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Skriven 2006-08-16 23:33:06 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0608169) for Wed, 2006 Aug 16
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Remarks by the President at Lynn Swann for Governor Reception
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 16, 2006

Remarks by the President at Lynn Swann for Governor Reception
Lancaster Host Resort and Conference Center
Lancaster, Pennsylvania



5:18 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. (Applause.) Thanks for being here.
The people of Pennsylvania know that when you draft Lynn Swann --
(laughter) -- you get a man who performs. (Applause.) I know something
about being a governor. Here's what you need. You need somebody who tells
the truth, somebody who sets the people's agenda above political parties,
somebody who makes decisions based upon principle, not based upon polls or
focus groups, somebody who doesn't go around the state trying to become
everybody's friend, but somebody who goes around the state who is trying to
improve the lives of the people of the state. And there's no doubt in my
mind that Lynn Swann has got the characteristics necessary to be a great
governor of this important state. (Applause.)

And I'm proud to be here with Lynn and Jim Matthews. You know, one of the
interesting things -- I'll never forget, one time I was campaigning for my
dad in the '60s in Texas. And I went to a county courthouse on his behalf,
and it was empty. It turns out he was a Republican and they were all
Democrats. (Laughter.) It was my first lesson of how important it is to
stay in touch with the people who run the counties. You see, really good
politicians and smart people understand that county politics is where you
find the pulse of the people, and where you're able to do your best work.
And so it's a smart thing that Lynn Swann asked Jim Matthews, a man who
understands the county structure in Pennsylvania, to run on his ticket.
You've got vision and you've got experience side-by-side, which makes a
powerful ticket for the people of Pennsylvania. (Applause.)

I just had my picture taken with some of you, and about every fourth person
said, where's Laura? (Laughter.) What they're really saying, how come you
didn't send Laura and you stay at home? (Laughter.) Laura sends her love to
the Swanns. She is very fond of Lynn and Charena. She respects them like I
respect them. These are noble, decent people. They don't have to be running
for politics, see. They can be sitting, doing a lot of other things --
watching a football game, talking on TV

-- (laughter) -- helping people help themselves. They're great, charitable
people. They've got big hearts. But instead, they've decided to serve a
state they love and a people they love. So Laura stands with me in saying
to the people of Pennsylvania, you've got two really fine people in Lynn
and Charena. Put them in office, and you'll be proud of the job they'll do
for you. (Applause.)

It's good to meet Lynn's sons and Jim's sons. There's nothing better than
having a family by your side when you're running for office. This is a big
state you got here, and it takes a lot of work. And these candidates are
going to do the work necessary to get elected. I know they'll work hard.
There's nothing better than to come home to somebody you care for after a
hard day's work. And so when you're voting for a candidate, you're really
voting for a family, as well.

And I like people who put their families ahead of all else in life. I like
people who prioritize. (Applause.) I think it's going to be good for this
state to have a governor who sets the right priorities. It starts with
faith and family, and then you can get into politics. (Applause.)

I'm proud to be here with Congressman Joe Pitts. Joe, thank you for serving
the district with distinction. I'm glad you're here. I appreciate you being
here. (Applause.)

I just came from the district next door where they put me on a
Harley-Davidson. (Laughter.) It was a static display. (Laughter.)
Fortunately. (Laughter.) But that district is also represented by a person
of dignity and character, and that's Todd Platts. Congressman, thanks for
coming. (Applause.)

The attorney general -- you're going to need to have a good attorney
general by your side, Governor, and you got one in Tom Corbett. Thanks for
coming, General. (Applause.)

I want to thank Rob Gleason and Bob Asher and all who else are involved
with party politics. I want to thank those of you who have given of your
hard-earned money to help these folks. You can't run unless the people are
willing to contribute. That's just the way it is. And the fact that Lynn
and Jim have raised so much money tonight is a good sign. I want to thank
you for those of you who have helped organize this event, and thank you for
giving of your money. It really means a lot to them. I know. I speak with
firsthand experience how much it means to have people willing to
contribute.

And now you need to contribute your time. You need to go to your coffee
shops and your community centers, and your houses of worship, and you need
to talk to your friends and neighbors and let them know the quality of the
people that are seeking their vote. You need to let them know that these
two good men will do a fine job for the people of Pennsylvania. Getting
ready -- coming down the stretch here pretty soon, going to need you to put
up the signs and lick the envelopes and make the phone calls and knock on
the doors. They need your help. They'll work hard, but they can't win
alone. And so it's one thing to give of your money, and now I hope you give
of your time when they're coming down the stretch -- because they can with
this race. And when they do, Pennsylvania will be better for it.
(Applause.)

Not only do you have to have the character to serve in office, but you have
to run for a reason. There's got to be a compelling reason why you seek the
vote. And Lynn Swann has got compelling reasons why he'll be a good
governor for the state of Pennsylvania. It starts with his philosophy about
the role of government in the economy. He understands that governments
don't create wealth, that governments create an environment in which the
entrepreneur can flourish, or which the small business owner can grow
bigger, or which a person can realize their dreams by creating their own
company. That's the kind of governor you want. You want a governor who
understands entrepreneurship; a governor, when the small business person
looks out and says, that person understands my needs, and he understands my
concerns. And that means you have to have a governor who is willing to cut
the taxes on the people creating the jobs and doing the work. (Applause.)

He said, I know how to prioritize a budget. If you don't prioritize in
state government or federal government, they'll figure out how to spend
every single dime that they raise from you. But if you can get somebody to
prioritize, that leaves money for you to stay in your pocket, see. That's
how you end up cutting the taxes. You say, here's my priorities, here's
what I think is essential; and then with the money left over -- since I
recognize it's your money -- you get to keep it. It's amazing what happens
to the economy when you cut the taxes on the people who work. (Applause.)

I know him well enough to say to the people of Pennsylvania, when he says
he's going to cut the taxes by a billion dollars, you can take it to the
bank. (Applause.)

You know, one of the issues that hurts people a lot is property taxes.
People struggle to own their own home. One of the things we stand for is
ownership. We love it when somebody opens the door to the place they live
and says, welcome to my home; this is my piece of property. We stand strong
for the ownership society. It's harder to own a home when you're property
taxes are going up too high. It's good to have somebody running for
governor who says, I hear the problems you have when it comes to owning
your home, and I'll do everything I can to cut your property taxes, as
well. (Applause.)

I used to tell people this: Education is to a state what national defense
is to the federal government. Education must be the number one priority of
your governor. And it is the number one priority for Lynn Swann. See, one
of the reasons he's decided to run is because he's concerned about an
education system that's not educating every child. Sure, it educates some
children. But we want an education system to educate every child. And
here's our vision of how it's done.

First, you must have leadership that sets high standards. It's amazing what
happens when you have low standards. Guess what happens. You get low
results. It's what I call the soft bigotry of low expectations. If you
don't have high standards, you get lousy results, particularly in some
neighborhoods. And that's unacceptable to a person like Lynn Swann and me.

Secondly, you measure. You say to somebody, are you achieving the results I
expect? There's a justified role for that, as far as I'm concerned, in
government. The federal government spends a lot of money, about 7 percent
of the education budget around the country. I've said, since we're spending
7 percent, we'd like to see the results for the money we spent. Lynn Swann
says the same thing. He understands the primary driver of education in
Pennsylvania is the state. Therefore, he has got a legitimate right to say
to the educators, we like what you do, we stand squarely with you, but
please show us whether or not a child can read or write and add and
subtract early before it's too late.

There's a pitiful practice in some schools that say, you're too hard to
educate, we're just going to shuffle you through. It may be the color of
somebody's skin, or somebody's demographics that says to somebody, we're
just going to quit on you. That's not right. It's not good for
Pennsylvania. It's not good for the United States. You need to have a
governor who'll set high standards and hold people to account. And when you
find people learning to read, write and add and subtract, you say thank you
for what you're doing. But when you don't, you challenge the status quo so
no child is left behind in America. (Applause.)

I like his education plan. It's well-thought-out. It makes a lot of sense.
But most importantly, it's going to deliver the results for the families of
Pennsylvania. And it doesn't matter whether you're Republican or Democrat
or independent; these are results that affect all children. And that's the
kind of governor you need.

One of the things I learned when I campaigned here was that you had a
problem with your doctors -- like a real problem. As a matter of fact, I
was deeply concerned when I sat down at these roundtables with OB/GYNs to
find out what it's like to try to practice medicine in the state of
Pennsylvania. You can't have good quality of life if you can't find good
docs. And the truth of the matter is, many of your doctors are leaving the
state or quitting practice because of the junk and frivolous lawsuits.

Now, I understand something, that these trial lawyers are strong
politically. They're tough. And that's why you need a tough governor to
stare them down and say, for the sake of good medical care, for the sake of
availability and affordability of medicine, we've got to end these
frivolous and junk lawsuits that are hurting the people of Pennsylvania.
(Applause.)

Now, he's got the right platform. He's running on the right issues and he's
running for the right reason. He's a fellow that doesn't need to say, I try
to make myself feel better by being governor. He's had plenty of accolades.
(Laughter.) Just ask the Dallas Cowboy fans. (Laughter.) He's not running
for his ego. He's running because he wants to serve the people of this
state, and he's got a platform that makes a lot of sense. (Applause.) And
I'm proud to help him. I'm proud to help him. And I know you are, as well.

You know, we're living in historic times. These are difficult times for the
American people because we're in a war. We're in a war we did not ask for,
but in a war that we must wage and win, for the sake of our future
generation of children. (Applause.) Much of my thinking about the world
changed on September the 11th. I recognized on that day that we face a
threat, and that the responsibility of the federal government, working with
state government, is to do everything we can to secure the homeland and
protect the people. That's my most important job now. And it's the most
important job of a lot of other people, too.

I learned that we face an enemy that knows no bounds of cruelty. I
understand the nature of this enemy. This is an enemy that has an ideology.
Some people say, well, this may be a law enforcement matter. No, these are
people that are politically driven. They've got motives. They do not
believe in freedom. They don't believe in freedom of religion; they don't
believe in freedom of dissent; they don't believe in women's rights. They
have a backward view of the world. And yet, they want to impose their
vision on other people. That's what they're trying to do. And the United
States of America must never retreat and let them have their way.
(Applause.)

This is a different kind of war. Veterans of World War II and Korea would
tell you we were able to measure progress based upon miles gained, or based
upon tanks destroyed, or however people measured war in those days. This is
different. We're facing people with an ideology, but without a nation
state. Sometimes they have people sponsor them and help them, but this is
not a nation state. It's a different kind of conflict. And it's hard on the
American people, and I understand that. But we shouldn't let the
difficulties of facing this war force us to retreat from the world. If your
most important responsibility is to protect the American people, the best
way to do so is to stay on the offense and bring these people to justice
before they hurt us again. (Applause.)

A different kind of war requires a different kind of approach. It means we
better have good intelligence in order to be able to figure out the designs
of the enemy before they strike. Just last week, we had good intelligence
in working with our partners in Great Britain to disrupt a plot. I know
it's hard for Americans to believe this, but the enemy that attacked us
before has got people that want to act like them, are maybe taking
instruction from -- I can't tell you whether this plot we disrupted was al
Qaeda. I'm not going to say that unless I'm certain it was. But it's the
kind of activities that al Qaeda has done in the past, and that is to place
suiciders on airplanes to destroy innocent life, trying to shake the will
of the United States, trying to send a political message.

And so we've got to use new tactics, new efforts, new assets to protect
ourselves against an enemy that will strike us at any moment. This war on
terror is more than just chasing down people hiding in caves, or preventing
people from getting on airplanes to blow them up. The war on terror is
fought in many theaters, and the central front in the war on terror now is
Iraq. I say it's the central front because that's what the enemy,
themselves, have said, that they want to drive us from the region; that
they view it as the central front, as well. They've got objectives in Iraq.
They want the United States to suffer a defeat in Iraq. They want us to
retreat from Iraq. They want to create such havoc on our TV screens by
killing innocent people that the American people finally say, we've had
enough -- leaving Iraq before the mission is complete.

And the mission is to have a country, a free country that can sustain
itself, and govern itself, and defend itself, and serve as an ally in the
war on terror in the heart of the Middle East. That's the mission. And they
want us to leave -- (applause.) They want us to cut and run. And there's
some good people in our country who believe we should cut and run. They're
not bad people when they say that, they're decent people. I just happen to
believe they're wrong. And they're wrong for this reason: This would be a
defeat for the United States in a key battleground in the global war on
terror. It would create a -- leaving before we complete our mission would
create a terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, a country with
huge oil reserves that the terrorist network would be willing to use to
extract economic pain from those of us who believe in freedom.

If we were to leave before the mission is complete, it would hurt U.S.
credibility. Who would want to stand with the United States of America if
we didn't complete the mission, and a mission that can be completed and
will be completed? (Applause.) If we cut and run, if we don't complete the
mission, what would that say to those brave men and women who have
volunteered to wear the uniform of the United States of America?
(Applause.) If we leave before the mission is complete, if we withdraw, the
enemy will follow us home. (Applause.)

By defeating the enemy in Iraq, jihadists who try to spread sectarian
violence through brutal suicide bombings, jihadists who have declared
openly that their mission is to convert that country into a safe haven for
them to launch attacks -- when we defeat them, there will be a major defeat
for the terrorists. It will strengthen the spread of democracy in the
Middle East.

Look, our strategy is this: We will stay on the offense -- and we are. Any
time we get a hint that somebody is going to hurt us, we respond. And we're
keeping the pressure on the enemy. By the way, anybody who follows me
should always understand you must keep the pressure on the enemy;
otherwise, they will put the pressure on us. They still exist. It's
important to understand this is a global war on terror -- not an isolated
moment of law enforcement. This is the first war of the 21st century, and
the United States of America must lead that war. And we must be firm, and
we must be resolved. (Applause.)

We will stay on the offense so we don't have to face them here in the
United States of America. (Applause.) The way to defeat this enemy in the
long-term is to defeat their hateful ideology with a hopeful ideology; is
for the United States of America to understand the power of liberty to help
transform people's lives to the better, and the power of liberty to help
spread the peace that we want for our children and our grandchildren.

You know, when you have resentment and anger, that breeds hatred; that
breeds recruiting grounds for people to become a suicider. Imagine the
mentality of somebody willing to kill for an ideology that just doesn't --
is not hopeful, and yet I believe a lot of it has to do with the fact that
parts of the world breed resentment. And I believe that is due in part to
the nature of the governments. I believe a system of government that
encourages people to participate, and a government that says, we respond to
your will, ends up creating a hopeful alternative to resentment and hatred.

Our foreign policy in the past in the Middle East has been, let's just work
for stability; let us not care what the form of government is, let's just
make sure everything appears stable. The problem was that foreign policy
came home on September the 11, 2001. It didn't work. What looked placid,
what looked serene, what looked calm was not. Beneath the surface was this
deep resentment brewing that caused people to come and kill 3,000 of our
fellow citizens. The best way to defeat this enemy in the long run is to
spread liberty, is to give people the hope of freedom. (Applause.)

Isn't it interesting today that the most violent parts of the world are
where young democracies are trying to take root? Isn't it interesting that
Hezbollah would attack Israel, a democracy in the heart of the Middle East,
try to destabilize the Middle East so that Lebanon doesn't get to be a
strong democracy and starts to try to turn the world against Israel? Isn't
it interesting that the young democracy of Iraq is the place where the
enemy is trying to stop the progress? That should tell the American people
the following things: One, we face an enemy that has an ideology that can't
stand freedom; and secondly, as freedom progresses, it changes the world
for the better. Otherwise, the enemy wouldn't be trying to stop it.

And so, in the long-term, the United States of America must take the lead
in spreading liberty. And we've got to have great confidence that it will
work. I believe there's an Almighty and I believe in the heart and soul of
everybody is the gift of freedom from that Almighty. (Applause.) I believe
Muslim women, Hindu women, Christian women, Jewish women want their
children to grow up in peace and hope. I believe there is the universality
of freedom. And I know it works.

You might remember I recently went down to Graceland -- that's Elvis's
place -- with the Prime Minister of Japan. Wasn't that interesting?
(Laughter.) I thought it was. (Laughter.) More importantly, my guest
thought it was. He was an Elvis fan. I bet you, in 1949, 1950, if somebody
had stood up and said, you know, I bet one of these days an American
President is going to take the Japanese Prime Minister to visit the
heartland, they'd have said, man, you are nuts. (Laughter.)

It's interesting, isn't it, that the Prime Minister of a country with which
we had a mighty war, thousands lost their lives -- as a matter of fact, it
took us, I don't know how long, a decade or so to even get racial slurs out
of our vocabulary, because of the enmity that arose as a result of fighting
the Japanese. We couldn't stand them, and they couldn't stand us. And yet,
60 years after the end of World War II, George W. Bush flies on the
airplane with Junichiro Koizumi to go to Elvis' place. (Laughter.) And we
didn't spend much time talking about Elvis's place on the way down; we
talked about the peace. Isn't that interesting. A former enemy, the sworn
enemy of the United States, the leader of that country now sat down with
the President of the United States doing something that our forefathers
could not have possibly imagined -- that we talked about the peace.

Something happened between World War II and today, and what happened was
Japan adopted a Japanese-style democracy. Something nobody would have
thought as possible after World War II, except for Harry S. Truman and some
other people that had great faith in the desire for people to live in
freedom, and in the capacity to change -- for freedom to change an enemy
into an ally.

Some day an American President will be sitting down talking to a duly
elected leader of Iraq, talking about how to keep the peace. And our
children will be better off. (Applause.)

The stakes are high. But I clearly see where we need to go. And the stakes
are high in Pennsylvania, and Lynn Swann clearly sees where the state needs
to go. You can't lead unless you see the end result. You've got a man who
has got the vision, he's got the skills necessary to lead toward that
vision. He's the right man for the job. I'm honored to be with him.

I want to thank you all for supporting Lynn Swann and Jim Matthews. God
bless you all, and God bless America. (Applause.)

END 5:46 P.M. EDT

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