George H.W. Bush: “Forty-four years ago, Barbara and I started out, out in west Texas, the Odessa-Midland area. I remember traveling across…”

“Forty-four years ago, Barbara and I started out, out in west Texas, the Odessa-Midland area. I remember traveling across that country to Wink and Kermit and Notrees and Andrews, places where parents worried and watched when a kid crossed the street; the kind of towns that sent those kids halfway around the world, from the DMZ to Da Nang and to Desert Storm. Barbara and I loved the rhythms of west Texas. You remember the Friday night football and Saturday picnics and Sunday sermons. We raised a family and built a business, made friends that have lasted us an entire lifetime. We worked hard. But when the work was done, we sat around the table late at night, and we talked, talked about report cards--same thing you all do--schoolyard fights, small things, big dreams. No matter what the other side says, America is still the land of dreams, dreams as vast and wide as those plains out there in west Texas. Our dream, our ideals, and our ideas have awakened dreams from Managua, to our south, all the way to Moscow. With faith in our people, we will reawaken those dreams right here in the United States of America. My opponent wants to protect the jobs of the past. And I have a plan to create the jobs of the future so that the sons and daughters of steelworkers and linemen can build their dreams. My opponent wants to change our schools, oh, just a little bit. And I have a plan to revolutionize our schools so that our kids can do as well in the science labs and math room as they now do in the swimming pool and out there on the basketball courts. My opponent, and Dan touched on this, ridicules or attacks me as we talk about family values. Well, let me tell you something: We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons. Now that I'm getting warmed up, let me tell you about another target that I'm going to get in the crosshairs. The Democratic leaders of the United States Congress don't like our ideas. They are the sultans of the status quo. They are the only people in America who could drive to work with a blindfold every morning because they've been going the same way, controlling that Congress for 38 years. Audience members. Clean your House! Clean your House! Clean your House!”