 Mr. President, I had about four more introductions to make of some of your friends from Hollywood. Would it be alright if I continued? Oh, good. Okay. Thank you. I abundant support. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for proving what I have always said to people when they inquire about Orange County. I've said it's where the good Republicans go before they die. Pete, thank you very much. Those kind words, I'm, well, Reverend MuMaw, the other guest here at the, on the top shelf. I, two friends of mine who worked for me at the White House are with us today. They brought the cake in, Chris Cox and Dana Rohrbacher. I know that both Chris and Dana, when they go to Washington in January, will be outstanding additions to the Congress and will serve our nation well. Also, I want to thank Congressman Bob Badham and David Dreyer, who have both been tireless supporters of this administration. Now, before we begin, I should set the record straight. To most of you, it must be seemed pretty obvious that I came here today to show my support for Pete Wilson's reelection in this critical race. Actually, I just dropped in hoping to get a little birthday cake. The truth is that I had a special reason for wanting to be here for this occasion. You see, I was very moved at my own 55th birthday when President Abraham Lincoln showed up and said, if you come here. Now, for some people, turning 55 is something of a milestone, not for Pete. He still gets carted in bars. And Pete, I have to tell you, I'm impressed by the size of this party. I was told that this would be just an intimate gathering of a few of your closest personal friends. I haven't seen so many people at a birthday party since I left the movie industry. But Pete Wilson is a man with a lot of friends and with the tremendous work that he does every day for the state of California. Pete Wilson deserves to have 27 million friends. Working people, senior citizens, entrepreneurs, families, every person who believes in a California that is beautiful, safe, and prosperous. That's who Pete Wilson works for. Pete Wilson is a Teddy Roosevelt Republican who wants to conserve the natural beauty and resources of our land and who also wants a strong America that maintains a strong presence abroad. He's been a leader for environmental protection, working to preserve millions of acres of California wilderness, working for the conservation of wild rivers and the protection of our shoreline. I know he would agree with Teddy Roosevelt who said that a grove of giant redwoods or sequoias should be kept just as we keep a great and beautiful cathedral. Well, in the Armed Services Committee, Senator Pete Wilson has been a strong voice for California and for the nation. He's been an important part of our efforts to revitalize America's defenses and restore what another Roosevelt so accurately called the great arsenal of democracy. Pete Wilson knows that a strong America is essential to world peace and vital for maintaining everything that we've accomplished in international affairs, especially our improved relations with the Soviet Union, which have produced the first treaty in history to eliminate an entire class of U.S. and Soviet nuclear missiles. Now, I think I should interject here that there are some people that worry that perhaps I'm being taken in. No, I learned a Russian proverb which I have repeatedly cited to the General Secretary Gorbachev in our discussions, doviye, noproviye. It means trust but verify. And he's gotten so tired of hearing that I'm now using an American one. I'm going to let him know where I stand. Trust everybody, but cut the cards. Well, Pete Wilson knows that a strong America is essential to world peace and vital for maintaining everything that we've accomplished in international affairs, as I say. Yes, we have improved those relations, as I just pointed out. Now, while the liberal opposition opposes the B-1 bomber, the MX, and our strategic defense initiative, Pete Wilson knows that peace flows from strength and that a return to weakness would jeopardize all that we've achieved and that that cannot be allowed. One of the most important issues, one that touches the lives of so many people, is the problem of crime. The physical and emotional wounds that are inflicted by violent criminals can take a lifetime to heal. Whole neighborhoods can be destroyed by hoods, thugs, and drug dealers. Crime is not a statistic. It's an outrage and a sin. And it must be fought. Pete's opponent, like so many of the liberal Democrats in the ballot this year, just can't seem to understand that the way to fight crime is to put criminals in jail and keep them there. To protect our communities, we need tough laws, strict sentencing, and no nonsense judges. We need Pete Wilson, who has always fought for strict drug enforcement, not someone who worked to liberalize the prohibition of illegal drugs, and who spent most of his career as an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. In fact, Pete's liberal opponent even opposed the crime victims' Bill of Rights. While Pete Wilson helped lead the successful effort to pass it, you know, ever since I was governor, I have felt that liberals need remedial instruction on the subject of crime. So if any liberals are listening, let's try it one more time. Criminals are not victims, and victims are not criminals. In the Senate, Pete has been a champion for law and order. He has helped pick strong judges for the federal bench and worked vigorously for their confirmation. When new vacancies occur on the Supreme Court, Senator Pete Wilson will continue to support strong men and women to fill those seats, while his liberal opponent would be on the opposite side. Just remember that when the people of California turned out one of the softest chief justices in the nation, Pete's opponent was on the wrong side, the far left side. I think you'll agree with me that the judicial policy of these liberal Democrats is strictly for the birds and has no place in the United States Senate. Four years ago today, I accepted for the second time my party's nomination for president. A few things have changed since then. America has become even stronger. The world has become even more peaceful. I know, yes, the economy today is even more prosperous than it was four years ago. And why shouldn't it be? With our pro-growth economic policies, things just keep getting better every year. But one other thing has changed. In 1984, our opponents, wrongheaded as their policies may have been, at least ran in the clear light of day. They ran as the liberals that they were. They told the American people what they believed and what they do, cut defense and raise taxes. But that's changed. The first sign of this deceptive strategy came in 1986 when many of their liberal Senate candidates ran stealth campaigns, avoiding the tough issues and using the language of conservatism to conceal their true beliefs. Well, in 1988, we're seeing this kind of covert liberalism at the national level and to an extraordinary decree. When challenged to say where they stand on the issues, their response is ideas don't matter. Policies don't matter. Ideology doesn't matter. For them, winning this election is all that matters, no matter what they have to say or not say to do it. In some ways, I can hardly blame them. If they told the truth, their campaign slogan would have to be, Malays. We did it before, and we can do it again. But no, the message from our liberal opponents is, you can take prosperity for granted. It's time for a change, so take a change on us. Well, that's sort of like someone telling you you've stored up all the cold beer you could want, so now it's time to unplug the refrigerator. But no more than with a refrigerator, you can't unplug our pro-growth economic policies and expect things to stay the same. And the funny thing is that sometimes our liberal opponents will even admit it. They like to say the beginning next year, the Reagan era will be over. Well, that's right, Vice President Bush and I, working with Senator Pete Wilson and others, have given America the longest peacetime expansion on record. The country has created over 17.5 million new jobs. Inflation is low. Employment is at an all-time high. The unemployment rate recently hit a 14-year low. And yes, if our opponents are elected, this era of record prosperity will be over. But I've got news for the liberals. It's not going to happen. There's an old saying that an optimist sees the doughnut while a pessimist sees the hole. But what about our opponents? They point at the hole in the doughnut and say they can fill that hole by reversing the policies that made the doughnut in the first place. They point at Swiss cheese and say they can fill the holes in Swiss cheese by reversing the policies that gave us cheese in the first place. They point at peace and prosperity and say they can expand the peace and prosperity. How? By reversing the policies that gave us peace and prosperity in the first place. My friends, the choices between people pushing an absurd line like that and our team, which promises to continue what's working and to keep America changing for the better. And with a choice like that, I just don't see how we can lose. While Pete's opponent opposes the balanced budget amendment and has supported high taxes, Pete Wilson has worked diligently for fiscal responsibility and as a defender of the taxpayer. Pete supports Graham Rudman, the balanced budget amendment, and yes, the line item veto, which 43 governors have. He has supported the policies that have brought record employment in California and brought the unemployment rate to its lowest level for over a decade and a half. Let's keep Pete Wilson in the Senate and keep California and America working. The Republican Party has shown America who talks and who delivers. We've shown them that our team can produce results today, tomorrow, and on into the next decade because our philosophy is sound and our policies work. If the 1988 election is a question, the answer is this. America is not going to trade away our winning team for third-stringers with a weak defense, a foreign policy of errors, curveball campaign promises, a set of policies to be named later, and billions of dollars in higher taxes. Well, just last week, Pete and I were at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans. And I can tell you, our party is strong, unified, and ready to work for victory. I'll be criss-crossing the country for our ticket, and California this year especially will be one of the truly critical states. With your tremendous support, I feel confident that when I return to my ranch, I'll have Pete Wilson representing me in the Senate. And with what I saw in New Orleans, I saw a real chance that Pete may be part of a Republican majority in the Senate. And wouldn't that be a nice gift for President George Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle? Well, happy birthday, Pete. Your present will arrive this November. I'm going to do something that wasn't planned right now. I'm just going to... You know I'm sort of addicted to stories, and Pete tempted me when he mentioned stories in mine. My latest hobby is collecting stories that I can absolutely establish are told by the citizens of the Soviet Union among themselves. And it reveals they got a great sense of humor and a little cynical approach to their present system. But I came home from the Moscow Summit with a new one that caught up with me on the way home. I hadn't heard it there, but one of our security detail had. And he said the story that they were telling among themselves had me in a limousine with Gorbachev and I had the head of our secret service unit with me and he had his head security man with him and we were sightseeing and we got to a waterfall and we all got out to see the beautiful waterfall. And Gorbachev said to my man, well go ahead, jump, go over the fall. And my man said, I got a wife and three kids. So Gorbachev turned to his man and said, jump, go over the fall. And he did. Well my man scrambled down the rocks around the fall. Oh, that's the waterfall. He wanted to see if he could be of help and he got down there and found the fella bringing out his clothes he'd gotten over safely. And my man said to him, why did you do that when he told you to jump and go over the falls? And the fella said, why? I got a wife and three kids. It does demonstrate the difference between the two systems, but well, believe me, you can send this man back there. For six years, I had a Republican Senate and a Democrat House of Representatives, but at least having that one house, we couldn't have had the recovery that we have if we had not had that one house. The difference now in these final two years with both houses in Democratic hands is so apparent. And when you stop to think that out of 56 years, the last 56 years, the Congress of the United States has been dominated by the other party. For 46 of those 56 years, they've had both houses of the Congress and for 52 of the 56 years, they have had the House of Representatives. Every Republican president, except for a two-year period under Ike, has had a Democratic Congress. Every Democratic president, except for two years during Harry Truman's term, has had a Democratic Congress. I think it's time for us to prove that we have a right to be represented all the way around. And so let's go after him this time and make it work. Send Pete back there and thank you all and God bless you all. Mr. President, I cannot thank you enough, sir. Since it is my birthday, I wonder if you would allow me, if you would indulge me in giving a slight gift to you. As we were driving over here from the Marine Corps Air Station at Tustin, these young Marines who were lining the streets not only snapped off a snappy salute to their commander in chief, but then started cheering. And that's the effect that you've had on the men and women of our armed services, Mr. President. I'm sure you're aware that in addition to the big fights that we're all gonna be in this November, up in San Francisco, where the Navy wants to home port the battleship, Missouri, and where the people of that city want the privilege of being host to that battle group, Leo McCarthy's protege, who is the president, mayors, decided that they shouldn't have it. Well, they've managed to put that question on the ballot. So recalling the magnificent speech that you made in New Orleans, where you concluded by asking a favor of George Bush, that he go out and win one for the Gipper, we want you to remember this day and to be reminded of what you have meant to the men and women of our armed services and what you've really meant in terms of revitalizing the concept of peace through strength. So this T-shirt, which I think is your size, is something that you can wear out there on the ranch, and it says, win one for the Skipper. One more time, ladies and gentlemen, for our head table for honored guests at the fact that we know Pete Wilson is going back to Washington. Let's do it.