live with a global marketplace where Americans are free to buy, but not to sell.

The same mentality which now sacrifices our industry also abandons agriculture. Today we have a farm policy which is a pitchfork in the back of farmers, driving them off the land. We must learn to control what we grow because in the long term that productivity is an irreplaceable national resource. We must restructure the debt burden on agriculture instead of letting it break the banks and the backs of our family farmers. We can no longer accept a situation in which we have lost one third of the family farmers in the grain belt in less than a year and a half. We must not let the grain belt become the Dust Bowl of the 1990's.

Today goverment weakens our people in many ways; now we most seek to strengthen our people in all the ways I have described-and more.

It is not enough to get tough on trade. We need an unprecedented national commitment to educate our people and prepare our companies for the new world economy of the twenty-first century.

The Japanese, with half our population, are turning out more engineers and scientists. I'm not satisfied to see America second to Japan or any nation in the skills of the future.

In the years ahead, half of all Americans could be unemployable because they won't have basic reading skills. I'm not satisfied to see America rank 49th in literacy. I want America to be first in literacy again, first in education again, and first in talent and training.

We must set a national goal of wiping out illiteracy by the year 2000-and we must call on a new Volunteer Literacy Corps from business and from our schools to enlist in that effort.

We must set a national goal that no qualified student at any level will be denied the chance to learn because of money.

We must form a new national partnership-public and private-to assure that the skills of our people keep pace with the demands of the marketplace. It is not enough to retool machines; we must also retrain workers. We must widen their role-whether that means profit-sharing or management-sharing. We know, from experiments like the joint GM/Toyota plant in Fremont, California that where worker participation is greater, worker productivity is higher.

Nineteenth century corporations will inevitably fall behind in the twenty-first century-so let's emphasize modernization, not mergers. Let's put a premium on labor/management co-operation, not separation.

Let's have more businesses and plants like Fremont-where no one has exclusive parking places and executive dining rooms. The measure of success in American industry should be productivity-and not perks.

A new American prosperity is at the heart of all our hopes.

Without it, we cannot defend freedom as strongly as we must-or extend help to our fellow citizens as generously as we should.

When I speak of America being first, I want us to be first in national spirit as well as material possessions.

I want us to be first not only in GNP, but in concern and compassion.

Today, we rank last, among industrialized nations, in infant mortality. We're not even in the top ten in life expectancy. Let's make America first again.

And let's make this a country where no child has to go hungry-and no one has to sleep in the streets. It's time to ask again what we can do for each other-and not just what we can do for ourselves.

It is clearly right to say that not all government programs are good. But it is profoundly wrong to suggest that all government programs are bad. Whether the issue is preserving the environment or protecting consumers, we need a government that is once again on the people's side.

Finally, we must make America first again in the respect for the rule of law.

Where there are civil rights laws, the duty of a President is to enforce them vigorously, not to look for ways to deprive blacks and minorities and the majority who are women of equal justice and equal opportunity.

When a treaty, which is the law of the land, says that we cannot test or deploy weapons in outer space, the duty of a President is to obey, not to send lawyers searching for loopholes.

And if Congress outlaws military aid to the Contras, the duty of the Executive Branch is to carry out the law, not to figure out how to bend and break it covertly.

From the White House to Wall Street, we must get rid of the dangerous idea that the proper standard of conduct is whatever someone can get away with. Let us insist that the government which makes the laws has no right to break the law.

Often in recent weeks, as I prepared for this day, I thought again of my years growing up here in St. Louis, where my mom was a secretary and my dad was a milktruck driver. His youthful hopes had been shattered by the Great Depression. He was raised on a farm. But be had to quit high school and move to the city when he was forced off the land.

Yet he still saw hope. He still saw opportunity. My folks worked and saved so my brother and I could get the education they never had. I remember it well-sitting with them on our front porch-a little brick bungalow on Reber Place-on those warm summer nights. They talked with us about working hard, being honest, doing good, aiming high. The air was hot and muggy but it was full of dreams. America was on the move.

I want the next generation to dream those dreams. I want to see America on the move again.

There are some who say we are aiming too high in this campaign, and for our country. But that's not the lesson I learned from my folks, from my life, from our long history as a people. I reject the view that the challenges are too hard-and that Americans have grown too soft. The pessimists do not understand the meaning and the magic of freedom-what the daughters and sons of secretaries and milkmen, farmers and machinists, businessmen and women can do for their country when they are put to the test.

Now we have a campaign to win-and a nation to lead. So let me ask all of you: Are we ready to do it? Together, let's make America first again.

Source: Dick Gephardt "Together, let's make America first again." Brochure The Library & Archives of New Hampshire's Political Tradition Pete du Pont 1988 Pete du Pont 1988 September 16, 1986











Announcement For The Presidency

Wilmington, Delaware

September 16, 1986

Thank you Governor Castle for your kind introduction, and thank all of you, family, friends and neighbors for joining Elise and me on this very special day. I'm delighted you're here, and I appreciate your enthusiasm and support because we're going to need all of it - and then some - in the quest we begin this afternoon.

I want to talk with you today about the future of our country, and about how together, we might help shape that future.

As a nation we will soon be without the graceful, confident leadership of Ronald Reagan. Under his leadership, we've known what we stood for as a people and where we wanted to go as a nation. Sooner than we realize he will step down from the presidency; so we must begin to think about who will next lead this country, and in what direction.

Anyone who would seek the office of president should let our countrymen know something of his vision of America. We're all familiar with President Reagan's vision. Today I'd like to share mine.

Since 1776, America has had the clarity of a pioneer axe. The truths and values of life have been self-evident. Provide for our families. Worship God. Help our neighbors. Underlying these values is one truth that separates us from other societies, giving America a special clarity of purpose - and that is our deep commitment to opportunity.

Opportunity is why we were founded, why we prospered, and why we prevail.

Opportunity is not government power; it's not government programs; it's not something to be administered. Opportunity is the power of people to make their own choices, to improve their own lives, to control their own destinies.

I was born with a well-known name and genuine opportunity. I hope I have lived up to both. That is a matter of personal importance to me but for our nation, I know this central truth - America is renewed from the bottom up, not the top down. I believe in the words of Woodrow Wilson, "The genius which springs up from the ranks of unknown men is the genius that renews the youth and energy of our people."

In the 1980s we Americans began to see that opportunities could blossom again - opportunities triggered by lower inflation, lower taxes, and lower interest rates - opportunities triggered by renewed pride, confidence and optimism.

But the opportunities of the 1980s are not chiseled in granite. Nor are the opportunities of today enough for tomorrow. There is potential in America that is untapped. There are problems that are unsolved. There are needs that are unmet, lives that are unfulfilled. Increasing the momentum of opportunity for America is the challenge for tomorrow's leaders.

In considering whether I can meet that challenge for our country, the first question is whether I met it for the people of Delaware. President Reagan recently said the closest thing to being president is being a governor. And he is right, because in both jobs you have the power to create opportunity. And we sure did that here in Delaware.

We went from repeated budget deficits to eight balanced budgets in eight years.

We went from a string of 22 tax increases to income tax cuts of 30 percent.

And do you know what? One in every five jobs in Delaware was created during our eight years.

But those are just statistics. People at work in good jobs that provide ladders to even better ones - now to me, that's a wonderful, fulfilling sight.

I've seen the opportunities that tax and spending cuts can release. High taxes give government power. Lower taxes give people power. And what's often overlooked is this: People are the economy, not the government. It's the people who produce, who earn, who save, who invest - it's not the government.

The tax reform bill with its simplified structure and lowered rates hasn't even passed yet. And do you know what Democrats in Congress are already talking about? They're talking about increasing tax rates.

To paraphrase a well-known American, "There they go again."

Government doesn't need more money until it does better with the money it already has. Teaching government that lesson was the challenge of the Reagan administration. Applying is the challenge for the next one.

There are too many cases where government spends vast sums of money and burns up incredible amounts of time and energy and still fails to offer opportunity. I think I can change that. I suppose every candidate does. But perhaps I will be a little different from some of the others. Because starting today, I will tell you how.

* * * * *

Let me start where opportunity begins for all of us ... with education.

Americans simply cannot be prepared for the 1990s with an educational system designed a century ago. Education is one of the last government monopolies. Government tells us where we go to school, what subjects we take, what we read and what we learn. The way you break monopolies is with competition. Some insist competition will destroy our schools. I believe competition will save our students. Yes, the weakest schools would eventually be weeded out. But let me ask you a simple question: don't they deserve to be?

Giving parents a greater say in where their kids go to school will force schools to improve. I would begin by providing current education assistance to the needy in the form of vouchers. It is not all we need to do, but it is the right way to start.

I also believe that we have defined education too narrowly in this country. If America is to be competitive, education and training must continue throughout our lives. We need to help those who must prepare for second and third careers - for new work in new industries.

What we need is a national schooling and training bank. It would have simple rules. Everybody in our country would have the opportunity to receive schooling, training or retraining. Eighteen-year-olds could go to any college or to any vocational school where they are accepted. So could 40-year-olds. You could borrow as much money as you need and the government would guarantee the loan. But .... you'd have to borrow it at market rates and pay it back yourself. The opportunity is there, but it's your responsibility because it's your future.

So education is where we begin. But even the most dramatic improvement in our education system won't be enough to help those who are already trapped by the cycle of poverty. Our welfare system should be designed to vault people out of poverty. Today it accomplishes exactly the opposite. If we tried to design a system that purposely demeaned the human spirit, we couldn't have done any better. It's not right to deny people opportunity just because they're poor.

In the past 10 years our welfare system has given people over $300 billion without requiring them to work. Yet today, more of our citizens live in poverty than 10 years ago. We should have learned by now that government spending doesn't cure poverty. Only opportunity can do that. Instead of a handout, we need to provide poor people with a job and everything that comes with it - a paycheck, a boss, responsibility for mistakes, rewards for initiative, and a chance to move up to a better job.

Our first effort should be to help people find private jobs. If after exhausting counseling and retraining programs a person still can't find work, he or she would have to go work for the government at 90% of minimum wage with day-care being part of the package.

I know you've all heard about something called "workfare." But nowhere in America are we saying to able-bodied people who are on welfare; "We're not going to give you a check, we're going to get you a job." Our policy in this country must be: "If you don't work - you don't get paid."

We should have the courage to admit the welfare system is a human and governmental failure and replace it.

The same goes for our farm programs. During the past five years, spending on price support programs has increased more rapidly than any other budget item - even defense - from 4 billion dollars in 1981 to more than 25 billion dollars this year. And the average farmer isn't any better off - in fact he's worse off.

No wonder. Our own government policies and foreign subsidies have made it impossible for our farmers to prosper. Our programs are contradictory; we pay farmers to grow more, to grow nothing, to store their crops rather than sell them. Government support programs are a trap for the farmer and a fleecing of the taxpayer. How in the world can the farmer ever prosper in a system that encourages overproduction and depresses market prices? It just doesn't make sense.

I believe the government should be out of the agricultural marketplace in five years. In the meantime we should stop playing politics with price-fixing schemes, and start making payments directly to farmers during this transition period. Our farmers are the most productive in the world - they can out-plant, out-harvest and out-sell any competitor. It's high time we gave the American farmer the chance to be his own master once again.

Now I'd like to take a moment to talk about drugs. We're about to embark on a Rambo-like crusade against smugglers and pushers. Well that's the right thing to do. But a drug-free nation is not something government can create no matter how hard it tries. Only individual Americans can make that happen. The supply of drugs will be irrelevant if we don't use drugs. I want to give us the incentive to do just that.

The first action should be in our schools. The one place kids should be safe from drugs is in the classroom.

The only way we'll ever guarantee drug-free classrooms is comprehensive drug testing of teenagers in our schools. If we can require vaccinations before kids go to school, we can require drug testing while they're in school.

Of course we must provide counseling and help for young people who need it. But we have to let them know there are penalties - and consequences - for drug use. We have to say, "If you use drugs you won't drive ... because you won't have a driver's license."

As for adults, some people believe occasional drug use is okay. They are wrong. If you're an adult drug user in this country, two things ought to happen to you - it should cost you a great deal of money in fines that really hurt, and you should go to jail. For a long time we've gone after drug pushers. Now it's time to get tough with drug users too.

* * * * *

Education, poverty, agriculture and drugs all present enormous challenges for tomorrow's leaders. Meeting them is just the beginning of improving our lives and our opportunities. After all, the only limit on America's destiny is our own creativity and courage.

But opportunities are of no value if we're not free to pursue them. Protecting our freedom is the first responsibility of a president. Today we are the freest people on earth. Tomorrow we must not only ensure that freedom, but advance it, for that is the key to our own security and our obligation to mankind.

For nearly 40 years the containment of communism has been the core of our foreign policy, because all that time the Soviet Union has been the greatest threat to the freedom and safety of the world. Although I support that policy wholeheartedly, it isn't enough. Our foreign policy for the '90s needs to be based on the concept of choice - extending to people the power to better their own lives in their own ways.

Our foreign policy shouldn't be only a negative one of containing communism, but a positive one of expanding freedom. And we should be open about it. A nation born of a struggle against tyranny should never apologize for helping others win their freedom.

Freedom ought to be given every opportunity, and it doesn't matter if it's in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Angola, Chile or South Africa. We ought to be consistent, and we ought to be forceful.

Our defense policies, too, are still based largely on the 1950s rather than the 1990s. In the '50s our defense rested heavily on offensive technology. That hasn't changed very much. We're still relying on something called "mutual assured destruction" as a deterrent to nuclear war.

Let's be honest. Even if 50, 60, or 80 percent of the nuclear arms of the two superpowers were eliminated tomorrow, there'd still be enough weapons left to destroy civilization as we know it.

The first generation of nuclear arms control has been based on trying to limit these weapons through agreements. Although we must doggedly keep trying, that hasn't been good enough so far.

The second generation of nuclear arms control must be based on limiting the very threat these weapons pose. I'm talking about the president's Strategic Defense Initiative. This defensive shield symbolizes a new era in which we entrust our security to the ingenuity of the American people rather than the integrity of the Soviet government.

Now I know there are some who say we don't have the technology to build such a shield and never will. Well, they're wrong. Those who have bet against American technology in this century have lost their money every time and they'll lose it again.

Others say we must bargain away the only arms control power we can implement our selves. I disagree with that too. If we ever bargain away the right to develop high-technology defensive weapons, we'll be threatening the future safety of our country.

As we move toward defensive systems we must also move toward a broader defense strategy for the '90s. Let me give you an example. At present our nuclear deterrent is heavily dependent upon large, fixed, land-based missiles; missiles that are sitting ducks in a Soviet attack. The MX missile would be an even more attractive target. We should use America's technological strength to shift from reliance on these land-based missiles to less vulnerable mobile systems and more sophisticated cruise missiles. By doing this we would reduce the likelihood of a Soviet attack and help build a more secure peace.

* * * * *

So today we begin. We talk about opportunity as Americans always have. But opportunity is more than a word that goes into a litany of campaign promises. It's one of our enduring values. We're a nation - the only nation in history - founded on a faith in our own possibilities.

Our founders began a remarkable, inspiring heritage. We're equal to continuing that heritage for generations to come. We have the same heart, the same determination, the same values.

You know, one of America's space pioneers once said, "Don't ever tell me man doesn't belong out there. He belongs wherever he wants to go and he'll do plenty well when he gets there." That attitude embodies the American spirit. It speaks of our sense of freedom, and opportunity, and confidence.

One hundred eighty-seven years ago a man named Pierre Samuel du Pont and his two sons left France to find opportunity in a freer world. They and their descendants enjoyed that freedom and prospered with it. Today one of those descendants has been given another extraordinary opportunity. He has been allowed the privilege of dreaming to lead the nation his ancestors risked everything to join.

I'm sure old Pierre is smiling as he looks down from the heavens to hear his namesake say, yes, I am a candidate for the president of the United States of America.

Source: Governor Pete du Pont.

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