Robert Dole photo

Remarks in Dallas, Texas

October 25, 1996

I always look at all the signs around and I looked at one over here saying "America's Future is Bob Dole," and it reminded me a long time ago when I came to Camp Marby, Texas, in World War II, then America's future was all the Bob Doles in America, the George Bushes and others.

That was America's future and we prevailed in World War II, and now we're in another fight for the heart and soul of the United States of America.

[applause]

And we will prevail in this one, too.

[applause]

I said yesterday if I had a dollar for every time President Clinton leveled with the American people, I would keep one and give the other one to Elizabeth.

[laughter]

But I can't think of two, so I'll just keep one. I don't remember what that is.

[laughter]

But I want to welcome you to this Houston retirement party for Bill Clinton.

[applause]

And I'm proud to be in Texas — the home of not one but two great leaders with the name George Bush.

[applause]

And working with Governor Bush and Phil and Kay starting next January, we're going to return power to the states and power to the people.

[applause]

It's all right here in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. It's all right here.

[applause]

We are the party of change. We are the party of reform. Take a look. Take a look at what we accomplished in the last two years.

And as Phil said, we've accomplished so much that Clinton went to Chicago and took credit for about 17 different things that you never heard of...

[laughter]

... until the Republicans controlled the Congress.

Adoption tax credit — wasn't even in his budget, but he stood there and took credit for it as he takes credit for everything.

He said I created 11 million jobs. Well, I met a guy the other day that got three of them.

[laughter]

You know you've got to have about three of those jobs in this economy to make it work.

[applause]

So...

[applause]

I think this liberal crowd in the White House has been there long enough. Don't you?

[applause]

DOLE: The federal government is too big and spends too much of your money — your money.

And I don't believe Clinton came out here, but he raised taxes and said to Texans, now, can you afford this tax increase?

CROWD: No!

DOLE: No, 70 percent of that tax increase was paid by small-businessmen and women. Then you got a $32 billion gas tax increase.

Then if you're a senior citizen — I don't see any here — but if any of you know, he raised your Social Security taxes then he scares you about Medicare.

It's time for him to go back to Arkansas.

[applause]

One of the — I don't read all these political things, but somebody told me the press reported that Bob Dole was frustrated.

Well, I'm not sure I'm frustrated, but I'm a little — I don't understand.

Vice President Gore goes to a Buddhist temple, where everybody takes a vow of poverty, and comes out with $122,000.

[laughter]

[applause]

And so, good old Al, he explains to the media. Oh, I was on an outreach program.

[laughter]

So that will be the end of that. Nobody will look beyond that in the media. That's the end of that one.

And then we have all this foreign aid coming to America. I've been waiting for years for foreign aid to come to America.

And now it's coming from Indonesia, and from India, from all over the world.

[applause]

But nobody seems to care in the media. Nobody seems to care.

[applause]

We care. You care.

[applause]

This one guy — I mean, you couldn't believe this except it's true.

[laughter]

Gandhi says he's related to Mahatma Gandhi way back there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes, but he was able to scrape up $300,000 for the Clinton campaign.

Now of course, they can't find Gandhi anymore.

Then there's this rich Indonesian who $425,000 and then — they can't find them either.

And then we have this John Huang, who just sort of disappeared, who works for the Democratic National Committee.

And then we have all these new people coming into America, rushing through the immigration process. And we find out that maybe as high as 10 percent are criminals. They want to get them ready for Election Day.

And then we have the president of the Unite States sitting down there with 900 FBI files, might be one of yours. Might be one of yours.

[boos]

And then we have the president of the United States, who won't say he will not pardon somebody who did business with him and might implicate him later on. Where is the outrage in America?

DOLE: Where is the outrage in America?

[applause]

Where has the media gone in America? Where is the outrage in America?

[applause]

Can you imagine former President Bush doing one of those things? No.

CROWD: No!

DOLE: And you never imagine Bob Dole doing one of those things either.

CROWD: No!

DOLE: So where's the outrage? Where's the outrage?

[applause]

When will the voters start to focus? I think they've started about right now. They've started to focus.

[applause]

And I'm going to take a page from Harry Truman's book. He said, they said, give them hell, Harry. And he said, I give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell. And we're going to tell the truth.

[applause]

When do the American people rise up and say, forget the media in America, we're going to make up our minds. You're not going to make up our minds.

[applause]

This is about saving our country. As Phil said, it's not about Bob Dole. It's not about Bill Clinton. It's about your future. It's about your children. It's about your job. It's about your businesses. It's about you community. It's about your state.

And above all, it's about the United States of America, the greatest country on the face of the Earth.

[applause]

And if I know everything about Texas, you're not going to stand for it. You're going to send him back to Arkansas.

[applause]

And he will get the tax cut if he leaves his forwarding address. We'll send it to him. Don't worry about it.

[applause]

This is serious business. This is serious. This is about the public trust.

Remember the public trust? Well, they never understood the public trust. It was always a game with this White House. It was always a game.

How far can you push the envelope? How much can you get away with? What can you do?

Bringing people into America, raising money all over, and I tell you, we're going to have a change. When Bob Dole and Jack Kemp are elected on November 5, America will start to change.

And we're going to be a lot better off as we go into the next century.

[applause]

And again I want to say to the senior citizens, don't believe all the scare ads you see on television. Don't believe it.

Ninety-one million dollars have been spent on scare ads all across America — $91 million. It came from trial lawyers, the Hollywood elite, and labor bosses.

DOLE: And now it's directed at senior citizens and at veterans and at students and everybody across America saying if you elect Republicans, you're going to lose all these things.

They know they're not telling the truth.

In our program, in our economic plan, Medicare will grow at twice the rate of inflation — about 7 percent a year.

It was Mrs. Clinton who said we ought to have zero growth in Medicare when she appeared before a congressional committee — not Bob Dole.

[boos]

And as Phil said, it is your money.

We're going to cut your taxes, your taxes...

[applause]

... and the government can afford it.

[applause]

And let me just explain how it works. It's not rocket science. I checked it out. In fact, Phil looked at the plan before we brought it out because he understands all those things. He used to teach all those things.

I didn't get a very good grade in economics, as I recall, but...

[laughter]

We've got four Nobel Laureate economists, plus hundreds of others, looked at this plan. A lot of people looked at it and said this is a good, sound idea.

We haven't had a federal tax cut in 10 years. We're saying a 15 percent across-the-board, a $500 per child cut, and to create, stimulate, activity — cuts the capital gains rate in half...

[applause]

... in America.

[applause]

Now for a family of four in Texas, that's about $1,261 dollars. And I want to make the point — this is a Main Street tax cut. This is for working families in America. This is not a Wall Street tax — even President Clinton has not said it's a tax cut for the rich.

He said it in the first debate. He said — well, he could use a tax cut. Well, if he can use a tax cut making $200,000 a year, I bet a lot of people here could use a tax cut making a lot, lot less.

[applause]

And that's only phase one.

Phase two — a fairer, flatter, simpler tax system and ending the IRS as we know it.

[applause]

And that's only part of the package. We're going to have regulatory reform that cost the average Texas family about $7,000 a year. We're going to bring a little common sense.

We're going to protect the air and the water and the food and everything else. We'll do it with common sense. And why didn't we do it before? Because President Clinton blocked it in the United States Senate.

And we're going to have a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Why didn't we do it before? Because President Clinton blocked it in the United States Senate — a big, big...

And we're going to have litigation reform.

I don't know how many...

[applause]

I was out in Chico, California, a couple of months ago and the railing gave way and I dove right into the crowd. And on the way down, my cell phone rang and a trial lawyer says, "Bob, I think we got a case here."

DOLE: We're going to stop some of those frivolous law suits in America that put people out of business.

[applause]

And when we talk about a war on drugs, we mean it. I'm not going to be AWOL on the war on drugs, as President Clinton was AWOL on the war on drugs when he cut funding 83 percent, when he stopped a lot of the interdiction. If necessary, I will use the National Guard to stop drugs from coming across the border in the first place.

[applause]

This is serious business. Drug use has doubled ages 12-17 since Clinton became president.

He can't deny it. It came from his own administration — finally, they were a little late getting it out.

Drug use has doubled. Marijuana use 141 percent, cocaine use 160 percent.

Now, take a look at your child or your children tonight and think about the future and think about their future and think about crime. President gets up, "Oh, we're going to have 100,000 police." You won't live long enough to see 100,000 police, his police on the street. It's only about 12,000 now, and a lot of the communities say, "We can't afford it."

And in fact New Orleans, they have 300 less police. And yesterday standing right there in New Orleans, the New Orleans chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, the whole state said "We're for Bob Dole, we're not for Bill Clinton. We're for Bob Dole."

[applause]

So now we're having Texas state troopers rush to some other state to stop the flow of whatever, to stop the bleeding in the Clinton campaign. They're going to lose this election and they know they're going to lose this election.

If they weren't getting propped up by the media every day, this election would have been over two weeks ago.

[applause]

And I'm talking about the mainstream media, not anybody I know in Texas, but the mainstream media gives them a transfusion every day free, free. They take it right out of your hide. You don't understand, you're not liberal enough, you don't understand what Bill Clinton's really all about. I know what he's all about and I don't want anymore of it. We've had enough.

[applause]

So here we are. The bottom line is this. The bottom line is this.

I want you to be proud of the vote you cast on November 5, just as I was proud of the vote I cast for Ike Eisenhower when I first voted. Born in Texas, moved to Kansas when he was two, kind of rounded out his education there. But any event, a great American, a great Texan.

And I want you to be proud of that vote, not just on November 5, but a year from now, and five years from now, and ten years from now, and forever.

[applause]

We are not going to let the media steal this election. We're going to win this election.

[applause]

The country belongs to the people, not The New York Times.

DOLE: The country belongs to the people.

[applause]

Now, I don't want to be partisan or anything but this is serious business. So I want to ask you as I conclude here to think about it.

It really is serious. I want you to think about it up and down the stairs as you're up there — people everywhere here — all around, everywhere because they believe there's a better way.

I don't have any personal quarrel. I talk to President Clinton when I spent 90 minutes with him in San Diego in the debate. Didn't talk a lot.

We won that debate. That wasn't any — that was hands down.

[applause]

And I understand they just took a poll in Texas that showed no gender gap, no gender gap.

[applause]

Now you won't read that back East. But it's going to be true all across. We're closing the gender gap because we care about working families. We care about soccer moms.

And you have soccer moms in Texas. We care about your children and all the things that Kay talked about. It is your money. We want to give your money back to you.

The government ought to apologize for taking too much of it.

You shouldn't have to apologize for wanting to keep what you earn. It's your money.

[applause]

So I want everybody to go to work. Texas is a big state. And if I can get half the votes that Phil Gramm does, I'll still win by a landslide.

Right.

[laughter]

So thank you very much for coming. This has been a great event. We're going to go out fighting.

God bless America.

Robert Dole, Remarks in Dallas, Texas Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/285472

Simple Search of Our Archives