Mike Pence: Thank you for that. I’m Mike Pence, I’m from Indiana, welcome to the conservative comeback and the beginning of the end of the Pelosi Congress, CPAC 2010. Thank you David McIntosh for that grossly, over the top introduction. It is much appreciated. Thank you to the board, to Jed Babbin and the rest. I’ve got to be honest with you though, you know they say behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes, and my wife Karen Pence is sitting right there; 25 years this June. Give her a round of applause, will you please? I was really excited with this time slot, you know they called me up and said how about 11 a.m. Friday at CPAC for your address and I said man, that is great timing. You know in politics, really timing is everything. I was driving down the road yesterday and I heard the news that Tiger Woods would be addressing the nation at 11 a.m. Friday. Oh, perfect. You know, but you know there is hope, somebody beyond you good people in this room might see this speech. I mean I’ve got a Facebook page. And YouTube springs eternal.

What a difference a year makes. Last year at this podium I said that despite our defeats in 2006 and 2008 I believed we were on the brink of a great American awakening, but I had no idea. A year ago most conservatives were still sure of our principles but we were pretty uncertain about the future. I mean a year ago it seemed like there was only a remnant of the people in this country unbowed by the glamour and the appeal of the new American left. At CPAC 2009 we met under a seemingly unconquerable juggernaut of a one-party liberal government in Washington, D.C. I mean Barack Obama had 120 percent approval rating according to MSNBC. No seriously though, his approval rating was over 65 percent in all 57 states. Unprecedented Democrat majorities in both houses. An unchallenged liberal dominance in the media, our courts, our public schools our universities; it’s extraordinary. It was a force that seemed indomitable to everybody that didn’t know you; now look at you. Look at what you’ve done. You proved Thomas Jefferson right, the people are the ultimate guardians of their own liberty. Because of you, because of you the American people have been on the march to restore the timeless value that built this nation. A march that was first bugled by you right here in this room one year ago. The American people are on the march and they’re on the march to win back America.

And they took that march of freedom to historic elections in Virginia, in New Jersey and in the state formerly known as Taxachusetts we had a Republican member of the United States Senate because of you. As we say south of Highway 40, who’d a thunk it. Facing overwhelming opposition you stood firm and you inspired a nation. Because of you the question of American renewal is no longer if, it’s when. And your enthusiasm for freedom and limited government has been contagious. With your strong support even Republicans in Congress have returned to the fight for fiscal discipline and limited government. I mean really, three years ago Republicans didn’t just lose their majority, we lost our way. I mean when I oppose the members of my own party and my President on things like No Child Left Behind and the prescription drug entitlement, I warned them, sometimes right here at CPAC that if we walked away from the principles that minted our national governing majority the American people would walk away from us. And you did. But after a year that saw every single House Republican vote against the failed stimulus bill, every single House Republican vote against the budget busting budget and nearly every Republican oppose big government schemes in energy and healthcare, let me tell you from inside the building Republicans in Congress are back in the fight and they’re back in the fight on the right.

Now, some people around here like to call us the party of no. Well, I say no is way underrated here in Washington, D.C. Sometimes no is just what this town needs to hear. When it comes to more borrowing, the answer’s no. When it comes to more spending, the answer is no. When it comes to more bailouts, the answer is –

Audience: No!

Mike Pence: And when it comes, and when it comes to some healthcare summit that’s not any more than a photo op designed to pave the way for Obamacare 2.0 the answer is no.

Audience: No!

Mike Pence: Conservative Republicans are back. And willing to fight for fiscal discipline and we’re on the side of the American people. So this is what you did. You took the battles in Washington, D.C. to the streets of America. You marched to the airwaves of talk radio, to tea parties, to April 15, to town halls and to the National Mall on 9/12. Isn’t that something? Karen and I will never forget that day. I parked the car on the other side of the Capitol, it’s a Saturday morning, I figured there’d be maybe 10, 20,000 people out there. We come walking out of the west side of the Capitol Building and my knees locked. Karen reached over and gave me one of those honey, it’s going to be okay touches on the elbow things. I mean it was just amazing. The throng of Americans that I saw standing across the nation’s mall. Now I know the New York Times said there were a few thousand people gathered there that day, and Fox news channel said there were a billion. But as God as my witness, as I looked out from the west steps at that moment I saw a sight I’ll never forget, hundreds of thousands of everyday Americans gathered on the nation’s mall on behalf of limited government, personal responsibility and fiscal responsibility. Everything that made this country great.

Now Nancy Pelosi had a different view. Nancy Pelosi thought those people were un-American. Thought they were Astroturf. And when I looked out at that amazing throng I’ve got to tell you, those people looked like the Calvary to me. So we got a lot done. There’s a lot more to do. Men and women let me tell you, it’s only halftime in the locker room. We’re ahead on freedom’s scoreboard this year but there’s a lot of time left on the clock, and as my beloved Colts found out just a couple of weeks ago, you better be ready for an onside kick. And they might just be kicking to the right. Bottom line, this ain’t over, we cannot rest, we cannot relent and we cannot let up until we take the American Congress back for the American people. Men and women, we’ve got to win back America, we’ve got to take that hill in 2010, so help us God.

So how do we do it? So how do we do it? Well first to win back America we’ve got to stay focused, we’ve got to stay focused. Distraction is the enemy of our success. You know politics in the airwaves were always filled up with speculation, who’s up, who’s down, who’s next, who’s perfect, who’s not. Friends, we’ve got to resist the temptation to look past the next election. Hailey Barber said to me about a year ago, anybody who’s not focused on the midterm elections don’t have their eye on the ball. And Hailey was right. I’m going to borrow another line from a regular speaker at CPAC a few years back, we need to remind our neighbors and friends every single day that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose your job and a recovery is when Nancy Pelosi loses her job.

Second, to win back America we need to elect a conservative Congress in 2010. To turn this country around we don’t just need a Republican majority, we need a conservative majority on Capitol Hill. We need men and women committed to fight for a strong defense, for limited government and for traditional moral values without apology. You know I’ve said for years, you know, I’m a conservative but I’m not in a bad mood about it. We need you to go out there and find more happy warriors and back them all the way. Cheerful conservatives who will take our message to every community, every neighborhood and every American regardless of race or creed or color.

And lastly, to win back America we’ve got to offer solutions grounded in timeless principles of the American founding. There’s nothing that ails this country that couldn’t be fixed by paying more careful attention to the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. To win back America we have to offer the American people real solutions to the challenges facing this country at home and abroad. The American people are looking for answers and Lord knows we need them. Despite the political gains of the last year, men and women, American is changing and she is not changing for the better. A nation conceived in liberty has come of age in bondage to big government. We’ve lost respect in the world, we’re going broke and our social and cultural fabric is unraveling. During similar times Margaret Thatcher told her Conservative Party in 1976 these words, she said, Britain’s on its knees, are those old enough to remember the sacrifices of the war and by the young born since the war we have seen too much national failure, hope has withered, faith has gone sour and for we who remain it is close to midnight. America’s not yet on its knees but it is bowed by years of fiscal recklessness, debt and cultural decline. You know I’m told that officials in this administration will actually admit in private that they see their job as “managing American decline.” But let me say from my heart, the job of the American President is not to manage American decline, the job of the American President is to reverse it. Our movement must produce solutions that will return our national government to the common sense and the common values of everyday Americans; so how do we do it?

Well first, we reverse America decline by doing what is necessary to defend this nation at home and abroad; this means getting the American soldiers the resources they need to get the job done and come home safe from Afghanistan and Iraq. It means giving our intelligence communities the tools to fight the war on terror like a war. And it means ending the era where we put international public relations ahead of public safety. Caleb Shad Muhammad and his cohorts should not be tried in our courts, they should be tried in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay. And it means being prepared to confront rogue regimens like North Korea and Iran. Let the world know this if nothing else, America stands with Israel. And it also means being prepared to defend our security today and tomorrow. As Communist China continues to build its military at a frenetic pace our relationship with China should look like this; one hand extended in diplomacy and trade and the other hand resting comfortably on the holster of the arsenal of democracy. And closer to home we reverse America decline by getting back some good old common sense. The American people know we can’t borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing country. They know that deficits and debt threaten our prosperity and our posterity. They know we can’t bail out every failing business in America and they know the freedom to succeed must include the freedom to fail. And you know this is not just about economics, one bailout after another, one takeover after another is not just bankrupting our government, it’s bankrupting our national character. Separating people from the consequences of failure corrodes the fundamental virtue of the American people and is a prescription for permanent economic decline. So we have to end the era of runaway spending, borrowing and bailouts but fiscal discipline alone is not enough. We need to renew the incentive in America to create, to build, to achieve and excel, permitting people to enjoy the fruits of their labor, built our cities, conquered our frontiers and is what made America the most powerful economy in the history of the world. We must return incentive to the American people.

Because you know that’s not the President’s approach; I was with him in Baltimore the other day, I had to ask him twice if he’d support across the board tax cuts the way John F. Kennedy did, the way Ronald Reagan did. And I think the President pretty much said that he’d support across the board tax cuts as long as they weren’t across the board. I mean this whole thing about not wanting, not wanting to do tax cuts for the rich, it’s a phobia on that side of the aisle. Kind of reminds me of the time a pipefitter came up to Ronald Reagan when he was running for President, he’d been being criticized for the very same thing. And this pipefitter apparently walked up, holding his hat in his hand and he said Governor Reagan, he said I’ve heard you’re being criticized for those tax cuts for the rich and I want you to go ahead and pass those tax cuts for the rich because I ain’t never been hired by a poor man.

The American people know what works and what doesn’t; to reverse economic decline we need fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C. and fast-acting, across the board tax relief for working families, small businesses and family farms. Get the government under control, get government out of the way and America will come roaring back, I promise you.

And finally, finally to reverse American decline we should recognize that our present crises is not merely economic and political but moral in nature. We must win back America for the fundamental traditional values of the American people, the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage. Marriage was ordained by God, instituted in the law, is the glue of the American family and the safest harbor to raise children and it must be defended against the onslaught of the left in the Congress, in the courts and if need be in the Constitution of the United States of America. And we must defend life, we must defend life. You know I think ending an innocent unborn human life is morally wrong, but it’s also morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro life Americans and use it to promote abortion at home and abroad as this government is busy doing every single day.

We need to restore the historic restrictions on foreign aid in Mexico City, we need to end all federal funding for destructive embryonic research and the largest abortion provider in America should not be the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X. The time has come to deny any and all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America. So stay focused. And send us a conservative Congress. And offer principled solutions based on our timeless principles, that’s how we win back America.

This is our moment, now is the time. It’s time for all of us to do all that we can to preserve what makes this country great. If you can give, give. If you can speak, speak. If you can write, write. And if you can run, run. But do all you can, now is the moment and as you take to the field in the next nine months to do freedom’s work know this, you will not fight alone. Engraved on the Liberty Bell is, are words of admonition from an ancient text, it reads, proclaim liberty throughout all the land and unto all the inhabitants thereof. That old book also says, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Winston Churchill said before Congress in 1941 words to speak to our time and to this moment in your life; he said, and I quote, He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be faithful servants.

Men and women of CPAC 2010, there is a great purpose, you are the faithful servants and his purpose is freedom. Let us do as generations of Americans have done before, let us stand for what has always been the source of American greatness, our faith in God and our freedom. And if we hold that banner high I believe with all my heart the good and great people of this land will rally to our cause, we will take this Congress back in 2010 and we will take this country back in 2012 so help us God.

Thank you for being here. God bless you all.

 

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