Speech by Patrick Buchanan Delivered at an evening rally October 26, 1995 in Seabrook, NH Transcribed from audiotape by Michaleen Driscoll and Mark Kuhn. Recorded by Joelle Hauck. note: Mr. Buchanan did not use a microphone to deliver the speech. When he turned his back to the recorder some of words became inaudible on the audiotape.
Mr: Buchanan: Thank you very much Mike [Mike Hammond, former candidate (R) for Congress] that was a great introduction. There is a man of real character and principle who ran a splendid campaign in New Hampshire and is one of your, I think ought to be one of your favorite sons. He has a tremendous future ahead of him in this state and I appreciate the fact that he has stood by me as long and as uh eloquently as he has. Now let me introduce now as is my custom, the individual that I intend to nominate to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton. [indicating Mrs. Buchanan] [laughter and applause] Well Listen, I want to talk to you tonight and it's wonderful to be over here in Seabrook and over on the seacoast. I guess this is our first, second trip over here in this campaign. We came over a big hill[?] the last time. And I want to start off by talking a little bit about our campaign and where we're at at this point in the campaign. As you know, when we start off and I happen to have a story. A member of the Associated Press said, "Pat are you serious about this running for President?" And I said, "Am I serious? Let me tell you what I've done. I've given up my position opposite the legendary Michael Kinsley on Crossfire. I've given up my radio show on 160 stations. I gave up my syndicated column. I've even given up my book contract." I said, "It's not as big and impressive as Newt's, but I gave it up. What does that tell you?" "Well Pat, that gives me my lead, `Unemployed, angry white male may seek Presidency." [laughter] Well I'm not angry. As a matter of fact, we're feeling very good these days. But I am I am unemployed and I'm looking for work and I've got a job in mind. Now, but let me tell you how this campaign is going so far. When we started off we were very far back in all the polls. But we've been moving gradually through March and April and May. Come August we ran third with 18% in the Iowa straw poll. Only six points behind the leaders. Five national polls since then have put us in number two position nationally. We're number two in New Hampshire. We got the endorsement of the great Manchester Union Leader up here. [applause] In a recent in a recent straw poll in California, the day after Pete Wilson pulled out, the state Republican convention, we came in first with thirty one percent of the vote. [applause] Now what now why are we doing as well as we're doing. Let me give you reasons why I think we are. First, even my critics in Washington, and there are some there, they will tell you that Pat Buchanan is a man who means what he says and says what he means. If you agree with him or disagree with him he's someone you can trust. He's someone who will speak his mind. He's someone who doesn't mince words. He's someone who does not tell you one thing on Monday and then go back and vote another way on Friday. But I think that's the reputation we have because we've earned it. Now let me give you some examples. I think the race is coming down right I might mention, I think it's coming down to Phil Gramm, Bob Dole and Pat Buchanan. One of the three of us is going to be the Republican nominee. One of the three of us is gonna come out of this state as the authentic conservative running for that nomination. And you folks are going to make that nomination. Now let me tell you why I think I'm the one that merits that nomination over my friends with whom I've worked for many years, and know very well. For example Phil Gramm sat beside me on Crossfire a number of times against old Kinsley. Bob Dole, I used to write speeches for Bob Dole when I was in Richard Nixon's White House. He won't admit it, but I did. Mr. Nixon told me I had to do it. When Bob was with the RNC. But here's the difference. I think they have been really all over the lot. They have been on one side of the issue and on the other side. They talk one way today and voted another way the next. For example, back in 1990, when George Bush remember broke his pledge, raised taxes, imposed on the American people. Phil Gramm engineered that tax deal with Richard Darman at Andrews Air Force Base and endorsed it outside the White House. Eventually he slipped around and voted against it. Bob Dole voted for it. Now what did I do. I came into New Hampshire and ["took on" or "found"] the President of my own party and said, "It was wrong to raise taxes when you pledged you wouldn't" and said "It was wrong to raise taxes in a recession." And alone we came up here and had the support of folks like you, for standing up for what we believe, giving up our career to do so. That's wonderful. Another example is this issue of right to life. Now, they all talk that they are very pro-life, they say, "I've got pro-life records. I'm solidly pro-life, we all are." Let me tell you, in 1993, Bill Clinton nominated to the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ACLU activist, pro-choice feminist. I fought against that nomination. Not only did Bob Dole and Phil Gramm not fight it, they voted for her. They voted for her. Then they turned around and voted for Stephen Bryer, for the Supreme Court. And because those two justices are on the court, Roe v. Wade is locked in, for several more years, until we can get some new nominees. So what I'm saying is, when the crunch came, they didn't vote pro-life. We're talking pro-life now and we stood our ground. Let me give you my word. [Applause] I'm gonna give you my word, which can be trusted. I've been fighting these battles for life for twenty-five years. I wrote Richard Nixon's speech denouncing Roe v. Wade long, long ago. Let me give you my word. If I go to that, I'm going to that convention in San Diego to keep this party pro-life. I will pick a pro-life vice president and I will be the most pro-life president in the history of the United States of America bar none. [Applause] Now there's areas where I think that we have led, we've shown leadership and we've been out in front of the crowd and we've taken the position that was right, when it was not popular, to be right. But there's other areas, where I've got my disagreements with Phil Gramm and Bob Dole. And that is I fought NAFTA and I fought GATT and I fought every single ...[Inaudible because of applause] [Applause] Why are we against NAFTA? Well let me tell you a story. When we opposed NAFTA, they had all the ex-presidents of the United States before, all the ex-secretaries of state, the entire staff, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Heritage, everybody was for it except Ross Perot, Ralph Nader and Patrick Buchanan. And Wall Street Journal said, "That's the Halloween coalition." It can't be effective and we fought it and we almost beat it. But we've been proven right, because since then what's happened? Our trade surplus is gone. We have fifteen billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico, 300,000 lost American jobs, illegal immigration is soaring, cocaine's pouring across the border, primary source, Mexico. In addition to that Mexico, devalued its peso, came to Washington, said, "We need fifty billion dollars to pay off your banks or we're not going to pay them." [Audience: "mmm"] So Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, all of them got together and sent fifty billion dollars down to Mexico. They took Citibank, Chase Manhattan off the hook, put you and me and your children and grandchildren on the hook for fifty billion dollars. You're not going to see that money again [inaudible] that's what's wrong with NAFTA. Something else is wrong with it, what are we doing forcing American workers to make under eight dollars and hour ten twelve dollars an hour. What're we doing forcing them into dog eat dog competition with Mexican workers for factory jobs. That's why all our factories are moving down there now. All over America you see them closing down. You go up to where my mother grew up in the Lamond [sic?] Valley in western Pennsylvania. They're ghost towns up there now, because we've allowed the unfair trade deals to be imposed upon us. America's prosperity, the factories and the future is exported to Asia because they're willing to work for seventy-five cents an hour in Indonesia, twenty-five cents in China. Hard working people, and these big companies take all the jobs over there. And I'm gonna put a stop to that. I'll tell ya what I'm gonna do, my objective is to bring those jobs home to America and get the standard of living of American workers and American families rising again. The way it used to do, in the 1950's when we were growing up. Let me tell you one more reason I'm against these, these deals, these trade deals. Everyone of them involves a surrender of America's national sovereignty. Surrender of our sovereignty institutes what I call...[inaudible]. When we signed on, a gathering was proposed, we agreed to abide by the dictates of a world trade organization, the UN world trade, supreme court of world trade, where America, the greatest country in the world gets one vote out of one hundred-twenty. Our vote can be canceled by Fidel Castro. Our founding fathers gave the authority over foreign commerce to who? Congress. They didn't give it to anybody in Geneva, Brussels or London. What was the American Revolution about, if not, why did these men stand up in Concord and Lexington to the British. Why did they tell them, "Get out of our country and get out of our continent and we'll fight you to the death?" Why did they stand up against the greatest army and empire in the world? So that we would be sovereign and independent and free. When we agree to disagree, we Americans would make our decisions about our destiny right here. What are they doing in Washington selling America's sovereignty in trade deals? For that New World Order? Look how far we've gone, look how far we've gone. You know, those sixteen young Americans were shot down in Iraq in a friendly fire incident by American fighter pilots. When the bodies of young men and women were brought home to the United States, the Vice President of the United States said the parents of these young Americans should be proud, they died in service of the United Nations. [Audience, scattered "No, no."] They didn't take an oath to the United Nations, they took an oath to you and me, to the Constitution, to the United States of America. And when I get to the Presidency my friends, never again will young Americans be sent into battle except under American officers and to fight under an American flag. [Applause] I'll tell you something else, we're not gonna have any more of these dingbat conferences in Beijing. [Laughter and applause] That's all done for. I saw on television, Bella Abzug, she was red faced and bellowing in the face of this Chinese Communist guard who had sunglasses on, he was looking at her and I sat down and said, "No way we could lose this fight." [Laughter] So this is what I'm talking about when I talk about the so-called New World Order. And people tell me what exactly do you mean? Are you into some kind of conspiracy theory? And I say, "Listen, here's what it means to me," And it is a very poignant story and it's a story about something that occurred in the party before I announced for President. I had a friend come over and he'd been with me in 1991 and he's a nice guy who's all for me, he's more for me than I am. He's terrific, you know these guys that pat you on the back when you're down you did a great job and you know you didn't do a great job. So I said, "How ya doing? He said, "Good." I said, "Good to see you." I said, "Say what's that bracelet you got on?" He said, "It's one of those POW/MIA bracelets." I said, "You still wear it? I remember everyone used to wear them years ago." Said, "Let me see it." So he took it off and I said, "Where did you get this? Because the name on it is Captain Humbert Versace." Only I knew Rocky Versace and here his name was on this bracelet. I had gone to high school with him, he was a very tough kid. He was a year older than I was and he had a reputation for being a tough, wild kid. And he had joined the army and become a Green Beret and had gone to Vietnam in `63. And he had been captured in the jungle with another veteran, another officer. And the other officer escaped and they took Rocky out and they executed him. And I knew that. Because when I was in (inaudible) as a young journalist it came over the AP wire. Captain Humbert Versace was executed, the Vietcong were proud of it. They said, "We got an American war criminal we shot him." Now, I had that bracelet, so five weeks ago I pick up a newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. A little teeny item says the World Bank, whose loans you and I guarantee, the World Bank has just lent Hanoi 265 million dollars. Which means Rocky Versace's mother is guaranteeing loans to the regime that murdered her son. ... [Inaudible] That's why I have said that I raise my hand to take that oath of office, that New World Order comes crashing down. [Applause] That's what this campaign is all about It's all about restoring traditional values of the right to life in the proper place in the hierarchy of American values, where they belong. That's one idea. Another is we gotta start concerning ourselves about what's happening to American workers and American families. Now the Japanese Prime Minister, he goes to a trade conference, he's not looking out for us, he's looking out for Japan first. We need a President who looks out for America first. [Applause] You know this, Prime Minister, named Hashimoto, he showed up there and he just cleaned the clock with Mickey Kanter our trade representative. They had this big phony war and Hashimoto said, ""Yeah we promise to do better," and they all laughed. You know why he was laughing? Because in the last twenty-five years, Japan's bought 400,000 American cars and they sold us forty million. And Hashimoto said, "I like that just fine." [some laughter] Now I understand Mr. Hashimoto, I don't understand us. I don't understand why we Americans, sit still for that. And I'll tell you, if I'm President of the United States, which I think I'm gonna be, I'm gonna call Mr. Hashimoto, into the oval office. Say, "Mr. Hashimoto, you got a new kind of American here, we don't trade a horse for a rabbit. [Audience member "yeah"] Not in the Buchanan Administration. Now you're going to straighten this trade deficit out, or I'm gonna straighten it out. Because you're not doing this next twenty-five years to us what you did the last twenty-five and that's period, paragraph. So go back and do your homework, or I'm gonna have something imposed on you in the next sixty days. We gotta get tough if we want to not continue to export the future of America's young. That's what we're doing, all these manufacturing jobs. We got a 200 billion dollar trade deficit in merchandising goods. Do you know what that translates into? According to Mickey Kanter's own standards, which is one billion dollar in exports ...[inaudible] four million manufacture production jobs of ours have gone to Asia. And they say why do you think Asia's booming and we're so flat? That's why. So these are the ideas. We restore traditional values, we start putting America and Americans first. We keep our boys out of foreign wars where there's no vital interest in the United States invading. End foreign aid and start thinking about the forgotten man. [Applause] These are the ideas that separate me from Phil Gramm and Bob Dole cause they voted on the other side of the ball room, they voted repeatedly on that side. They're all for GATT and NAFTA, foreign aid and they voted for GATT, all those things. And I think we're emerging as the authentic conservative and let me tell you one final reason why. Who is the most liberal person in this race, Arlen Specter. Who is Arlen Specter attacking on? Who does Arlen Specter want to debate? He wants to debate me. Arlen says he's coming after me. [Laughter] Let's go Arlen. I said listen Arlen, I'll debate you but you gotta get higher in the polls, boy. [Laughter] I said, "You're at one percent and the national polls have a three-percent margin of error." There's a possibility Arlen Specter doesn't even exist. [Laughter and applause] That's what this campaign's all about. Let me tell you, you all are very positive you're going to pick the next President of the United States. Very positive. I' gonna be out there in Iowa, I'm just getting acquainted now, we're doing very well. It's no doubt that I'm probably second, probably third out there. If I can come out of there strong, and I can come up here to my home country, of New Hampshire, and you folks will say in effect, this is the authentic conservative boy that chased Dole to the nomination. I will not only chase him, I will beat Bob Dole. We'll take Phil and Bob out there to Arizona a week later, we'll leave em right there in Kansas. [Applause] That's when the real work begins. We go about sending Bill and Hillary back to wherever they sent poor Joycelyn Elders. Thank you very much. [Applause] I want to thank you all for coming out, you got, I'm sure we got a couple questions here that you all brought with you to our, our town meeting rally.