 As Finance Chairman of the Republican Party, this lady is a real hard worker. I would like to add my welcome to all of you for coming here this evening, because without the help from people like you, we couldn't continue as a Republican Party of Florida. I'd like to say a special thanks to our General Chairman, Alec Cortellus, who worked very hard, along with many of you, on putting this event on and making it so very successful. I'm indeed privileged to introduce to you a great, great lady, but before I do that, I just have to say a very special thanks to the Finance President this country has ever had. We are very fortunate in Florida to have someone like this lady represent us in Washington. Without further ado, please welcome Senator Paula Hawkins. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. President, as you can tell from the wonderful response that you received from thousands of Floridians who gathered in the lobby of this beautiful hotel a few minutes ago, Florida is Reagan country and we're most proud to have you here. And I too would like to thank Jeannie and Alec and Jorge and Jeb and all of you who worked so hard and given so many hours and so many dollars to make a point that we need to make clear to Americans and especially to the people of Florida that Mr. President, Ronald Reagan, and Paula Hawkins, your senator, have a continuing agenda. There are some in this country who want to interrupt that agenda and we must not let them do it. Several elements in this country who want to stop the Reagan Revolution that was started in 1981. A Reagan Revolution that Americans across this great country are proud to claim as the turning point in a road that in 1980 was leading to ever higher and higher inflation, ever higher and higher unemployment, even higher and higher interest rates, and dropping ever lower and lower in national pride and patriotism. There are those who on any occasion whatsoever that they can conjure up to raise taxes on the American people. Mr. President, when I visited you in the Oval Office just eight days ago and you agreed that people in this country on social security and others on fixed income should receive a cost of living adjustment based on the inflation rate, I told you that everywhere I travel people talk about you and the great things you're doing for people and they talk about how important it is, how great the need is for you to be able to continue carrying out your agenda. Mr. President, we can do that and there will be no turning back. The word malaise can be removed from the dictionary and the United States of America will be etched in large bold banners in the hearts of free men throughout the world. The Reagan Revolution will continue. Your agenda will be carried out because you'll continue to have a Republican majority in the United States Senate to help you do that. Mr. President, this is your second visit to my great state of Florida on my behalf. Let me just speak for everyone in this room and Floridians everywhere. You're welcome here anytime you want to come. We appreciate everything you have done for Florida, for our children, for our families, for our neighborhoods, for freedom and yes, for peace forever. This is our continuing agenda. When the Senate considers its agenda next year, I want them to continue to work on the problems of preventing abuse of children. When the Senate works on foreign policy, I want them to continue to use that foreign policy to stop countries from shipping drugs into this country. When the Senate balances the budget, I want to be sure that it's not at the expense of people on social security. And when the Senate considers our energy needs, I want to be sure we're not drilling oil too close to Florida's beaches. And when the senators consider job training, I want them to help single mothers get the jobs they need to support their children. And when the Senate looks at health care, I want to help our elderly be cared for at home, not in an institution. Mr. President, I promise you I will always be battling, fighting, and working with you to continue our agenda. And I know that the people of Florida are going to make it happen and make your day. Ladies and gentlemen, the man who made so many wonderful things happen for all of us, President Ronald Reagan. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you and thank you, Paula. And, you know, I have to tell you because I understand that from the previous speech just a little while ago, it was piped into, if not all, most of you here. I feel like I'm in an instant replay. But I'll try not to say the same things twice, although I will say that it's great to be in Miami and great to be with so many old friends, veterans of hard fought campaigns and crusades. Political strategists think of Florida as a bellwether state. Well, you folks down here not only reflect national trends, you start them. I hope I can count on you to be in the forefront of a trend that will ensure that the United States Senate remains in Republican hands, and that means re-electing Senator Paula Hawkins. And if anybody can do it, you can. Florida's got top-quality party leaders like Genie Austin and Dali Cortellus and Jeb Bush bringing more and more Republicans into the fold. It seems like another lifetime when the South, including Florida, was considered a stronghold of the other party. There's a story about a candidate who was running for Congress in one of the southern states back in the 1960s, and he was out in the countryside campaigning, and when he told a farmer that he was a Republican, the old guy says, wait a minute till I get more. She's never seen a Republican. Well, he came back with Mao, and in the meantime, he was wondering, and then they told him that wouldn't he make them a political speech? Well, he looked around and needed kind of a podium, and the only thing there was a pile of stuff that had come out of the stable. So he stepped up on it and made a little short political speech, same thing I'll do as a short political speech. And afterward, the farmer and his wife told him that candidate this was the first time they'd ever heard a Republican speak. And he says, well, that's all right. That's the first time I ever spoke standing on a Democratic platform. Seriously, though, over the years, many articles have been written about a coming national realignment, and no one need wait any longer. It's here. Many Democrats are realizing that their party no longer represents those values and ideals in which they believe. That happened to me years ago. I was a New Deal Democrat from the very beginning, and I'll bet some of you were as well. And maybe there are some among you that you may not have gotten around to switching parties, but you sort of support the party that we now belong to. And when it comes to realignment, there's every reason to be optimistic. I say that because, and this may be true for you as well, I've been meeting a lot of Democrats recently who've become Republicans. I just met one who's running for office in Louisiana, and as of today he re-registered as a Republican. But you know, I haven't been meeting anybody who's going the other way. And if I could just tell you something that several years ago, an organization of political scientists were interested in what might be happening to the parties. This is really true, and they did a study, and they took the two national conventions, Republican and Democrat, first, and they surveyed those as the leaders of their two parties. That's why they were the delegates to the convention. And they surveyed them on the basis of a lot of major issues as to how they felt about those and what they would do about those issues. And they found, of course, that the Democrat and the Republican leadership, as by the delegates, was poles apart. Then they went out and did a survey nationwide of the rank-and-file members of the two parties. And to their surprise, they found that the Republican rank-and-file were identical in their views with their leadership. They found that the rank-and-file Democrats across the country were totally out of step with their leadership, and then they compared the poles of the rank-and-file members and found that the Democrat rank-and-filers were almost identical with the beliefs of the Republicans. So when you're talking to your friends, and some of them were still Democrat, you might point out that actually some of us that have changed already and a lot that should change is because we didn't leave the Democratic Party. It left us a long time ago. You know, Winston Churchill in the Parliament of England changed parties when he was a young man. And he said when people were looking a little aside at him about doing this, he said some men changed party for principle and some men changed principle for party. Well, that's what's happening today and that's why it's vital that we remain the party of principle, the party of a strong opportunity-filled America. Perhaps the most tangible reason for optimism is that young people are supporting our cause in numbers no one could ever have predicted a decade ago. As a matter of fact, when I first became a Republican and started attending some Republican meetings some years ago, I would go home to Nancy and say, you know, the only young people there looked like they couldn't join anything else. But not so today. I've been on the campuses of a number of universities. I've been in high schools very recently and talking to young people. I've seen these young people of ours in those places in shops and factories and on military bases and out on aircraft carriers. And I saw them at the rally when I came into the hotel. You were listening. I think this is one of the finest generations of young people this country has ever seen. They want the same things we wanted, a chance to live life to its fullest, to own a home, to have the opportunity to go as far as their talent and their hard work will take them. And when I remember back when I was governor and if I went near a campus in those days, they'd hang me in effigy or for real. But this, looking at these young people today, their patriotism, the spirit that they have, I'm convinced the 21st century is going to be in good hands. They sense that the reforms we've struggled to put in place, the efforts that we've made to invigorate our economy, and the commitment we've made to the security of our country are really for them, the young people of America, and their right. It's getting a bit hard to remember, but it wasn't that long ago. And this is when that other party was in control of both houses of Congress, the presidency, and all of the executive departments and agencies, that the so-called leaders of America were telling all of us, including young people, to lower our expectations. Do you remember? We were told that the problems plaguing our society were unsolvable. The refrain was heard that America's best days were behind us, and the picture of a bleak future was being painted. But America has left those bad old days, and the politicians who gave us those bad old days behind. And all I can say is, ain't it great? We may have every reason to be optimistic. Nevertheless, I hope that none of us will be complacent. This is especially true here in Florida. A tough race is coming up, yet I can't think of an individual who has done more for the cause in which we also firmly believe than your own senator, Paula Hawkins. Paula Hawkins is over at the White House the other day, and I told her she just simply had to be reelected. And I just added a few words to that in the lobby. Believe me, I could have gone on forever. As I mentioned out there, Paula is one of the hardest working individuals I've met in public office. She truly, truly is an inspiration to all of us. And while you're out working for Paula, please don't forget the other Republican candidates. You have some great individuals down here. Florida, for example, deserves a future-oriented Republican governor. I know that Craig Kaiser is running for state comptroller, and he is an inspiration to us all. We Republicans carry a special burden. We must keep faith with those young people I spoke about a moment ago. Instead of looking or lowering their expectations, we want them to dream great dreams. America's best days do lie ahead. By doing what we're doing, we're making certain of that. And if any of you here are of the other party and thinking of changing, don't wait and do it as I did. I made up my mind that I had to, I could no longer support the party that I belonged to all my adult life. But, and I campaigned for Republicans, and I did Republican fundraisers back when I was in that Hollywood world. But I hadn't gotten around to re-registering. And yet the Republicans began to take me for granted. And then one night I was making a speech at a Republican fundraiser, right out in the middle of the audience, a woman stood up. And she said, have you re-registered yet? And I said, no, but I'm going to. She said, I'm a registrar. Right down up here. And I signed up. Then I said, now, where was I? So, don't let up. Get with it and send this young lady back to Washington where we need her so bad. God bless you all.