 President of the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, it is now my very great privilege to present to extremely generous supporters and contributors of electing Republicans to the Congress to present to you an extraordinarily popular president of the United States. In fact, President Reagan is so popular that just recently Chip O'Neill said, Mr. President, you are the most popular political leader that I have witnessed in 50 years in politics. In fact, President Reagan is so popular that he has the national media talking to itself. Last week, Times cover story was a picture of our president that asked why is this man so popular? We could tell him, but they wouldn't understand. And then the cover story, Yankee Doodle Magic, what makes Reagan so remarkably popular as president? Well, we are deeply grateful that Yankee Doodle Magic is going to make a significant contribution to making sure that every one of the 25 Republican incumbent congressmen that we're honoring tonight is back in the 100th Congress next year. He picked up and said, yeah, particularly that persuasiveness. Well, I pointed out to the president that John Quincy Adams, after he served as president, served in the House of Representatives for 17 years, very, very magnificently. I also pointed out that there are 27 congressional districts in California that are occupied by Democrats. And I invited you, Mr. President, to take your choice of any one of those 27 districts and the NRCC will give you full funding for any district that you wanna run in. You don't have to be a member of the House to be elected Speaker. In fact, in fact, the Democrats toyed very seriously with electing Hubert Humphrey, Speaker of the House after he had been defeated for president rather than give up that great national resource for the Democratic Party. All that it takes is for 51% of the voters to vote Republican for Congress in 218 congressional districts. And Presto, Ronald Reagan, is Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1988. We're president, but a president so completely dedicated to the reelection of Republicans and the election of new ones. And so it is with tremendous pride and deep, deep gratitude for all you do for us that I present to you now a future Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and currently the President of the United States of America. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you all very much. And Guy, thank you, I think. Well, it's great to be here. We've just a short time ago, I've been posing for some pictures and I was thinking that I'd like to get Guy's permission to offer some advice to everybody, especially the candidates. There are a couple of things that I've discovered over the years on the art of picture posing. Goes back a ways. Actually, I'm thinking back to an experience when I was fairly new in Hollywood. And I can remember, you know, there were so many occasions at various Hollywood affairs or benefits and so forth and groups of actors and actresses and a lot of picture taking. And I was strange, you see people kind of edging their way into the middle of the picture and shouldering around that way. But one of the greatest stars in Hollywood, Frederick March, always just moved over quietly to the end of the line over there, far in that far corner. And I couldn't resist after seeing that several times and I asked him and I said, very why? Why are you when everybody thinks the place to be is in the middle, why are you over there? He said, nobody reads the entire caption and it always begins reading from left to right. So it's something to remember. And I have to tell you, there are some problems, of course, that can't be helped. The actor, Wallace Beery, he used to cultivate a reputation as a scene stealer and he was. And I can remember, I made a picture called The Bad Man with him. I didn't play the title role. He did and he was well cast. And there were a couple of scenes that started off. I learned early about him that there he would, he and I were and I thought face to face and parallel to the camera so it was getting his profile, doing what they call a two shot. And then I saw the film on the screen and there he was looking right into the camera and talking and I was talking to the wrong end of the horse. You know, I wonder if Tip O'Neill has ever imitated Wallace Beery. But other than this bit of advice to the candidates, I'm really here tonight to thank all of you from the political action committees for coming by and to ask each of you for your support in what we believe are 25 vitally important races in the House of Representatives. It's true, of course, the Senate races this year are crucial, getting a good deal of attention. But believe me, after these last few weeks on aid to the freedom fighters, nobody knows better than I how vital our stake is in the House. And that's why I wanted to get together with all of you and asked Guy Vanderjack and Bob Michael to arrange this evening for us. All of you are familiar with the conventional wisdom. We Republicans are, as Guy pointed out, expected to take the usual second term off year House losses. But I think close examination shows how very different conditions are this year than is normally the case. And that's why I think those of you in this room can play a key role in surprising the pundits and the experts. In the first place, let's remember that economic conditions are radically different this year than in the past off years. We have a strong economy, lower interest rates, an inflation rate that has reached its lowest point in over 20 years. As a matter of fact, for the last few months it's been less than zero. And for a long time, we've been telling the American people that this is the result of Republican economic policies and now that's seeming to sink in. The polls show Republicans are now identified as the party of prosperity. Indeed, they show that for the first time in decades virtually as many people are identifying themselves as Republicans as Democrats. And of course, the young voters are coming our way. And I had an example of that earlier this afternoon. There is a conference in town of teenage Republicans. They are organized under that name nationwide. And 115 of these young people from all over the United States were over at the executive office building and I had a chance to meet with them and do a little question and answer. But the wonderful thing is first of all they were great looking kids. But second of all, I've never seen such enthusiasm. Now I remember back as an ex-Democrat when I joined the Republican Party. The first few Republican events I went home to back in those days went back to Nancy and I said the only young people there looked like they couldn't join anything else. And not so with these kids today. And you realize what the polls say about those young people that the majority of them in the United States is on our side. We've got to treat them with care and bring them along. Do you realize what that means in a few short years? Add them to us and we are the majority party for the first time in 50 years. Now I think I learned from their questions today and from talking to them. One of the reasons they're with us is the Republican Party has drawn clear distinctions with the Democratic Party on a number of issues. We're pro-growth and anti-tax increase. We're the ones who appointed the tough judges. We want to cut federal spending, yet at the same time maintain a responsible level of defense spending. We're vigorously pursuing peace initiatives even while we're reassuring the American people on something that badly upset them in prior administrations. Realism about the Soviets and furthering the progress of freedom around the globe. The cause of freedom truly is on the march and it's why we're winning on issues like the aid to the Nicaraguan freedom fighters. So put it all together and you can see we're the party of excitement and of new ideas that the issues are breaking our way. One other thing as well, the Democrats have controlled the house for a long, long time. As a matter of fact, there've only been I think at most four years out of more than 50 in which they did not control the House of Representatives. With that control, a certain set of bad habits set in. Garrymandering is now more than just political shenanigans. It's become a serious corruption of the process. And so too, the crude partnership shown in the handling of Rick McIntyre's race in Indiana is another example of this abuse of power. Believe me, the other party has played with fire on these issues. And I don't think there's anything the American people dislike more than the misuse of entrenched power or trifling with the electoral process itself. So that's why I'm not only delighted to have all these incumbents and Rick McIntyre here today, but I'm encouraged about their chances. Having been or seen the election stolen once, I don't think we should sit still to see it stolen again. And this, but even more encouraging is to see all of you from the political action committees. And I realize that there was a certain material consideration in your being here tonight. And God bless you for it. I want to say to each of you, and particularly to Tom Nembutt, who's done so much to make this evening such a success. I'm fully aware of how much all of you have done to move forward our agenda during the past five and a half years. But I also want to ask you to think again on what's at stake in these house races. Think what would happen if in a moment of dreadful folly, we took it easy. If we just sort of went our way and decided to let up, it'd be a grim two years, believe me, and we'd all be working weekends. You know as well as I that the liberals are waiting in the wings just waiting for their chance. That's why they're pulling out all the stops now. They know that in a sense this is their last opportunity. If they fail to hurt us badly in the house this year, that could mean that the direction of American politics in both parties has been permanently moved in a conservative direction. And there are plenty of people who say, you're not up to it, that you don't really care about the candidates or our cause, that you're just lobbyists. Well, there are even some in totalitarian lands who are convinced that all of us over here are just capitalists who aren't interested enough to get involved or inconvenience ourselves enough for freedom. Well, I know different. The support you've given us in the past and the fact that you're here tonight is evidence contrary to that. So I'm asking you now to hold nothing back, to fight for our incumbents with every means at your disposal. I think Guy Vanderjack and Bob Michael sense what I sense about these races in the house. But with your help, we can start all the pundits and win one for America. I know I've kept you standing here for a long time, but you're so wonderful in doing so much. Just maybe I can tell you just a little experience from back in Hollywood. There was a time when we did a lot of business research on the box office and what to do about selling motion pictures. And Hollywood, with all the publicity that it had and all the trailers of movies and everything that went on of that kind and all the billboard advertising, was amazed to discover that the biggest ticket seller we had didn't cost a sub penny. It was word of mouth. It was the people that said, hey, did you see the picture at the Bijoux last night? That sort of thing. And it was true in that business. Hadn't even suspected it for all those years. Isn't that basically what's at stake here? Yes, we do the advertising. We do all of that. But there's another thing. In the locker room at the club and in business and on the street and at lunch, if we start talking to people, other people, and our friends and our neighbors and talking about why it's necessary, that an awful lot of people in this country don't really understand some of the issues. I know they don't know how the budget is brought about. I'm puzzled myself. But we could do an awful lot, neighbor to neighbor. Just friend to friend. We told some of the things we know and why it's important that we don't let anything happen right now to change the course. Because if we don't, I have a hunch that in a few years, we're going to see that candidates from both parties are going to be sounding more and more alike. And there's nothing wrong with that. Thank you all very much. God bless you.