Raw Footage: Presidential Candidate Phil Gramm in New Hampshire
- Transcript
And so high and to be with you on a winning team again I called Mel and he didn't hesitate. He was on board some of our critics said it was a good thing we took a small room because they won't be able to fill it anyway so I guess we got them for one of my great honor. Have you had enough of McCain or do I. Does he get to speak again. One of my great honors is serving with some of the finest people in America. We're having a vote next week on the balanced budget amendment. There are five senators here today including Senator Graham and all five of us are voting for it you can bet on that. And it's a great it's a great privilege and an honor for me to introduce even though he already was introduced. He introduced himself I heard a good friend former who held for almost
six years by the Vietnamese and tortured a true American hero and a good friend and and a great friend of the veterans in this country as well. And my good friend John McCain. Thank you Bob. It's now my opportunity to give a 45 minute talk on the North Korean nuclear buildup. Steve thank you very much for being here today. And Bob Smith is a rare breed my friends Bob Smith is a man of total integrity and principle and I think you can be very proud of the outstanding job he does in the United States Senate and the Armed Services Committee. I'd like to be brief. As you know in the late 70s thanks to my fellow Naval Academy graduate James Earl Carter we had a defense that was practically useless. We this army chief of staff the United States Army said that we had a hollow Army we had planes that couldn't
fly guns that couldn't shoot ships it couldn't leave port men and women on food stamps in the military because we simply had dismantled our nation's defenses. Phil Gramm came to the Congress the United States. Phil Gramm worked to write the Reagan budget to rebuild our nation's defenses. Phil Gramm fought for the men and women in the military. And Phil Gramm is the strongest advocate for national security along with Bob Smith of any senator I know. My friends we live in a dangerous world. The prestige that was bought with the blood and treasure of America throughout the world in places like Grenada and Panama and the Persian Gulf have been dissipated in the most profligate fashion by this administration. My friends if you're worried about the future of America if you don't want your sons and daughters in Somalia or Bosnia or Haiti my friends you'll be supporting Phil Graham from the next president United States. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Senator John McCain of Arizona. It's a privilege to have you up here. My next introduction is is another good friend and colleague Senator Paul Coverdell of Georgia Senator Coverdell started this revolution by taking a seat in Georgia that was held by the Democrats. He had had a runoff election. He finished with in the runoff. He was second but somebody got three or four percent of the vote and he came on head to head with this guy and won. And that was the beginning of getting the Senate back in the United States let me tell you he's been with us. We've been all over the country and we're still going further after this event to Iowa and Phoenix. But let me tell you Paul Coverdell has been right there with his campaign. He is a great American he's a leader in the United States Senate. Please give a warm welcome. It's a little cooler here in Georgia. Paul Coverdell Thank you.
It's great to be here and on this beautiful day in New Hampshire you know you keep learning in the business of policy. I've made one decision I don't think I'll have John McCain as his spokesperson here because there are about 19 percent proficient or about in the coming back up here at another time later on in the campaign where we can get a chance to meet in a little more in an environment where we can talk a little bit more. But let me tell you we heard about the year of the woman when the Democrat senators won. Well this is the year of the woman in the Republican Senate let me tell you. And I'll tell you she's a rising star in the Republican Party Make no mistake about it. Please give a warm welcome on a cold day to the senator from Texas you I'm going to tell you something you know I'm from the South but I have never seen any better southern hospitality than I see right here in this room in New Hampshire. Thank you very much. And thank you for the delegation you send to the United States Senate. You
have two great ones and Judd Gregg and Bob Smith. And I especially work with Bob because he's on the Armed Services Committee with me and there is not a greater patriot in the entire United States of America than Bob Smith. Well I'm a freshman in the Senate and you know it's a little tough to learn your way around Washington and really understand this process that it came very clear to me one day when I saw a bumper sticker on the 14th Street Bridge and it said welcome to Washington D.C. a work free drug place. If you want to reverse that order Aleck's Bill Graham president of the United States of America. The difference between the Republican and the Democratic Party came very clear to me about a year ago when I saw President Clinton castigating
Republicans for stopping his programs and he pounded the podium and he said Republicans are just negative. All they can do is say no no no no no. So we asked America judge us by what we say no to the largest tax increase in the history of America over regulation no small business are United States troops being turned over to the United Nations and throwing out the greatest health care system in the world and replacing it with a massive federal bureaucracy. Thank goodness somebody saying no no no no no. So why don't we let Bill Graham president he's going to say yes yes to a balanced budget. Yes to a line item veto. Yes. To Congress living with the laws
that everybody else does. And yes for tax breaks for the American family let's elect a president who knows when to say yes and when to say no. That man is Phil Graham. Help me elect him and we'll get this country back on track. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much and thanks again to Charlie Bass for coming today. I just want to. Now I have I have a special privilege in introducing Senator Phil Gramm to you all. And in doing so I just want to say thank you very much to all of you. I know some of you have a difficulty seeing back there but this is such an exciting time not only for me but for all of us you heard Kay and the other senators this campaign I'm telling you it is energized and all over America. We just have we went to college station Texas Dallas Texas Columbus Georgia here today in Manchester New Hampshire and then off to Iowa Phoenix and
back to Washington. I'm telling you about 10000 people in College Station Texas. We had twenty eight hundred people in Dallas at a fundraiser. I don't know how many eight hundred or so at least in Georgia yesterday maybe a couple of thousand. Couple of thousand in Georgia. It's just been unbelievable. And let me just say this. Phil Graham comes from very humble beginnings like I did. He lost a dad his father he had a massive stroke and yet he became an invalid. And yet when Phil was two years old and at the age of 15 Phil lost his dad. He was he had a tough time getting through elementary school and he still became a Ph.D.. We met his mom yesterday down in Columbus Georgia what a great lady and a great American patriot. Just like so many of you all over the country patriots people who believe in their country who want to change the country. That's what I like about Phil.. When you listen to him. I know some of you are undecided. And that's the way it should be in New Hampshire. Take a stand when you're ready.
Don't support Phil Gramm because I say so or Kerry Hutchison or anybody else do it because you want to listen to the message from the man. We have to change this country and then lead it into the 21st century. I tell you Phil Gramm can do it. I served with him in the Senate. He's tough. He's sensitive but he's tough and he knows what has to be done and he'll do it and he'll tell it to you straight. He will not lie to you. He'll lay it right on the line he'll say this is what we have to do and be straight up about it now. Well in conclusion let me just say this. Thomas Paine talked about sunshine patriots and summer soldiers during the first American Revolution. We don't have any of them up here. We don't have any sunshine patriots and some are soldiers. We have soldiers who are ready to march for this mission to change the United States of America. And Phil Graham can lead it. Newt Gingrich and the Congress United States by getting the majority started it. We need a leader who's going to work with the Congress and get the job done. And I tell you Phil Gramm can do it now. He's got he's got the vision to
do it. He has the values to do it and I wouldn't be supporting him if I didn't think so. I do not take endorsements lightly. I take them very seriously. I thought long and hard about it. And let me tell you something this man can do the job in Washington. And what I'm asking you to do after you hear the message after you hear the message this morning if you believe as I do that Phil Gramm can do it then join with me and others shoulder to shoulder. Let's go from coast to the sea across the Merrimack River over to the Connecticut Valley and back and forth across this state the way the New Hampshire primary is supposed to be won. I'm the chairman in his state. It's a New Hampshire campaign with New Hampshire people and we're going to win it when New Hampshire people it gives me gives me more pleasure. It gives me more pleasure than I can ever tell you not only to serve you in the United States Senate. And it's an honor and I appreciate it very much and you all know that but it is indeed an honor to present
to you the man that I believe will be the next president of the United States. And we can make it happen right here next February. In 1996 Phil Gramm. Thank God. Back to you very very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I want to begin by introducing the most important person in my life and I can honestly say were it not for her that I would not be here running for president of the United States. Not that it's her dream it's my dream.
But without her help without her support I would not be here and her name is Wendy Lee Graham and I want to tell you just a short little story. When I was a young professor at Texas A&M I had a visiting colleague from Northwestern University who was one of Wendy's major professors when she was getting her Ph.D.. And so as she was sending him chapters of her dissertation it was passed around among our faculty and I read it and I was very impressed. And the more I kept talking to people from Northwestern The more I kept hearing about Wendy Lee. So we were determined we were going to convince her to come day in and teach. And so I went to New York to sit in on the interview. And so when the interview was over as she was
leaving I helped her on with her coat and I said as a single member of the family I'd be especially interested in you coming to Texas A&M. This was 1969 and she looked up at me and said yuck. Now the moral of this story is I don't always make a great first impression. But I went back into the room where we had interviewed her and I said we're going to convince her to come to Texas A&M and I'm going to marry her. And that was 25 years ago so unlike. Unlike the current occupant of the White House who makes a great first impression but doesn't wear well where well I also want to introduce.
My two sons my baby Jeff and my number one son Marshall. Thank you. Someone once said in no way can you get a keener insight into the true nature of a leader than to look at the people he surrounds himself with. I am very happy to have people in New Hampshire or people in America or people anywhere on this planet. Judge me by M. Thompson and by Bob Smith. In fact mail I was asked this morning if someone who talks the way I do could be elected president of the United States by winning the New Hampshire primary. And I said since male tops and I were
born in the same area of the country. Well I asked the greatest governor in the history of New Hampshire what he thinks all November the 8th the American people said to their government stop the taxing and stop the spending and stop the regulating. And because we have a Republican majority in both houses of Congress we are going to see that they are stopped. But our work is not finished. We are one victory away from changing the course of American history. We are one victory away from getting our money back and our freedom back and our country back. And that victory is a victory over Bill Clinton in 1992. Yesterday in my hometown in college station Texas and then in
Columbus Georgia city where I grew up in front of an elementary school where I failed the third grade I stood up and announce my candidacy for president and I'm running for president because I believe that if we don't change the policy of our government if we don't change it soon and if we don't change it dramatically in 20 years we're not going to be living in the same country that we grew up in. In 1950 the average family in America with two little children sent one out of every 50 dollars in earned to Washington D.C.. Today that family is sending one out of every four dollars in orange to Washington D.C. And just to pay for the programs we've already committed to that family is going to end up sending one out of every three dollars to
Washington D.C.. Bill Clinton looks at that trend and says Great less exhilarating. I look at it and I say it has got to be stopped and it has got to be reversed. And if you elect me president I will stop it and I will reverse it. The probability that a male child born in America in 1974 will be murdered is higher than the probability that a serviceman in World War II would be killed in combat over half of all the children born in our big cities today are born out of wedlock. And if this trend continues illegitimacy will be the norm in
America instead of the exception. I think that the frightening but inescapable conclusion of any look at where we are as a nation has got to convince us that we're either going to have to change the policies of our federal government or we're going to lose the American dream. I think there comes a point in the lives of families and businesses and even in the life of the greatest nation that the world has ever known. When you have to face up to your problems or you're overcome by them and the bad news is that America is at such a moment today the good news is we don't have a problem in America that we can't fix. The good news. Is. The good news is that as tough as the problems we
face as a people are there not any tougher than the problems you face in your family and your business. Every single day how many businesses represented in this room have had to make tough decisions just to keep your doors open. When we talk about the federal budget and balancing it what we have to do to balance the budget is to stop government spending from growing and freeze it at the same level for three years in a row that would be child's play to a lot of businesses that have had to make tough decisions. How many families in the town that your home town have had to make tougher choices than that when a job was lost or when a parent died. I mentioned yesterday in Columbus since my mom was there that on the day my dad was buried we came home and my mother sat us down around the kitchen table. I'm sure Bob
Smith had a similar experience and said we're going to have a lot less money and we're going to have to change our way of doing things. My mom will work double shifts. My brother bought all the groceries did all the cooking paid all the bills wrote all checks. Sign my report card. That was painful. I did all the yard work all the housework washed all the dishes I swore to God the day I went off to college I would never wash another dish but I washed the main dish. But the point is we changed we grew closer we grew stronger families and businesses have to change families and businesses have to make tough choices because they live in the real world. Our government has not lived in the real world for 40 years. And if I become president so help
me God that's going to change. Now. I'm not promising you that it's going to be easy to make America right. But I want to tell you this I believe that we need a leader who has the courage to tell people the truth about the problems we face. Who has the vision to find solutions to these problems that people can understand and believe in and who is tough enough to get the job done. I hope that roughly a year from today when you go to the polling places in New Hampshire to vote that by that time I will have convinced you that I am that leader.
And let me just touch on a few issues. I want you to know that if I become president we're going to balance the federal budget. As president I will make it my first priority to balance the federal budget. And I want you to understand that I'm serious about it. I will make it my first priority to balance the federal budget. And if I do not get the job done I will not run for re-election. And I'm going to balance the budget the way you balance your family budget and your business budget by setting priorities and where no is the right answer. I will say no.
I will look at everything the federal government does and I'll submit it to one test. Some of you have heard the test many of you have not heard it but by the time this election is over everybody in America is going to know this test. I'm going to submit it to the decie flat test decie flat who introduced me yesterday in College Station is a printer from the. He works hard for a living. He has a family business. He's open till 6 or 7 o'clock every weeknight 5:00 on Saturday. And whether you see him at PTA or the Boy Scouts of Presbyterian Church tries he may never quite get said blueing called the end to his fingers. You all know Dicky flaps not mine. But there are thousands of them hundreds of thousands of in New Hampshire. There are millions of them in America. They are the people that make this the greatest rich. Free as happy as country in the world. I will.
I will look at every program the federal government and I will think about the millions of decie flats in this country and I'll ask a simple question. Will the benefits to be derived by spending money on this program be worth taking that money away from the decie flats of America. And let me tell you sound. There are not a lot of programs that will stand up to that. But I'm not just interested in balancing the budget. I'm interested in cutting spending so we can let families spend more of their own money on their own children own their own businesses own their own future. Mel Thompson used to talking about talk he used to talk about axing the tax. I'm going to ax spending and then I'm going to axe the tax. The. Debate is not about how much money is going to be spent
on our children. The debate is not about how much money is going to be spent on housing and nutrition and education. The debate is about who is going to do that spending Bill Clinton and the Democrats want the government to do the spending. We want the family to do the spending. I know the government and I know the family and I know the difference. And if we're going to bet the future of America and don't have any doubt about it we are betting the future of America. If we're going to bet the future of America I'm going to bed it all in the family and not the governor. You know deep down Bill Clinton still blame society for crime
but if social spending prevented crime in Washington D.C. would be the safest spot on the planet. I will stop building prisons like holiday hands and make. And I will make prisoners work. I want 10 years in prison without parole for possessing a firearm during the commission of a violent crime or a drug felony. I want 20 years for discharging that firearm and I want the death penalty. When you kill someone. I want to put criminals in prison and I want to let law abiding
citizens have their second amendment rights. We do not have to live in a country where every morning we open up the newspaper only to read that some robber or rapist or murderer who's been convicted four or five times is back out on the streets and they've killed another child. I know how to stop that. Put them in prison and keep them there and that's exactly what I. Do. Welfare robs our families of their self respect and their pride. It drives fall those out of the household and it makes mothers dependent and I mean to change it.
I want to ask. Able bodied men and women riding in the wagon on welfare to get out of the wagon and help the rest of us pull. I want to stop giving people more and more money to have more and more children on welfare. And let me tell you why I want to change these settings because welfare hurts the very people it's supposed to be helping. It has denied millions of our fellow citizens access to the American dream. And if we really love them we've got to work to help them get it back. Throughout this campaign you don't hear me talk about the American dream. So let me try to define it right here. The American Dream is more than this
abstract idea that you could have a better chance in America than your parents had. All that your children are going to have a brighter future than you've had. That's the America we know. That's the America that is unique in all the world. But it's more than an abstract idea it's embodied in the histories of our individual families. My wife's grandfather came to this country to work as an indentured laborer in the sugar cane fields of Hawaii. His son my wife full my wife's full was the first Asian-American ever to be an officer of a sugar company in the history of Hawaii. And under President Reagan and President Bush when he served as chairman of the commodity futures trading commission where she oversaw and regulated all commodities in commodity futures including the cane sugar that her grandfather came to this country to
harvest so long ago. That's America. That's the America that I'm committed to. And that's not the story of an extraordinary family. That's the story of an ordinary family in an extraordinary country. And what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about saving the American dream it's millions of those stories that are still yet to be written. People are talking about what are we going to do about all these people who don't make great test scores. I don't know what kind of scores my parents would have made. I believe there's extraordinary ability in ordinary people. That's the principle on which this. Bill. United States can not be a passive observer of world affairs but
we can't be the world's policeman either. For this for the sake of our children and for the sake of humanity. We have to be the world's leader and to lead we have to be strong. And that's why I am committed to the principle that even in a world where the land and the lamb robot do lie down together America must always be the line. As president I will never send American troops into harm's way unless our vital national interests are at stake and unless our intervention will be decisive and I will never send American troops into combat under you and command. One out of every ten people in uniform and America
is from my home state and so you won't be surprised to hear that I have had the opportunity and privilege to try to console parents who have lost sons in the Persian Gulf and who have lost sons in Somalia and as the parent of two college aged sons I want to promise you today that as president I will never send your son or daughter anywhere in the world that I would not be willing to send one of my sons. In this campaign. I'm going to try to speak very clearly in simple words because I want everybody to understand exactly what I mean. I want everybody to know exactly how I feel in my heart. Neither
my parents graduated from high school but my mother had a dream before I was born that I was going to college. I didn't make it easy. I resisted. They kept trying to inoculate me with learning. I failed a third seventh and ninth grade. But it didn't make any difference. My mom prodded me every step of the way through college through a Ph.D. in economics because in the America I grew up being in the America you grew up in. Mothers dreams did not die easily in America. Too many mothers dreams or dying too easily in America today. And I want our America back. I want it back and I want to bring back the American dream for those of us who knew it and dreamed it
and lived it. And I want to share it with the people who missed it the first time around. Almost 3000 years ago a shepherd and a prophet in Judea named Joel told his people. Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. I do not believe that America is through dreaming and I want an America where families are limited only by the size of their dreams. I believe that America is worth fighting for and I believe that God with God's help we can and we will win that fight. Thank you very much.
- Producing Organization
- New Hampshire Public Radio
- Contributing Organization
- New Hampshire Public Radio (Concord, New Hampshire)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/503-st7dr2q195
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/503-st7dr2q195).
- Description
- Description
- John McCain, Paul Coverdell, and Kay Bailey Hutchison endorse Phil Gramm as a presidential candidate in 1995. Introduced by New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith, Phil Gramm speaks to a crowd about the republican values of his campaign and his electability. He specifically describes the ways he will balance the federal budget, the American Dream, and military reform.
- Date
- 1995-02-25
- Asset type
- Raw Footage
- Genres
- Event Coverage
- Topics
- Politics and Government
- Rights
- 2012 New Hampshire Public Radio
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 00:37:22
- Credits
-
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Guest: McCain, John, 1936-
Guest: Coverdell, Paul Douglas, 1939-2000
Guest: Hutchison, Kay Bailey, 1943-
Producing Organization: New Hampshire Public Radio
Release Agent: NHPR
Speaker: Gramm, Phil
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
New Hampshire Public Radio
Identifier: NHPR95125 (NHPR Code)
Format: audio/wav
Generation: Master
Duration: 10:00:00
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
- Citations
- Chicago: “Raw Footage: Presidential Candidate Phil Gramm in New Hampshire,” 1995-02-25, New Hampshire Public Radio, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 21, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-503-st7dr2q195.
- MLA: “Raw Footage: Presidential Candidate Phil Gramm in New Hampshire.” 1995-02-25. New Hampshire Public Radio, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 21, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-503-st7dr2q195>.
- APA: Raw Footage: Presidential Candidate Phil Gramm in New Hampshire. Boston, MA: New Hampshire Public Radio, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-503-st7dr2q195