George H.W. Bush: “Thank you so very much. Let me start by thanking Tony. And lest some of you don't know it, he has done a first-class job…”

“Thank you so very much. Let me start by thanking Tony. And lest some of you don't know it, he has done a first-class job in this centennial year as president of the College Republicans. It is the best party on campus. And thank you all for this warm and enthusiastic welcome. Let me tell you something. Let me let you and the rest of the world in on a secret: I finish what I start. I am going to be reelected for 4 more years. You know, we've heard the drumbeat for change; we've even heard the saxophone for change. I have news: You and I, we are the change. You give us 4 more years and give us, hopefully, a Republican House and a Republican Senate and then watch the change, Republican style. You know, some have gotten so caught up in the moment that they've forgotten the hour, so caught up in changing course that they've forgotten where we're headed. I know where I'm headed, and I aim, with your help and with the help of the Congress, to lead America along to a future of good jobs, fueled by free trade, by low taxes. And I will keep on vetoing the Democratic tax bills that come down our way every day. We will lead to a future where families stick together and fathers stick around and to another American century, a world of hard-won peace and growing freedom. Some would say, ``Well, this is a tall order.'' They're right, and that's exactly because our vision doesn't ride on the next election, though, it rests on the next generation. In just the last 4 years the world as we've known it before is gone. Our mission for the next 4 years is to shape the next 40 years, and we can do it. I need your help in the fall elections. And the fall elections must be a referendum on some big ideas: what kind of economy we'll have in the future, what kind of families, and really it's this big, what kind of world. In America, blood, sweat, and tears have literally changed the face of the Earth, and American strength and determination have consequences. Look around the world. You don't hear one single thing about it in this strange campaign year, but it's your credit and ours and Ronald Reagan's and everybody that's gone before us. Let me tell you what to remind the critics. Let me tell you what to remind the critics and those who would have hacked away at our defense spending. Eastern Europe is free. Germany is reunified. Ancient enemies are talking peace in the Middle East. And our own hemisphere, look south of our border, is almost totally democratic. Imperial communism is dead and buried. And just last week, standing in the Rose Garden, a democratically elected President of Russia stood with me in the Rose Garden as we announced the most sweeping nuclear arms cut in history. That is a sound record to take to the American people. The doomsday clock and the bomb shelters and the nightmares of our children, they're folding out of the picture, and that's something to be proud of, that these kids tonight don't go to bed with the same kind of fear of nuclear war. Let's take credit for that change and take that case to the Amer- ican people. Let me just add this on the foreign side of things. While the world has become more free, it is less certain. The Soviet bear may be a creature of the past, and it is, imperial Soviet communism. But there are plenty of wolves out there, and you know who they are. This is no fantasy of some cold warrior; these are the realities of the new world. From where I sit as President, I can see, I can survey the situation. There are real differences here, and remember this one, real differences with our opponents. Come next November we're going to take it to the American people that America is safe but only as long as we remain strong. And as long as I'm President, we are going to stay strong. Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!”