 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. The President of the United States. Peace and prosperity for Americans. Thank you all very much. Thank you all very much. Thank you. And I thank you, George. Thank you for that very wonderful introduction. And thank you. And I thank you to that great music of the Ohio State University marching band and the Pickrigdon High School band. And let me say a special hello to Commerce Secretary Bill Verity, to Congressman John Kasich, Chalmers Wiley, Del Ladder, Bob McEwen, to Mayor Buck Reinhardt, State Senator Jean Watts, to State Supreme Court candidates Joyce George and Paul Mantilla, and again to the next United States Senator from the State of Ohio, George Boinebakes. And I can't go any farther without a hello to my brother Teeks. When I was a pledge I was told that Talk App Absalon was a fraternity for life, and now they're just through. And let me also say hello to another group I take a kind of a personal interest in. And you know I've heard all the way to Washington that here at Ohio State, the college Republicans give, I didn't get to finish the sentence, I hear the college Republicans here give the best party on campus. It's great to be back in Ohio and here at the home of what over the years has always been a football team with the heart to keep fighting. The way a certain friend of mine has done since August when he too was a few games down and came up with a winning season, one of the great football teams in America, the Buckeyes. And speaking of great athletes, there's someone here who brought home both the silver and the gold, Ohio's Olympic champion, Butch Reynolds. I watched a certain debate the other night. I don't often feel sorry for liberals, but I came close. I couldn't help thinking the problem with those fellows on the other side is not camera angles or lighting, it's not whether their candidate is likeable or not. No, it's the very thing that they've spent this campaign trying desperately to hide. When our liberal friends refuse even to whisper the L word and insist that this election is not about ideology, it's about competence, they're just acknowledging that where they want to take America, America doesn't want to go. But they're way over there in left field. They're out of the mainstream of American politics and their policies are liberal, liberal, liberal. But the American people always have a way of figuring out the facts. You know, it reminds me of a little story. At my age, at my age, everything reminds you of a story. This has to do with our intelligence community. It seems that they called in an agent and they told him that he was to go to a little town in Ireland and there he was to make contact with one of our spies named Murphy. Now he said that the manner of recognition would be that he should say to Murphy, he should say that it was a beautiful day this morning but it'll be a greater afternoon. So he goes to Ireland and in this little town he goes into the pub and he sits up at the bar and the bartender comes along and he orders and he said, by the way, I'm looking for a man named Murphy. And the bartender said, well now there's a Murphy across the street in the second floor, he's a bootmaker. And he says about a road down the left, there to the left is a farmer named Murphy. And he says, my name is Murphy. And the agent said, well, it was a beautiful day this morning but it's going to be greater this afternoon. Oh, he says it's Murphy, the spy you want. You know the facts and so do the American people. Our liberal friends have spent the last three months trying to dress up their agenda in our clothes but somehow nothing fits. When they say opportunity, they mean subsidies. When they say reducing the deficit, they mean raising taxes. And when they say strong defense, they mean cut defense spending. No wonder, no wonder their favorite machine is the snowblower. They talk about it being time for a change. Where have they been the last eight years? We are the change. We began the change, we began the change eight years ago and the choice this year is to go forward with the change or to go back to the stagnant status quo of the past. When George Bush and I took office, America was in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. High taxes and runaway regulations had driven our economy to its knees with a one, two, three combination of inflation, economic stagnation and unemployment. We turned that around. Since our expansion began, we've created over 18 million new jobs. More new jobs than Europe and Japan combined. Today, we're in the longest peacetime economic expansion ever recorded. We're exporting more than ever before in our history and a greater proportion of Americans and a greater number of Americans are at work today than ever before in the history of the United States of America. Would you let me just qualify that statement here and tell you what that means and what I mean? It seems that the statisticians have determined that everyone, male and female, from the age 16 and up are considered the potential employment pool. That means that all of you, in spite of the fact that you're going to be here getting an education and perhaps going on to a post-education, this doesn't discount or leave out the people that have retired and are out there on the golf course or someplace else. But everybody in the United States, 16 of age and up, is considered the employment pool. Well now listen to this. 62.7% of that population I've just described is employed in this country today. You may have heard the liberals talk about a smaller middle class and it's true. The middle class is getting proportionately smaller but not because a greater proportion of our people are poor. That just isn't so. No, it's because more people in the middle class group are moving up and becoming so well off. You know it's so much easier, it's so much easier for me to speak than it is for our opponents because we have the facts on our side. Between 1977 to 1981, I don't know why I picked those years, the real income of the typical American family dropped 7%. Since then it has soared more than 10%. Now think of what reducing the prime interest rate by over half means to young families seeking to purchase a new home. Think of what reducing inflation to a third of what it was means to families seeking to protect their life savings. And think of what our tax reduction program has meant to families most of whom today now pay a top rate of 15%. And think of what this means to you when you leave school there will be jobs and opportunities waiting for you. And that even applies to that noisy few that are in here. It's a good time to begin a career and maybe get married to that special someone and start a family. And perhaps now in a few years you'll want to start your own business. It's a great time for that too. Think of how lucky you are not to have graduated in the classes of 79 or 80 when things were different. But also think of how lucky you are to be graduating in our country and not in some other one. Yes. What you heard in a recent debate I've heard echoed in my talks with the leaders of many other nations. Today the United States of America is the envy of the world. As we've come a long way in the last eight years but my friends everything that you and I and George Bush have worked for these last eight years everything could be lost faster than you can say the Pledge of Allegiance. The Liberals talk about reaching for the center but from the economy to national defense they've taken positions that only a McGovern could love. We've achieved arms agreements with the Soviets and a new warmth in relations not through weakness but through our policy of peace through strength. You'd think our liberal friends would have learned from that but not long ago former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger wrote that their ticket this year seems to be in Secretary Schlesinger's words viscerally anti-military. They'd cut the B-1 bomber, the MX missile, our strategic defense against ballistic missiles and their plans that they have proposed would actually eliminate two carrier battle groups from our Navy. In fact what they plan for the Navy is so bad that by the time they get through Michael may have to roll the boat ashore. Yes, it's the same old liberal agenda they're pushing less defense and more big government. For example as part of their so-called pro-family agenda they propose federal childcare assistance. A little while ago I told an audience that under this proposal if parents want assistance and they also want to leave their child with his or her grandmother the grandmother will have to be licensed by the federal government. Now after I spoke, after I spoke a reporter called one of the congressional staffers behind the bill and asked if it was true that grandmothers would have to get federal licenses to take care of their own grandchildren and the reply came, yes, of course it's true and after all here's the quote. He said how else can you design a program that receives federal funds? Licensing grandmothers, can you believe it? But doesn't that tell all the difference between our philosophies? When they say family, they mean big brother in Washington. When we say family, we mean honor thy father and thy mother. Now our liberal friends have promised that come January the Reagan era is over and they say their era will be just beginning. Well let me ask you something and could you give me an answer loud enough so they can hear it all the way to Boston? Come January, do you want Washington run by those whose only pledge of allegiance is to more government and more spending and who have never let the taxpayers' dollars out on furlough? Do you want our foreign policy in the hands of those who criticized our rescue mission in Grenada and our strike on Libya and who always, always blame America first? I guess what I'm asking is do you want the liberals in control in Washington? You just made my day when you said no but about that now if you quit saying four more years to me and recognize that it's an amendment in the Constitution that makes that impossible but now wait a minute, wait wait, hear me out I just wanted to tell you that once I am a civilian again I intend to get out on the mashed potato circuit talking about some of the things we've been trying to do and one of the things that I'm going to suggest to the American people is that they demand the erasing of that amendment because it is an infringement on the people's rights to vote for who they want to vote for as long as they want to vote Now let me tell you, there's another way to shout the answer you just gave me on that no a way that will really be heard not just in Boston and Washington but around the world and that's to vote in November and not just vote for president or vice president ours is a system of three equal branches of government two branches, congress and the president are chosen by election and the third branch, the courts is chosen by the other two when you vote for a candidate for the senate or the house you're voting for the direction of the country and the world as much as when you vote for president think about the deficit something our liberal friends like to talk about what they aren't as eager to tell you is that the president can't spend one dime of the government's money only congress can decide how much the government spends and only congress can pass spending bills in fact it's against the law for the president to spend a penny more or a penny less than congress directs him to spend the president can't add to the deficit nor can he subtract from it do you realize that they are so tight on that that even if one of our bureaus and agencies which we've been reducing in size and cost increasing in efficiency if they come in at the end of the year with less money spent than the original appropriation they can't use that to pay on the deficit the congress says they have to go out and spend that money on something you'd be surprised how many times desperately they just have to buy new office furniture we got a lot of used office furniture in warehouses well how many of us have stopped to think that our liberal friends have had a majority in the house of representatives for 52 of the last 56 years and a majority in both houses of congress for 46 of those 56 years and with their concern about deficits in all that time 56 years there were only eight scattered years in which the budget was balanced you know it makes me think they have a point about one thing well maybe they didn't intend it this way yes in one part of the government it's time for a change still won't put that sign down will he here in Ohio we have a senate race that draws just the same lines between the liberals and the rest of us as are drawn in the race for president the non-partisan almanac of American politics has said of Ohio's liberal senator quoting his record on issues I'm quoting now this is what it says his record on issues is one of the most liberal in the senate for example he's against the line item veto and the balanced budget amendment he's fought Graham Rudman Hollings the deficit reduction law and when it comes to big spending the national taxpayers union has given him their big spenders award but I don't want to be too harsh on him he's worked hard over the years don't you think he deserves a long relaxing rest fixing congress can only be done one senator and one representative at a time and only the people can do it it's up to us you may have guessed I feel strongly about giving George Bush a congress in which he has more friends than he had on that pacific island down during world war two yes we've accomplished much these last eight years but we could have accomplished even more including I believe balancing the budget if both houses of congress had been friendly so with the liberal presidential campaign starting to fall apart shouldn't we ask shouldn't we ask if we must ride two horses congress and the president across every stream shouldn't they both be going the same way so let me ask you one more question and again I hope you'll shout it so they can hear you all the way to Washington do you want a congress that'll work with George Bush and not against him do you want do you want a new congress where the liberals are no longer running the show and will you send George Bush's friend and my friend George Vojnovic to the United States Senate will you vote for a house of representatives that will also support President Bush you just made my day again I mentioned voting a few moments ago earlier this year I mentioned voting a few moments ago and earlier this year I had the privilege of doing something I never thought an American president would be able to do I stood in the Lennon Hills and spoke to the students in Moscow State University about the glories of individual freedom think of those students only if they're very lucky and rise high in the Communist Party will any one of them have influence on the course of history that each American has by just walking into the voting booth so in closing I'd just like to ask you to take history in your hands and win one for the Gipper I've enjoyed your applause so very much and for one reason is because every time you do it it drowns out that echo in here I'm just going to tell you a little story I've gotten in a habit lately some of the fellows with the cameras back there know this I have started collecting jokes which I can absolutely prove are jokes made up in Russia and told among the Russian people usually about their system and one of them I'll just tell you one little one here because you've all been so kind about me this particular joke they tell among themselves is that an American and a Russian are arguing about their two governments and the American said look in my country I can walk into the Oval Office I can pound the president's desk and I can say Mr. President I don't like the way you're running our country and the Russian said I can do that and the American said you can he said yes I can walk into the Kremlin into the general secretary's office pound the general secretary's desk and say Mr. General Secretary I don't like the way President Reagan's running his country but believe me you send me on my way standing about three or four inches taller than when I came in thank you and God bless you Mr. President Butch Reynolds and I want to present this to you to remind you that you're our gold medalist and you have done a super job and we want to present this to you to let you know that during this last stretch of our marathon to return a Republican to the presidency and take over the United States Senate it'll make it a little easier for you to communicate the message to America that the best way we can keep the Reagan Revolution going and peace and prosperity is to elect George Bush to the United States presidency and keep a Republican United States Senate it's your future