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sweet. answers. which out good. crowd.

oh. there. good morning. i'm state senator joe schwartz. i'm the chair of the mccain for president committee in the state of michigan. i'm the one. i'm the one member of the michigan senate. we now have a member of the michigan house who broke with john engler and said this man to be the next president of the united states. now, now, even though some of

you may think that was an act of bravery, i want to introduce to you another gentleman who did another act of bravery just this week, came out so part of it, senator mccain, and is with us in the long haul, gary gary bauer. thank you. thank you. thank you very much. thank you. thank you. you're a great sight for sore eyes. i know how happy the senator and cindy are to see you here. i don't want to talk to you about policy, but a lot of people are asking me why would a reagan republican like me endorse senator mccain, given all the things that are being said about him that you and i know are untrue? i'm not going to talk to you about policy to answer that question. i'm going to answer the question this way. how many of you have ever been to the vietnam memorial? raise your hand. okay, you know that that is one

of the most unique places in washington, d.c., because you all have taken ownership of it. every morning, rain or shine, americans like you come to that memorial and you leave momentos at the base of it. maybe an american flag or a tears stained handkerchief or single rose. and every night the park police collect all that up and they lovingly stored away. and tomorrow morning, the process will begin all over again. those things at the base, the memorial are the permanent things of family and freedom. my friends, the names on that wall. those are the names of men that god has given america from the very beginning. at concord bridge and the beaches of normandy at porkchop hill, a caisson and danang blood of our blood, flesh of our flesh. they paid the ultimate price for liberty on every major issue

facing our country on every major issue facing our country, cleaning up washington, restoring the family, welcoming our children into the world on all of those issues, racial reconciliation. we can solve them if we bring the same sense of sacrifice, peace that the men whose names on those walls brought to their great calling. that is the same calling john has had. he knows those men. he knows what sacrifice means. it's not theoretical for him. he suffered for the country. he will fight for the country now. he will clean up our politics. he will make you proud to be an american again. and that's i endorse tend to be president. i want to introduce to you another great senator who will say a few words about senator

mccain. senator fred thompson of tennessee. and let me tell you all that i'm looking forward to seeing you again at john's inaugural in january. thank you very much. now i know how we're going to win is what's going on right in this room today. well, thank you. thank you very much for what you're doing for your country. and thank you for being here today. i have the privilege of sitting next to john mccain on the floor of the united states senate. i have watched him and i have of his 17 years conservative, good, solid voting record. but i've also noticed that every once in a while, when he's in the minority, he and he believes in something that is right, he's not afraid of the fact he's a minority. he'll stand for it.

he'll stand against those strong winds no matter how much they. and you know what? that that sometimes poses a threat to the establishment, an establishment doesn't like that. and now they're throwing everything in the world, every thing in the world against john. but, you know, no matter what they say, what they do, it's not the toughest thing. john ever faced before. i guarantee you that. i have been so proud, so proud of what he's doing and the kind of campaign he is running and the fact that he is turning on a new generation of americans to our political process. and that's evident out here today. so without further edit, i want to introduce you to my friend and the next president of the

united states, john mccain. thank you. thank you. oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. thank you. thank you for this very warm and enthusiastic welcome. thank you. it's wonderful to be back in michigan on this wonderful arizona day. and i thank you so much. and, you know and you know, we took a punch yesterday, but we get up off the floor. i've gotten up off the floor. i've taken a punches. i've crashed a few airplanes. i spent i spent a couple of years in a hotel where there was no men on the pillow. and i'm telling you right now,

my friends were fired up and we're going to win here in the state of michigan. and. and if you want if you want the government back that's been stolen from you by the special interests and the big money people and a system that george bush wants to perpetuate, then you're going to vote for me and you're going to get our vote out. you're going to get it from. first of all. first of all, i'd like to thank senator joe schwartz, a great and courageous american one, who when joe when joe signed up with me, he didn't have any problems at all because because of the angler machine, he just had to hire somebody to start his car in the morning. other than that, he was he didn't have a problem. all my dear friend gary bauer.

look, my friends, the one thing that. the one thing that gary bauer could have done in this campaign after running an honor of all decent, admirable campaign for president united states, the one thing gary bauer could have done is sit this one out. but he saw what was being done in south carolina. he came to my aid. i am proud and honored to have gary bauer as my friend and my advisor. and now we get to fred thompson. well, he's a wonderful, wonderful senator, my dear friends. i'm so proud of him. but he's a lousy movie actor. don't you agree? don't you agree, really? i mean, really, in fact, i had one of the most embarrassing and humbling experiences of my life a couple of years ago. fred came over to came over and stayed with cindy and me over in arizona. we walked. we had a errand to run. we walked in this convenience store and in in arizona.

okay. a lady behind the counter says, oh, my goodness, i saw you and hunt for red october. another person come running over and another person came running over. but fred thompson is surrounded by my constituents. as they are seeking his autograph, posing for pictures. and where am i? chopped liver. i am never i am never inviting fred thompson back to the state of arizona again. i can tell you that right now. and he is a lousy movie actor, i admit it. admit it. how many how many times have you seen him as director of the cia? huh? i mean, really, really. so i won't belabor him any more. he's a dear and wonderful friend and a person by the way, who who is of great stature and tried to conduct an investigation to find out about one of the most scandalous episodes in the history of this country. when all this chinese money came into that campaign in 1996, it was a disgrace to our nation. now i'd like to introduce to you

the mother of our four children, megan 15. jack 13. jimmy, 11, and bridget, eight, the person they say, why isn't she the candidate? cindy mccain that i liked in addition to him. couple, three, about three years ago, cindy was out of town on the day, on the occasion of opening day, a school for our children. she was on a medical mission. i was required to take the children to opening day of school. i did that. i got all four to their classroom. i'd rather partial legislation than do that again, and i got them all to their i saw their signs, their parents coffee. i went down, i had this cup of coffee and this nice young woman came up to me, said, oh, senator mccain, that's so nice of you to come to opening day of school with your grandchildren. i was not amused. was not amused. i've never been back to opening day of school and i will not by

the way, i want to again want to thank all of you for being here. i noticed that there's some great americans here who have wonderful, wonderful literary taste that are carrying copies of my book. please don't hold that book up. please. please don't do that. please, please. i wouldn't want to hype this book. it's 2495. random house available at your local booksellers. please don't do that with by the way, we we sold the movie rights to this book not long ago and i was on one of the programs. i was on when i was on one of the programs. sam donaldson said to me, he said, senator mccain, you sold the movie rights to your book. i said, yes. he said, who's going to play you? i said, i want i want tom cruise. my kids want my kids want danny devito. so we're going to find out who it is. i'm very pleased. we've been as part of being a bookstore. i got to tell you, one more star. i started selling books. you go to book signings, you go to various events. about four months ago, i was on the jay show. not bad for an old geezer. not bad. yeah. and so i'm in the dressing room,

get my makeup on, takes longer and longer to do that. by the way, mr. leno comes in. i said, mr. leno, so thank you for having me on your program, because my 15 year old daughter, my 15 year old daughter will really, you know, perhaps think that i'm a pretty neat guy because of this, you know. so he had a cell phone. so he called up. he said, what's your phone number? and dialed up our home in phenix, arizona. my daughter megan answers the phone. he says, hi, megan, how you doing? this is jay leno. she says, dad, we are. stop fooling around. you know, you're still to this day anyway. i won't i won't go further. but anyway, as book signing up, we went to atlanta last sunday. 2000 people were there with what we're in book signing in columbia, south carolina, a couple of nights ago, 900 people came to have their books on. it's wonderful. and the wonderful thing about it is, is that so many veterans come are our desert storm veterans, the desert storm, a couple of desert storm veterans came with pictures of themselves on iraqi tank. our korean war veterans, our vietnam war veterans, especially our world war two veterans, many

of them pictures of themselves and my father and my grandfather. it's very touching, very moving, very emotional. these encounters i've been having and my friends there, some good things been happening in america. and one of those really marvelously things is that we are now appreciate the service and sacrifice of our particularly of our world war two veterans. thanks to tom brokaw's book. thanks. thanks to tom brokaw's book, the greatest generation, which has sold 5 million copies. thanks to the movie saving private ryan. i hope every young american sees that movie at the right age so they can appreciate what these incredibly brave generation did. that's the good news. the bad news is the world war two veterans are leaving us at 30,000 every month. and the national disgrace and shame is that we're not giving them the health care and benefits we promised them. and it's a national disgrace.

and i promise you i will fix that problem. i promise you i will fix that problem as president, united states. if we're going to ask if if we're going to ask our next generation to serve and sacrifice. i don't see how we can do that if we've not fulfilled our commitment and promise to them. i want to talk about one more problem with the military very quickly. we have a president. united states has conducted a feckless photo op foreign policy. wherever there's a problem, he sends american troops. you got a problem in haiti? send 20,000 american troops, spend a couple of billion dollars. haiti is arguably worse off for the experience. peacekeeping mission in somalia turn it into warlord hunting. and then we watch the by the onto our television screens the bodies of americans being dragged through the streets of mogadishu. this is the first in the administration in history that has a president, united states, a secretary of state and a secretary of defense none of whom ever spent one minute

wearing the uniform of the armed services, the united states. that's going to change, my friends. that's going to change change. it. the other disgrace is the way that we spend your tax dollars on defense. the president in the states doesn't seem to care. the congress, the united states finds it a way to pork barrel spend, an earmark congress. the united states views these money bills for defense the same way that willie sutton used to look at banks. the fact is the fact is they pork barrel, they earmark. we're going to spend $235 million this year for a helicopter carrier. the navy says they don't want or need every pork barrel project you can imagine. meanwhile, and that's bad. okay, that's bad. but what makes it so disgraceful? so disgraceful is that we have 12,000 enlisted men and women in the military proud, brave young men and women that are on food

stamps. that's a disgrace. there will be no food stamp army when i am president. united states, i promise you that. i. i want to tell you why i want to be proud of the united states. i'm running for president. united states. cindy believes i'm running for president. united because i received several sharp blows to the head while i was in prison. now, i don't agree with that. i don't agree with that at all. in fact, it makes me lose my temper when i hear that. but but. but the reason the reason. the reason reasons why i'm running for the united states is i want to reform government, want to reform education so that every parent in america has the same ability that wealthy parents do, and that is to send their child to the school of their choice in their neighborhood. i mean, education is obviously key to the future of this country. and i believe that we need to

make significant and fundamental changes in order to give every child in america the opportunity to take part in this incredible and formation technology revolution and prosper. ready we're entering into i want i want. i want to i want to reform the tax code. the 44,000 page chamber of horrors for average citizens. that's a cornucopia of good deals. for special interest. every time we pass a bill in congress, we put in a special deal for a special interest. that's a disgrace. and i want to reform the military, as i told you. now i want to talk to you about social security. we've got to reform social security. okay. now, there was a poll not too long ago that showed that more young americans believe that elvis is alive than believe they'll ever see a social security check. now, elvis has been spotted several times here in michigan. so but the point is, we've got to make it solvent. i want to take 62% of this

so-called surplus. i want to put it in the social security trust fund, which is 5 to $7 trillion underfunded. and then i want people to be able to invest part of their payroll taxes and investments, of their choosing. and that's really what we need to do. governor, governor bush wants has not one new penny. no, one new penny for social security, not one. and my friends, unless we do something about it, we're going to be faced with two choices. one, either raise your payroll taxes or change the benefits, and we obviously don't want to do either one. the second area i want to talk to you about is what do we do with this surplus? i want to give working families a tax cut. i think that that's very important. governor bush wants to take 38% of this surplus and give it to the wealthiest 1% of the americans. i don't think that's necessary right now. well, i know that bill gates

needs a tax cut, but i want working families to get it. i want to eliminate marriage penalty. there's no reason why married people should get paid more. i want to i want to eliminate the earnings test where old geezers like me when they want to keep working, they pay more in taxes. we ought to eliminate that for benefit. for joe's benefit alone, we ought to do that. i want to i want you to be able to save your money and education, savings account, medical savings accounts and lots of others. but i also think that it's vitally important that we not only give working families, a tax cut, they need by taking the 15% tax bracket and moving it up up to $70,000 per year for a couple being in the 15% tax bracket. but we also need to save that social security need to pay down medicare and, we need to pay down the debt. the $3.6 trillion debt.

george bush. george bush has not one new penny in social security. we in medicare are paying down the debt. my friends, in good times, in good times, we take care of our obligations. we've got obligations to these next generation of americans and we ought to take care of social security, medicare, and paying down the debt along with giving a tax cut to working americans. and right now, not worrying too much about the top wealthiest 1% of americans. i think that's what we ought to do. i have there's a question about who's the reformer, about who is a reformer. i'm proud of my record of reform, proud to have fought pork barrel spending after day. that's why i wouldn't miss congeniality every year in the united states senate, i identify these pork barrel spenders. i put them up on a website and i'll tell you when i'm president, united states, if they continue to pork barrel spend and there's enough of it that they override my veto, my

friends, i'm going to make them famous. i'm going to make every one of them famous. you may you may have heard you may have heard that last fall we passed the most in the in the view of the citizens against government waste, the most outrageous pork barreling spending bill in history. and that we spent the $14 billion surplus. we spent billions of in the name of an emergency. let me tell you how bad it was. they called an emergency. they'll do budgetary gimmicks. they put $4.5 billion called in emergency to be used to conduct the year 2000 census. in other words, we didn't know that the year 2000 was arriving. i mean, it was it was an incredible and bizarre. i fought against it. i put them up on my website. i voted it against it. i railed against it. governor bush said he would sign it and support it, my friends,

unless governor bush can identify once spending cut one corporate welfare loophole, we would close. he cannot call himself a reformer. i'm going to i'm going to make all these all these reforms and i'm going to do it because we have in the order to make these reforms. we cannot do it unless we get the government out of the hands of the special interests and give it to you. that's what this business is all about. and i when i started this campaign and everybody said, you can't make room, there's no room in the republican party for reform. we made room. we made room. governor bush used to call himself compassionate conservative. now he calls himself a reformer with results, and soon he'll call himself a texan with tenacity. but the point is the point is, my friends, campaign finance reform is the heart of any

reform. in five years as governor of the state of texas, governor bush never made one proposal in a state where unlimited contributions are the order of the day, if governor bush is a reformer, i'm an astronaut and i look, we have to have campaign finance reform. we have to do away with this soft money. and let me tell you why. because young americans, young american are being alienated from the process. the 1998 election. and we had the lowest voter turnout in history of the 18 to 26 year olds. it was a disgrace, my friends. the real scandal, the real scandal in washington was the debasement of the institutions of government by the clinton-gore campaign in 1996. it was terrible. it was a disgrace. it was a scandal. ask fred thompson here. he'll tell you there was a connection between millions of dollars of chinese money and betrayal of american national security. it can't get any worse than

that. and my friends here, we had a president, united states a president united states that ran it out. the lincoln bedroom. the bedroom of our most wonderful president. he treated the lincoln bedroom like motel six. and he was the bellhop, the vice the vice president qualified to be a bellhop at the. that's the vice president. united states. the vice president. the united states. all right. i'll i'll let you talk in a minute. yeah. the vice president, united states went out to a buddhist monastery, a buddhist monastery, and he asked monks and nuns to renounce their vows of poverty, pay thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. so they could spiritually commune with him. and then he said he didn't know where he was. perhaps those folks. perhaps get crowded out here

anyway. perhaps those folks in saffron robes and all that incense might have given him a clue. but really, what was most outrageous then, the vice president, united states, goes before the american people, grips the podium and says there's no controlling legal that there was no controlling legal authority for all this these shenanigans all this this incredible debasement of the institutions of government. well, i want to tell you, my friends, i'm going to give him a controlling legal authority. i'm going to give him a controlling ethical authority. and then i'm going to beat al gore like a drum. and send him back to tennessee to spend time with clinton. and my friends. then young people would be proud of their government, and then i will be able to do what every great president in history has been able to do, and that is to inspire a generation of young americans to commit themselves to causes greater than their

self-interest. my friends, about about. last last may. russ feingold and i were given the john f kennedy profiles in courage award, and it was given at the kennedy library in boston, massachusetts. i am a proud conservative. i am a proud conservative republican. my 17 year record is conservative, and i am proud of that. but i'll tell you what, i went to that library and i watched jack kennedy speeches. he and ronald reagan had something in common. they could inspire young american eyes. franklin delano roosevelt had, that capability and my great and wonderful hero, theodore roosevelt, my great and wonderful hero had that. my friends. that's what this is all about. inspiring young americans changing our party. our party's lost its way. we've got to have a party of reform. we've got to have a party of inclusion. we've got to have a party that tells these young americans, look, we now stand astride the world as the most powerful

nation in history, both militarily and, economically. and you can take in this noble experiment, this we have the greatest opportunity to spread freedom and democracy. all over this world, where we can lift up the lives of our citizens and meet these close this growing gap between haves and have nots. dedicate yourself to your country and its cause that's what this party has got to be all about, not a party of exclusion, not a party of the special interests, not a party of these pork barrel in washington, d.c., we've lost way since ronald reagan was elected in 1980. and i'm going to bring us back. and i'm and i'm going to break this ion triangle in washington, this big money, lobbyists and legislation. i'm going to break it. and, by the way, that that iron triangle is fighting back thereafter me, i'm honored that the tobacco companies continue to spend hundreds of thousands

of dollars attacking me. i'm honored that these these these people that addicted children and lied to congress are attacking me. i'm honored by your opposition. tobacco companies. come on, come on down and all us, all you establishment people, come on after me. you guys are you guys. you tobacco companies are nothing. i've been taken on by experts, so let me just tell you, we're in this fight for the heart and soul of the republican party and america. and yes, do i do i think that we ought to have independents vote for john mccain? do i think we ought to look what's our party supposed to be all about? our party is supposed to be about america. and i want i want republicans as independents, democrats, libertarians, vegeta, aryans, and anybody else who flocks. and anybody else who will flock

to our banner of conservative pro-life principles and our conservative party that believes that we are the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and not for the special interests and the big money people in washington dc. i want to thank you all. i ask for your vote. i ask for your support. the message that you sent, look, we won round one. governor bush won round two. now we're in round three. and it's going to be here in the state of michigan. will win arizona. fine. the point is, though, we've got about 36 hours or 40 hours left. i need you to go out and call your friends. i need you to counter these negative ads. we've got two positive ads up on television. governor bush has two negative ads up on television reject this. reject this and get us get us the opportunity.

the opportunity which is the greatest that anyone can imagine in their life and that service to their country. i am fully prepared and fully qualified and need no on the job training to be the president. united states. my friend. before i close, i want to thank our honor guard. i thank you, my dear old friends. i thank for being here and thank you very much. i want to thank our veterans who have served so nobly and honorably. we raise your hands, my dear veterans, so we can thank you. thank you very much. can i thank all all of our people who are here? but i also want to thank the

young people who are here the young ones who have come. i thank you. and i god bless you for being here. because you're what this campaign is all about. you're really what i'm trying to achieve. and that is to motivate you to know that there are noble causes left this world, to know that the noble associated with serving your country's cause is something you will never experience except doing that. and finally, my friends, i want to thank all of you for being here. we got to do we look we're we're right tied in the polls going to be a close race. we got to get everybody out. and i want to finally end up, if i could, saying just telling you one brief story that i think is really what this campaign is all about, my friends in the town hall meeting that i had in new hampshire, it was at the plymouth armory. by the way, new hampshire is a very interesting place. a guy came up to me and said, senator mccain, this is the fifth town hall meeting of yours.

i have attended. i said, my goodness, that's ample testimony to my inability to close deal and my favorite one of my favorite guys was a fellow, by the way, we have a terrible sam lee problem in arizona, a real family problem that only you will really be able to help us out with. and here it is, barry goldwater from arizona, ran for president. united states marshal woodall from arizona. there's a great honan, mars, mark udall from arizona ran for president. united states. bruce babbitt from arizona ran for united states. arizona may be the only state in america where mothers don't tell our children that someday they can grow up and be proud of the united states. sure, you're going to have to fix that for me. my old friend mark udall said he walked when he ran in 1976. he walked into a barber shop in manchester, new hampshire and said, hi, i'm morris udall from arizona and i'm running for president united states, the barber said, yeah, we were just laughing about that this morning when i was at 3% in the polls. joshua hertz and fred thompson supported me.

that poll had a 5% margin of error. now these guys know something. these guys something fact. i think joe going to be on psychic friends network here if you're not so the woman stood up at this town hall meeting and she looked at me and she didn't have a question. she had a comment that i think really goes to the heart of this campaign, she looked me straight in the eye and she said, senator mccain, it is vitally important that the next of the united states always tell me the truth, no matter what. and. all my friends, my friends, i want to tell you, there are some things i'm going to that you agree with, and there are a few things i'm going to say you don't agree with. but i want to assure you, i want to promise you that based on my life, my principles and my experiences, based on the approval of friends of mine that

i serve with long ago and far away, i promise you, i always tell you the truth, no matter what. thank you and thank you out for being. and thanks very much. thanks for coming. now. last night there was a debate. and in order to kind of hide her

positionon