Jim Sensenbrenner: “I first met Ronald Reagan over 40 years ago when I was an undergraduate student at Stanford University in California. He…”

“I first met Ronald Reagan over 40 years ago when I was an undergraduate student at Stanford University in California. He and I and some others were involved in a primary election campaign for a United States Senator from California which proved to be very unsuccessful. But in the meetings that I attended that Mr. Reagan chaired, I recognized him as being a unique person with an uncanny knack to bring out the best in everybody. He certainly proved that during his subsequent career: two successful terms as Governor of California and two successful terms as President of the United States, leaving office with the highest approval rating of any departing President since Franklin Roosevelt. Look at the shape America was in when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. We went through a horrible decade of the 1970s. There was a Vietnam War, there was Watergate, there was Nixon's resignation, Gerald Ford's unsuccessful Whip Inflation Now campaign, Jimmy Carter's malaise, and long lines at the gas pump to buy 5 gallons of gas. When President Reagan took office, he got us out of our national funk. His Morning in America speech and his philosophy gave us as a Nation and as individual Americans the self-confidence to do what America has always done; that is, to achieve the ultimate dream, to overcome the impossible, and to have each and every one of us reach our highest and best.”