SPEECHES
FROM THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
George W. Bush
Campaign Remarks
in Ohio
October 27, 2004 • Findlay, OH
Thank you all for coming. (Applause.) You
know, it is such a beautiful day in Flag City, I think
I'll just take off my jacket. (Applause.) And stay a while.
(Applause.) Thanks for coming out. You are lifting our
spirits. We're honored you're here. (Applause.) And Laura
and I have come with the great Senator from Georgia to
not only ask for your vote, but to ask for your help. (Applause.)
We need your help coming down the stretch to get your friends
and neighbors to go to the polls.
We have a duty in our democracy to vote. We have an obligation
to vote. So I'm asking you to tell your friends and neighbors
about that obligation. Get our Republicans to go out there.
Get independents to go out there. And find those discerning
Democrats like Zell Miller and head them to the polls.
And when you get them to the polls, remind them, if they
want a safer America and a stronger America and a better
America, to put me and Dick Cheney back in office. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more
years!
THE PRESIDENT: I have been traveling your state a lot.
(Applause.) And I enjoy it. (Applause.) I have had a chance
to say hello to a lot of the citizens from Ohio. And I've
been telling them why they ought to put me back in office.
But perhaps the most important reason why I ought to have
four more years is so that Laura is the First Lady for
four more years. (Applause.) I'm sure some will be able
to relate to this story. You know, Laura and I went to
the 7th grade together in San Jacinto Junior High in Midland,
Texas. We became reacquainted. She was a public school
librarian, and when I asked her to marry me, she said,
fine, but make me a promise. I said, okay, what is it?
She said, promise me I'll never have to give a political
speech. (Laughter.) I said, okay, you got a deal. Fortunately,
she did not hold me to that promise. She is giving a lot
of speeches, and when she does, the American people see
a warm, compassionate, strong First Lady. (Applause.)
I'm looking around. I see some people out there who are
follically challenged. (Laughter.) And think about that,
it reminds me of my Vice President. (Laughter.) Dick Cheney
is a great Vice President. He does not have the waviest
hair in the race. (Laughter.) But you all will be pleased
to hear, I didn't pick him because of his hairdo. (Applause.)
I picked him because of his judgment; I picked him because
of his experience; I picked him because he's getting the
job done for the American people. (Applause.)
It's a joy to travel with my friend, Zell Miller. He's
strong, he is courageous, he puts party aside and puts
his country first. And for that, I am grateful. (Applause.)
I call him, Ox, you call him, Congressman. Mike Oxley
is as fine as they are in the House of Representatives.
He's a good man, and I appreciate his service. (Applause.)
And I want to thank his wife, Pat, for joining us, as well.
And I am proud to be up here, or close by, with the fine
United States Senate Michael DeWine. He's doing a good
job for the people of Ohio, as is George Voinovich. Make
sure you put George back in. (Applause.) And I appreciate
Fran DeWine joining us.
I want to thank Congressman Paul Gillmore for being here
today. I want to thank your Governor, Bob Taft, for joining
us today. Mr. Governor, I appreciate your service to the
state of Ohio. I want to thank Jennette Bradley for joining
us today, the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Ohio.
I appreciate Mayor Iriti for joining us today. Mr. Mayor,
you didn't ask me for any advice, but I'm going to give
you some: Fill the potholes. (Applause.) Mayor Iriti is
a good man, and I appreciate him being here, and I want
to thank you, Mr. Mayor, for serving. I want to thank all
the other state and local officials.
I want to thank the Findlay High School Marching Band
for joining us. (Applause.) I want to thank Wil Gravatt
Band for joining us today.
Most of all, I want to thank you all. I want to thank
the grassroots activists, the people who are putting up
the signs, the people making the phone calls, the people
who have worked so hard to make this rally such a successful
rally. I want to thank you for what you have done, and
I want to thank you for what you are going to do, which
is turn out that vote. (Applause.) And with your help,
there is no doubt in my mind, we'll carry Ohio again and
win a great victory on November the 2nd. (Applause.)
This election comes down to some clear choices for America's
families, choices on issues of great consequence. The first
clear choice is the most important because it concerns
the security of your family. All progress on every other
issue depends on the safety of our citizens. This will
be the first presidential election since September the
11th, 2001. Americans will go to the polls in a time of
war and of ongoing threat unlike any we have faced before.
The terrorists who kill thousands of innocent people are
still dangerous, and they are determined to strike. The
outcome of this election will set the direction of the
war against terror. The most solemn duty of the American
President is to protect the American people. (Applause.)
If America shows uncertainty or weakness in this decade,
the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen
on my watch. (Applause.)
Since that terrible morning of September the 11th, 2001,
we have fought the terrorists across the Earth -- not for
pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens
are at stake. Our strategy is clear: We have strengthened
the protections for the homeland. We're reforming our intelligence
capabilities. We're transforming the United States military.
We will keep the all-volunteer army an all-volunteer army.
There will be no draft. (Applause.) We are relentless,
we are determined, we are staying on the offensive so we
do not have to face these terrorists here at home. (Applause.)
And we're spreading freedom and liberty. Some amazing
things have happened in a short period of time. I want
the youngsters here to understand what has happened in
the world. In Afghanistan, three-and-a-half years ago,
young girls couldn't go to school. And if their mothers
did not toe the line of the ideologues of hate who ran
that country, they were whipped in the public square, sometimes
executed in a sports stadium. We acted to defend ourselves.
We upheld the doctrine that said, if you harbor a terrorist,
you're equally as guilty as the terrorist. And in so doing
-- and in so doing, we liberated people from the clutches
of those barbaric people called the Taliban. Millions of
people went to vote in a presidential election. The first
voter was a 19-year-old woman. Freedom is on the march.
(Applause.)
It's never easy to go from tyranny to liberty, but that's
where we're headed. There will be elections in Iraq. Think
how far that country has come from the days of mass graves
and torture chambers. I believe everybody in the world
yearns to be free. I believe people deep in their soul
want to live in a free society. I believe that because
freedom is not America's gift to the world, freedom is
the Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world.
(Applause.)
A President must lead with consistency and strength. In
a war, sometimes you have to change your tactics, but never
your principles. (Applause.) Americans have seen how I
do my job. Even when you might not agree with me, you know
what I believe, you know where I stand, and you know what
I intend to do. (Applause.) On good days and on bad days,
whether the polls are up or the polls are down, I will
do everything we can do to defend the American people and
win this war against the terrorists. (Applause.) And I
will always support the men and women who wear our nation's
uniform. (Applause.)
We have got a great United States military. (Applause.)
And I am proud to be their Commander-in-Chief. I want to
thank the families of those who wear our nation's uniform.
I want to thank you for your sacrifices. I want to thank
the veterans who are here today for having set such a great
example for those who wear the uniform. (Applause.) As
I've told families all across this country, we will make
sure your loved ones have the support necessary to complete
their missions.
And that's why I went to the United States Congress and
asked for $87 billion of supplemental funding in September
of 2003, necessary funding, important funding, to support
our troops in harm's way. And we received good support
for that. As a matter of fact, the support was so strong
that only 12 members of the United States Senate voted
against funding for our troops, two of whom were my opponent
and his running mate.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: Now, I would like for you to share this
startling statistic with your friends and neighbors as
you get them going to the polls: There were only four members
of the United States Senate, four out of a hundred, that
voted to authorize the use of force and then voted against
supporting our troops in harm's way. And two of those four
were my opponent and his running mate.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: Now, you might remember his -- Senator
Kerry's explanation about that vote. He said, I actually
did vote for the $87 billion right before I voted against
it. Now, I haven't spent much time in the coffee shops
of Findlay, but I suspect you're not going to find many
people in this part of the world who talk that way.
They kept pressing him about it. He's given four or five
different explanations about the vote. One of the most
interesting ones of all that speaks to my opponent, said,
well, the whole thing was just a complicated matter. (Laughter.)
There's nothing complicated about supporting our troops
in harm's way. (Applause.)
After repeatedly calling Iraq the wrong war and a diversion,
Senator Kerry, this week, seemed shocked to learn that
Iraq was a dangerous place full of dangerous weapons. (Laughter.)
The Senator used to know that, even though he seems to
have forgotten it over the course of the campaign. But
that's why we went there. See, Iraq was a dangerous place
run by a dangerous tyrant who hated the United States.
And he had a lot of weapons. And we've seized or destroyed
more than 400,000 tons of munitions, including explosives
at thousands of sites. And we're continuing to round up
weapons nearly every day.
Now, I want to remind you all, If Senator Kerry had had
his way, we would still be taking our global test.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: And Saddam Hussein would still be in power,
and he would control all those weapons and explosives and
could have shared them with a terrorist enemy. Now, the
Senator is making wild charges about missing explosives.
One of his top foreign policy advisors admits he doesn't
know the facts. He said, "I don't know the truth." End
quote. Well, think about that. The Senator is denigrating
the actions of our troops and commanders in the field without
knowing the facts. Our military is now investigating a
number of possible scenarios, including that the explosives
may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the
site. This investigation is important and it is ongoing.
And a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without
knowing the facts is not the person you want as the Commander-in-Chief.
(Applause.)
Unfortunately, that is part of a pattern. My opponent
is throwing out the wild claim that he knows where bin
Laden was in the fall of 2001, and that our military passed
up a chance to get him at Tora Bora. You might remember
that. He kept repeating that in the debates. Well, this
is unjustified criticism of our military commanders in
the field. This is the kind of -- worse kind of Monday-morning
quarterbacking, what we've come to expect from him, however.
In fact, our commander in Afghanistan, General Tommy Franks,
recently wrote this about Tora Bora: "The Senator's
understanding of events does not square with reality." He
went on to say, the General says, "American Special
Forces were actively involved in the search for the terrorists
at Tora Bora," and that "intelligence reports
at the time place bin Laden in any of several countries." That's
what Tommy Franks, who knew what he's talking about, said.
Poor Senator Kerry got into political difficulty and revised
his views. He saw our actions in Tora Bora differently.
In the fall of 2001, on national television, he said this
about Tora Bora: "I think we've been doing this pretty
effectively, and we should continue to do it that way." At
the time the Senator said about Tora Bora: "I think
we have been smart. I think the administration leadership
has done it well and we are on the right track." End
quote. All I can say is that I am George W. Bush and I
approve of that message. (Applause.)
The security of our families is vital, and it's important
to our people of this country to understand the records.
Senator Kerry's record on national security has the far
deeper problem than election-year flip-flopping. On the
largest national security issues of our time, he has been
consistently wrong. When Ronald Reagan was confronting
the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, Senator
Kerry said that President Reagan's policy of peace through
strength was making America less safe. History has shown
that Senator Kerry was wrong and President Ronald Reagan
was right. (Applause.)
When former President Bush led a coalition against Saddam
Hussein in 1991, Senator Kerry voted against the use of
forces to liberate Kuwait. History has shown that Senator
Kerry was wrong and former President Bush was right. (Applause.)
In 1994, just one year after the first bombing of the
World Trade Center, Senator Kerry proposed massive cuts
in America's intelligence budget, so massive that even
his Massachusetts colleague, Ted Kennedy, opposed them.
History has shown that Senator Kerry was wrong, and --
we have got to be fair -- that Senator Kennedy was right.
(Applause.)
During the last 20 years, in key moments of challenge
and decision for America, Senator Kerry has chosen the
position of weakness and inaction. With that record, he
stands in opposition not just to me, but to the great tradition
of the Democratic Party. The party of Franklin Roosevelt,
the party of Harry Truman, the party of John Kennedy is
rightly remembered for confidence and resolve in times
of war and hours of crisis. Senator Kerry has turned his
back on "pay any price" and "bear any burden," and
he has replaced those commitments with "wait and see," and "cut
and run."
Many Democrats in this country do not recognize their
party anymore. And traveling Ohio, I want to speak to every
one of them. If you believe that America should lead with
strength and purpose and confidence in our ideals, I would
be honored to have your support, and I'm asking for your
vote. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more
years!
THE PRESIDENT: The second -- the second clear choice in
this election concerns your family's budget. When I ran
for President four years ago, I pledged to lower taxes
for American families, and I kept my word. (Applause.)
We doubled the child credit to $1,000 per child to help
our families. We reduced the marriage penalty. I believe
the tax code ought to encourage marriage, not penalize
marriage. (Applause.) We dropped the lowest bracket to
10 percent, we reduced income taxes for everybody that
pays income taxes. After-tax income, that's money in your
pocket. It's gone up by about 10 percent since I became
your President.
And I want you to remind your friends and neighbors, when
you're out there getting people to the polls, what this
economy has been through. Six months prior to my arrival,
the stock market was in serious decline. Then we had a
recession. Then we had corporate scandals. But we passed
what's called the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, a bill that makes
it abundantly clear that we will not tolerate dishonesty
in the boardrooms of America. (Applause.) And I want to
thank Congressman Oxley for authoring this legislation.
And then we got attacked on September the 11th. Those
attacks cost us about a million jobs in the three months
after that fateful day. But our economic policies have
led us back to growth. Our economy is growing at rates
as fast as any in nearly 20 years. Home ownership in America
is at an all-time high. (Applause.) We saw a lot of good
farmland, flying in today. The farm incomes are up all
across America. (Applause.) Our small businesses are flourishing.
The entrepreneurial spirit is strong. We've added 1.9 million
new jobs since August of 2003. The national unemployment
rate is 5.4 percent. Let me put that in perspective for
you: That's lower than the average rate of the 1970s, the
1980s, and the 1990s. (Applause.)
I know there are placed hurting here in Ohio. I've traveled
into those neighborhoods. I've talked about an economic
plan to continue growth. But I want to remind you that
just last month, the unemployment rate in the state of
Ohio went from 6.3 percent to 6 percent, and this great
state added 5,500 new jobs in one month. We're on the move.
We're moving forward. (Applause.)
My opponent has very different plans for your budget.
He's going to take a big chunk out of it.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: He voted against the child tax credit;
he voted against marriage penalty relief; he voted against
lower taxes. And if his way had prevailed, the average
family in America would have been paying $2,000 more in
taxes to the federal government.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: That may not seem like a lot to folks in
Washington; it means a lot to people in Finley, Ohio. (Applause.)
He served in the United States Senate for 20 years, and
he's voted for higher taxes 98 times. That's five times
every year he served in the Senate. I would call that a
predictable pattern -- (laughter) -- a reliable indicator.
(Laughter.) When a senator does something that often, he
must really enjoy it. (Laughter.) Around the campaign,
he's been promising $2.2 trillion in new federal spending
-- that's trillion with a "T." That's a lot,
even for a senator from Massachusetts. (Laughter.)
So they asked him, how are you going to pay for it? And
he said that same old, tired line you've heard over and
over again: We're going to tax the rich. Well, there's
a problem with that. When you're run up the top two brackets,
you only raise between $600 billion and $800 billion. That's
far short of the $2.2 trillion he has promised. I would
call that a tax gap. And guess who gets to usually fill
that tax gap.
AUDIENCE: We do!
THE PRESIDENT: You do. The good news is we're going to
carry Ohio and we're not going to let him tax you. (Applause.)
The third choice in this election involves the quality
of life for our nation's families. A good education and
quality health care are important for your future. As a
candidate, I pledged to end the soft bigotry of low expectations
by reforming our public schools. I kept my word. (Applause.)
We passed a really good piece of reform legislation. We're
raising the standards. We've increased federal spending,
but now we're asking for results. We want to measure. See,
you can't solve a problem unless you diagnose the problem.
And we're diagnosing problems all across America and we're
beginning to solve them. Our test scores in reading and
math are up. We're closing achievement gaps for minority
students all across America. We'll build on these reforms
and extend them to our high schools so that no child is
left behind in our country. (Applause.)
We'll continue to improve life for our families by making
health care more affordable and accessible. We'll make
sure the poor and the indigent get health care in what's
called community health centers. We'll make sure our low-income
-- our program for low-income -- children in low-income
families is fully subscribed so they get health care. To
make sure health care is affordable, we'll help our small
businesses. We'll allow them to pool together so they can
spread risk and buy insurance at the same discounts big
companies are able to do. (Applause.)
We will expand health savings accounts, which will help
our families and small business owners. Let me tell you
what else we need to do. We need to do something about
these frivolous lawsuits that are running up the cost of
medicine and running good doctors out of practice. (Applause.)
I was in Canton the other day talking to a OB/GYN who
got run out of business because these lawsuits made her
premiums too high to practice medicine. And I met too many
citizens not only in your state, but across the country
-- too many moms, expectant moms, who are worried about
their health care and the health care of their baby because
these lawsuits have made OB/GYN care more scarce. This
is a national problem. You cannot be pro-doctor, pro-patient,
and pro-plaintiff injury attorney at the same time. You've
got to make a choice. My opponent made his choice and he
put a personal injury trial lawyer on the ticket.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: I have made my choice. I'm standing with
the doctors of Ohio, I'm standing with the patients of
Ohio. I'm for medical liability reform now. (Applause.)
In one of our debates, my opponent looked straight in
the camera when they asked him about his health care plan,
he said, "the government doesn't have anything to
do with it." I'll be frank with you, I could barely
contain myself. The government has got a lot to do with
his plan. Eighty percent of the people who sign up on his
plan would end up on the government. See, if you make it
easier for people to sign up for Medicaid, it means small
businesses are likely not to provide insurance for their
employees because the government will provide insurance
for their employees. That's logical. And when the government
starts writing the checks, the government starts making
the rules. And when it comes to health care when the government's
making the rules, the government starts making decisions
for you and decisions for your doctor. The wrong prescription
for health care in America is to increase the role of the
federal government. (Applause.)
In all we do to improve health care, we'll make sure the
decisions are made by patients and doctors, not by officials
in Washington, D.C. (Applause.)
The fourth clear choice in this election comes to your
retirement. Our nation has made a solemn commitment to
America's seniors on Social Security and Medicare. When
I ran for President four years ago, I promised to keep
that commitment and improve Medicare by adding prescription
drug coverage. I kept my word. (Applause.) We have modernized
Medicare for our seniors. Beginning in 2006, all seniors
will be able to get prescription drug coverage under Medicare.
(Applause.)
And we'll keep our promise for Social Security for our
seniors and we will strengthen Social Security for generations
to come. I remember the campaign in 2000. I remember those
ads they were running. You might remember them. They said
if George W. gets elected, the seniors are not going to
get their checks. They may be doing it again this year.
I want you to remind your friends and neighbors as you
get them to the polls that George W. did get elected, and
our seniors did get their checks. (Applause.) And our seniors
will continue to get their checks. Nobody's going to take
away your check.
Baby boomers like me, we're in pretty good shape when
it comes to the Social Security trust. We'll probably get
our checks. But we need to worry about our children and
our grandchildren. We need to worry about whether or not
the Social Security system will be there for them when
they retire. That's why I believe younger workers ought
to be able to take some of their own money -- some of their
own payroll taxes, and put it in a personal savings account,
an account they call their own, an account the government
cannot take away. (Applause.)
Now, my opponent takes a different approach. He says he's
going to strengthen Social Security, he's going to protect
it. But you might remember, he is the only candidate in
this race who has voted eight times for higher taxes on
Social Security benefits.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: He doesn't like talking about that. He
can run, but he cannot hide. (Applause.)
And he offered nothing for the younger generation in terms
of reform. The job of a President is to confront problems,
not to pass them on to future Presidents and future generations.
In a new term, I will bring Republicans and Democrats together
to strengthen the Social Security system for generations
to come. (Applause.)
And the final -- the final choice in this election is
on the values that are so crucial to keeping our families
strong. And here, my opponent and I are miles apart. I
stand for the appointment of federal judges who know the
difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation
of the law. (Applause.) I believe marriage is a sacred
commitment -- (applause) -- a pillar of our civilization,
and I will defend it. This is not a partisan issue. When
Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage
as a union of a man and a woman, the vast majority of Democrats
supported it, and President Bill Clinton signed it into
law. But Senator Kerry was part of an out-of-the-mainstream
minority that voted against the Defense of Marriage Act.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: I believe that reasonable people can find
common ground on difficult issues. Republicans and Democrats
came together and agreed we should ban the brutal practice
of partial birth abortion. (Applause.) I proudly signed
that bill. (Applause.) But Senator Kerry was part of an
out-of-the-mainstream minority that voted against the ban.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: He voted against parental notification
laws, and against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. I
will continue to reach out to Americans of every belief
and move this good-hearted nation toward a culture of life.
(Applause.)
At one point in this campaign, you might remember this,
my opponent said that the heart and soul of America can
be found in Hollywood.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: Most American families do not look toward
-- to Hollywood as a source of values. The heart and soul
of America is found in communities like Flag City, Ohio.
(Applause.)
All these choices make this one of the most important
elections in our history. The security and prosperity of
our country, the health and education of our families,
the retirement of our citizens, and the direction of our
culture are all at stake. And the decision is in the best
of hands. It is in the hands of the American people. (Applause.)
It is in your hands. You get to decide. And that gives
me great confidence. See, I'm optimistic about this country
and our future. One of my favorite quotes is from a fellow
Texan named Tom Lea. He said this: He said, "Sarah
and I live on the east side of the mountain. It is the
sunrise side, not the sunset side. It is the side to see
the day that is coming, not to see the day that is gone." During
the course of this campaign, my opponent has spent much
of his campaign talking about the day that is gone. I'm
talking about the day that's coming. (Applause.)
We've been through a lot together. We have been through
a lot together during the last nearly four years. Because
we've done the hard work of climbing the mountain, we can
see the valley below. The next four years, we'll work to
protect our families, build our prosperity, and defend
our values. We will work hard to spread freedom and liberty
so we can achieve the peace we want for generations to
come.
Four years ago, when I traveled your great state asking
for the vote, I made you this pledge, that if I was elected
to the office I hold, I would uphold the honor and its
dignity. With your help, with your hard work, I will do
so for four more years. Thanks for coming. God bless. Thank
you all. Thanks for coming. (Applause.)
<<Go back
|