Remarks in Albuquerque, New Mexico

DOLE: Thank you. Dole-Kemp, two four letter words you can teach your kids. Dole-Kemp, Dole-Kemp, Dole-Kemp.

First, I want to welcome you to this retirement party for Bill Clinton. Thank you very much for coming.

[applause]

I'm sorry Elizabeth is not here. I see a sign, "A great first lady," and she will be a great first lady.

[applause]

She is so talented, Eleanor Roosevelt's trying to reach her. That's how talented she is.

And it's great to be back in New Mexico. I've been coming out here for a long time over the years, and Jack and I are going to win this state in 18 days on November 5. Dole and Kemp will carry New Mexico.

[applause]

I happen to think, as everybody out here thinks, our best days are still ahead if we have strong leadership. I want to thank the governor and Pete and Joe and Steve and all the others who are here today. Wendell, I want to thank you for that great endorsement. I appreciate it very much.

[applause]

We had a little debate the other night. I think we did all right.

[applause]

We're going to start getting tough with this guy. I don't know whether he shot an 83 or a 283 or a 483, but you'll never really know, you'll never really know.

[laughter]

And let me say that I'm very proud to be the most optimistic man in America. And on Wednesday, November 6, Bill Clinton's going to be the most surprised man in America.

[applause]

The governor's already, governor got up at 5:00, he's already run 13 miles, so he's already had a pretty good day.

This is election about basic values, and I talked about some of them in the debate just a couple of nights ago. Values like lower taxes that leave families with more resources to raise their children.

It's your money, it's your money. We've got to remember that it's your money.

[applause]

And values like trusting parents — and some are behind me here — to choose the best education for the children and help [audio gap] ...it easier for them to make a choice. We need choice and competition in education to make it better, give more children all over America better opportunities.

[applause]

DOLE: Values like honesty on the part of highest elected officials. [audio gap] ...and make no mistake about it, a public office is a public trust. A public office is a public trust.

And it's time to restore that trust in America.

[applause]

And it's time to [audio gap] ...values to America, to replace the slippery liberalism in the Clinton administration, and bring back common sense and integrity to the White House.

[applause]

And I know President Clinton, talk about slippery, I know he's out here.

And I think the governor's right. It's nice that he came to New Mexico, it's a great place. I'll come out here when I'm president too. How do you like that? All right.

[applause]

But, I know he [audio gap] always does. When you don't have any idea as I said in the debate, you don't have any agenda for me to try to frighten people. You try to frighten seniors, trying to frighten mothers and fathers who have young children, you try to frighten veterans.

When he comes to Mexico, he tries to frighten everybody that works in the labs at Los Alamos and Sandia. We're not going to close those labs, Mr. President. The only lab we're going to close is the rumor lab in the White House that starts all these stories.

[applause]

And I know the importance of the mission being carried out by these labs and they will continue to function when I am president of the United States. So, don't let anybody try to frighten you.

We're going to take the corporate welfare out of the Energy Department. And I'll probably trim the travel budget of Hazel O'Leary.

[applause]

In fact Hazel ain't going to be there no more.

[applause]

Now, let me say a word about my good friend, Pete Domenici. I don't have a better friend and neither does New Mexico because he fights everyday. He's been doing it for years. He won't even take yes for an answer, sometimes, when it comes to New Mexico.

And last year when the Clinton administration made the ill- advised decision to close Kirtland Air Force Base — talk about threats. They already had talked about closing this base. It was Pete and the delegation and everybody in New Mexico got together and saved Kirtland Air Force Base.

[applause]

And that is leadership, you can be proud of. And let me say, as I said in the debate in San Diego, candidate Clinton came to New Mexico in 1992.

He said well, we've got to cut defense. President Bush had already cut it about $ 60 billion. The cold war was over. They were probably right. Candidate Clinton said, let's cut it another $ 60 billion, $ 67 billion I think he said.

But, he cut $ 112 billion. So, now we're down to about ten divisions. We don't have many [audio gap] ... a couple hundred ships. We still have a lot of problems in the world. And I can tell you one thing, Kirtland Air Force Base is not going to be in any danger in a Dole-Kemp admininstration.

[cheers]

DOLE: And Pete and Senator John McCain from Arizona also worked with me to formulate my policy for Native Americans.

We believe — I believe — Native Americans are ready to chart their own destinies. I believe it.

[applause]

We believe in preserving the government-to-government relationships that exist between the tribes and the United States, consistent with the Constitution, the laws, the treaties and the court decisions.

And I will be a president for all the people of the United States of America — all the people.

[applause]

The office held by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln should be a model of honest dealing with all Americans.

You ought to be able to trust your president.

[cheers]

If the president of the United States tells you something or somebody running for president tells you something, he ought to keep his promise, and that's the kind of a president I'm going to be, and Pete Domenici, Democrats and Republicans alike, will say, "Yes, Bob Dole — I may not agree with him, but he keeps his word."

That's very important in America.

[applause]

And I know President Clinton said we can't afford a tax cut.

Now, when he raised taxes $ 265 billion, did he come to New Mexico and ask you if you could afford to pay more? No.

CROWD: No.

DOLE: And now that I want to give a little back, he says, "Well, the government can't afford it."

Well, he can't — he's going to get it, too, if he leaves his change of address card. We'll mail it right back to Arkansas or wherever he is in January.

[cheers]

[applause]

Fifteen percent [audio gap] ...this is a working family tax cut — 15 percent across the board, $ 500 per child under 18. There are lot of $ 500 tax credits back here.

We're going to cut the capital gains rate in half, cut it in half so you create more jobs and opportunities.

[applause]

So if you're a family of four making $ 30,000 a year, it's $ 1,261 — it's an 86 percent cut in your taxes. Some of you [audio gap] ...a lot of money.

Well, if you're making $ 30,000 a year, it's a lot of money.

It's enough...

[applause]

It's enough to pay some mortgage payments, maybe child care, maybe even take a vacation with your have a family, there's nothing wrong with that if you have the money. You should not have to apologize for wanting to keep more of your own money.

It's your money in the first place.

[applause]

[cheers]

And now you pay more in taxes than you pay for food, clothing and shelter combined — almost 40 percent. Forty percent.

You make a dollar — 40 cents of it goes for taxes.

I think we've reached the place we've got to start going the other way. We've got to start going the other way. We've got to start cutting taxes, cutting taxes.

[applause]

And I'll bet there are people in this audience where one spouse works full time to take care of the family and the other spouse works full time just to pay the taxes.

DOLE: And that should not happen in America. You want to work, that's fine. If you want to stay at home with your children, that's fine. You shouldn't be forced to work to pay taxes.

We've got to change our priorities in America. We've got to talk about values and family and honesty and decency.

And we're going to balance the budget in the process.

AUDIENCE: It's our money! It's our money! It's our money!

DOLE: It's your money. It's your money. It's your money.

Keep that in mind, because Bill Clinton thinks it's his money.

AUDIENCE: No!

DOLE: And he and Albert Gore have these great schemes. Now, if you do the right things and eat your vegetables and, you know, do all those things, then they'll give you what they call a targeted tax cut. They'll decide who gets it. If you're good, you know, all those things.

But the trouble with targeted tax cut, it never hits anybody, nobody ever gets it, nobody ever receives it. You were supposed to get a tax cut after the 1992 election, and all of you who got a tax cut ought to vote for Bill Clinton because none of you did.

He can't cut taxes. He can only raise taxes. In fact he talked about his tax cut the other night in San Diego, and I just happened to remember that it's not a tax cut. All the cuts he talks about expire in the year 2000, but all [audio gap] to pay for the tax cut go on forever. A typical liberal Democratic approach to government — promise and promise and promise and don't deliver anything.

And I would say, we're going to get it done. Let's compare plans. He wants to increase spending 20 percent over the next six years; I want to increase spending 14 percent and give the difference back to you. How about a little [audio gap] change.

[applause]

And Medicare spending's going to go up 39 percent. He's trying to frighten seniors. Social Security 34 percent during that period. We're not going to touch defense, and of course you can't touch the national interest on the national debt. So don't let him get away with all this Mediscare talk, trying to frighten seniors, running all these negative ads.

He said, I, he said the other night, "[audio gap] insults, I want ideas." They have spent $ 91 million attacking me, $ 91 million from the labor bosses, the trial lawyers, the Hollywood elite, coming into New Mexico and all across America, distorting my record, and he said, "Oh, we don't believe in a negative campaign."

AUDIENCE MEMBER: He's a liar.

DOLE: If I would run one negative ad, the liberal media in this country's, "Oh, ho, there goes Bob Dole again being negative." He's spent $ 91 million being negative. It's time for a change, Mr. President. You're on your way out and I'm on my way in.

[applause]

And we're going to stop drugs at the border. If we have to enlist the National Guard, and I talked to the National Guard, we're going to stop drugs at the border. Drug use has increased, it's doubled in the last 44 months [audio gap] ages 12-17. It's time for a change. It went down 15 percent with Ronald Reagan and George Bush. It's doubled under President Clinton.

So he's been AWOL. He hasn't done one thing.

We're going to cut it 50 percent in the first four years of a Dole-Kemp administration.

[applause]

[cheers]

DOLE: And nowhere has Bill Clinton's big government liberalism been more aggressive than his war on the West: grazing fees, imposing regulation, and invite lawsuits by the most extreme environmental organizations — lawsuits designed to drive ranchers from the land and range for generations.

And we're going to change it. We're going to send power back to the states and back to the people in accordance with the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. And under Bill Clinton...

[applause]

Under Bill Clinton, western [audio gap] ...ranchers have become the most endangered species in America. That's what's happened under Bill Clinton.

And when Congress sends me a bill protecting private property rights, I'll sign it. I won't veto it. I'll sign it.

[applause]

[cheers]

And I want to say one thing about schools. We're talking about low income parents and low middle income. We're talking about opportunity scholarships. We give the money to the governor. The governor matches it. We give it to the parents, not to the school.

I'm talking about low income parents, now. You ought to have the same right for your child to have the best education possible as the president of the United States does, who sends his child to a private school.

And I don't fault him for that.

[applause]

But you ought to have the same right in New Mexico.

[applause]

The real decisions in education should not be in the hands of union bosses and bureaucrats. We've got to give the schools back to the parents and back to the teachers and we'll be a lot better off.

[applause]

So he vetoed the balanced budget amendment, the balanced budget twice. He opposed the balanced budget amendment. He opposed the flag amendment to protect our flag since there are a lot of [audio gap] ...people who don't agree with that.

You fought for the flag. You died for the flag. You sacrificed for the flag. We ought to protect the flag, and we will protect the flag in a Dole administration.

[applause]

And I want to talk finally about all this stuff in the news here the last few days. It's hard to believe. It's mind-boggling.

The number and persistence of scandals suggests [audio gap] the power in this White House.

Go down the list. Let's start with Filegate. Maybe one of your FBI files are floating around down there. You'd kind of like to think that's private, but they have 900 FBI files in the White House.

Some guy named Craig Livingstone, who was a bouncer in a bar, who was hired as the White House security chief to rifle through these [audio gap] along with other people. We don't know how many people looked through the files.

I understand they went to sleep reading mine, which is good news — but in any event, this should not happen in America. This crowd is...

[applause]

They have given us Filegate.

They've given us Travelgate. Now, they're giving us some other gate. Hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in from foreign sources.

And it would seem to me that this [audio gap] of age during the political campaign of George McGovern. He was George McGovern's director in Texas. He did not absorb any of the lessons of that time.

DOLE: He didn't learn a thing from this national nightmare that we call Watergate, which happened on our watch. And one thing we learned, you sort of follow the money. Follow the money.

In that case, you see exactly where it winds up. You follow the money. In this case, you'll see where it winds up.

And here's a [audio gap] talks about a bridge to the future. More often, it seems, it's a bridge to wealthy political donors. It goes through a laundromat first, then takes a left to the Democratic National Committee, and then rolls all the way down to the Oval Office. He shakes hands, and they give the money and they give him a plaque, whatever it is. You know, it all works out.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars they can't [audio gap]. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Some guy named Ghandi, who claimed he's related to Mahatma Ghandi, gave $ 300,000, and he owes $ 10,000 in back taxes. You know he never had $ 300,000. Somebody gave him the $ 300,000. And he passed it on the Democratic National Committee. The president greets him in the White House, he gets a nice plaque...

[boos]

That is going to end.

And I would say to the president, it's time for a complete accounting. We have a foreign businessman who made an illegal contribution to the Democratic Party. We have political money being raised at a religious site.

Let me tell you about this. In Los Angeles, at the Buddhist temple, where you take a vow of poverty, they raised 50 grand.

[laughter]

Vice President Gore went out [audio gap] with them, and they raised $ 50,000. But none of them had any money. What happened? Well, somebody gave them $ 50,000 cash, and they wrote a check to the Democrats. And I think, you know, I think it was unfortunate to have that happen. But it's happening everywhere.

I mean, they take money laundering to an art form in this administration. We have a guy, a gardener, posting a several-hundred thousand check, 400-and-some thousand dollars.

Follow the money. Answer the questions. You have to answer the question because the news media can't find your donors. They can't find the gardener, because he went back to Indonesia.

They can't find Mr. Lee. And Mr. President, now we have Mr. Ghandi who, I said, who gave you some — about $ 300,000 and a phony plaque. And your fund raiser, Mr. John Huang, is [audio gap] available to speak to the media. Come on, Mr. President. Come clean, Mr. President. Come clean, Mr. President.

[applause]

This is really unbelievable. Every day, we have a new scandal involving the foreign corruption of America. This must stop, and it must stop today.

[applause]

And I think you're going to hear more about this, too. Stay tuned.

[applause]

Our elections are not for sale to some foreign influence, or some foreign interest. This is the United States of America.

We conduct the election in the United States of America. You can make contributions. You can make contributions. But we don't want these illegal contributions [audio gap] in America distorting the process, corrupting the process.

And I would say to the president, who stands there looking you in the eye with a straight face about campaign finance reform, he doesn't believe one word of it. And you know he doesn't believe one word of it. His actions speak louder than words, time after time after time.

[applause]

Thank you very much for coming out this morning. It's a beautiful day in Albuquerque.

DOLE: It's really exciting to be here. I'm very optimistic as I said at the start. We're going to win this election because the American people are going to take a look at both of us.

[applause]

I believe most Americans...

CROWD: Dole-Kemp, Dole-Kemp, Dole-Kemp, Dole-Kemp, Dole-Kemp, Dole-Kemp, Dole -Kemp, Dole-Kemp, ...

DOLE: I know that most Americans, most Americans want to be proud of their vote. They want to be proud of the vote they cast. And I want you to take a look at me, and take [audio gap], and talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors, size us up when it comes to service to our country. Whatever it is, size us up and then you make a decision.

And I want to tell you and I promise you that if you vote for Bob Dole, you'll be proud of your vote for years to come. We're going to have a better America for your children and your grandchildren.

[applause]

Thank you very much and God bless America. All right.

[applause]