[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 26 (Thursday, February 29, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H1622]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     KEEPING YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, nine Members of this distinguished House of 
Representatives leave for the Balkans, for Bosnia and several of the 
surrounding countries, in about an hour and 40 minutes. Although I was 
able to get to Germany over New Year's Eve and meet with the troops at 
several locations from the 1st Armored Division that are deploying down 
to Bosnia, I have been blocked, literally stopped, by Mr. Clinton 
through his gentlemanly Secretary of Defense on four different 
occasions, Christmas, New Year's, I repeat, I got as far as Germany, 
and twice in the month of December.
  I would love to be participating in the debate in South Carolina 
tonight for the honor of the Republican nomination for the Presidency. 
If they tear at one another's faces and despoil one another's 
reputations, my presence will be missed, because at every Presidential 
debate I have literally done everything but beg my worthy competitors 
to focus on, as Martin Luther King would say, ``Keep your eye on the 
prize,'' the Presidency on November 5.

  The 11th commandment of Ronald Reagan, and he generously offered it 
to the Democrat family, was ``Do not tear yourselves up.'' You can 
discuss issues and be substantive on that, but do not try to raise your 
opponent's negatives, because there are two unintended consequences: 
Your own come down, and then it depresses the overall voting.
  They were anxious to vote in New Hampshire, but in Iowa it was down 
to 17 percent participation. So I wish I could be there in South 
Carolina.
  It is not this trip to the Balkans, this promised trip that precludes 
me alone. South Carolina is the only State in the Union demanding over 
$1,000, which was the New Hampshire entry fee, to participate in their 
State primaries. They want $7,000.
  My younger brother, who is a junior high school teacher, he has got 
to tell all of his young men and women who dream about running for the 
Presidency some day that there is the entry fee in South Carolina.
  It appears that we have learned one thing in this Presidential 
season, that $25 million without a message does not get you very far. 
But a solid message like mine, that I have generously allowed all of 
the other candidates to appropriate, the message of faith, family, and 
freedom, and that GOP doesn't mean old anything, it means growth, 
opportunity and productivity, that those solid messages are not much 
good without some money.
  As our distinguished colleague in the Senate, Mr. Phil Gramm, said 
when he left the race, that he now goes back to his work in the Senate, 
my statement is simply I never left my work here, Mr. Speaker. I passed 
at least 12 Dornan amendments in the defense appropriations bill alone. 
We voted about 302 times more than the other distinguished body during 
the year of 1995.
  We never did recess. For the first time in two sessions, we simply 
went out of business on the floor here on January 3; constitutionally 
the second session started at noon January 3. So we were in session the 
whole year. We actually met in this Chamber about 45 times more than 
the U.S. Senate.
  I have no regrets watching the process from the inside out, making 
not a single money call. What was the sense of making money calls when 
I saw I could not compete on the ground, but only in the debate-
electronic war and trying to stay very positive with my colleagues at 
that.
  I look at my countdown watch, and I have seven on order to give to 
the remaining candidates, it says that the election is 250 days away 
and the inauguration is 326 days. From November 5 to January 20 is 76 
days. Mr. Clinton may get to feel the pain that George Bush felt when 
the voters rejected him after 4 years.
  Two-hundred and fifty days is an eternity. The Republican Party is 
not collapsing. Anybody can still win. There could be a brokered 
convention. Who knows what can happen and who will come in?
  But I offer this to my GOP party, growth, opportunity, and 
productivity; I offer this theme for the fall: Our team beats Bill's 
team. To build a team, we are going to have to do something historical. 
If this bloody infighting, this fratricide continues, we are going to 
have a very badly wounded standard bearer, and he is going to have to 
do something historical.

                              {time}  1645

  He is going to have to do not only more skillfully than what Ronald 
Reagan did, and that is name a Vice Presidential running mate. Reagan 
did that in 1976. It did him no good, because he named a moderate from 
Pennsylvania that nobody knew. I think our frontrunner is going to have 
to name five people, the Vice President and four Cabinet officers.
  I will close with their names: John Engler of Michigan; the gentleman 
from Texas, Mr. Sam Johnson, as Secretary of Defense; distinguished 
colleague, Colin Powell as Secretary of State, not Defense, State, and 
he will not get in trouble with domestic issues; a Treasurer that Wall 
Street and the common working man will trust and another colleague from 
here for 10 years, Dan Lundgren for Attorney General, the attorney 
general of our biggest State. That is the team. The front five. Our 
team beats Bill's team.

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