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LAURA BUSH DELIVERS REMARKS AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION
LAURA BUSH DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
JULY 31, 2000
SPEAKERS: LAURA BUSH
WIFE OF GOVERNOR GEORGE W. BUSH
[*]
BUSH: Thank you. Thank you all. Hey, Jerry. Hey, Grant.
Thank you all very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody. Thanks a lot. OK.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you all. Thanks a lot. OK. That's enough.
Thank you very, very much.
Thank you all.
I'm so thrilled. And I'm honored to be here. And I have to say
I'm just a little bit overwhelmed to help open the convention that
will nominate my husband for president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: You know...
(APPLAUSE)
Thanks, everybody.
You know I'm completely objective when I say you've made a great
choice.
George and I have been blessed throughout our 23 years of
marriage with many interesting opportunities. Our lives have changed
enormously in the last six years. George was elected governor; we
moved to Austin with our then 13-year-old twin girls. Since then,
we've been through dating, drivers licenses and, just a few weeks ago,
high school graduation.
(APPLAUSE)
Now, we're helping our daughters pack for college, and we're
preparing for our next life crisis, empty nest syndrome.
(LAUGHTER)
They say that parents often have to get out of the house when
their kids go off to college because it seems so lonely. Everyone
deals with it in different ways, but I told George I thought running
for president might be just a little extreme.
(LAUGHTER)
I'm grateful for my family, who are here tonight. My mother,
Jenna Welch, our daughters, Barbara and Jenna, and a couple that you
all know pretty well, my mother- and father-in-law.
BUSH: I love them all dearly. Thank you all.
(APPLAUSE)
And now I want to thank Michael and the KIPP Academy students for
that great introduction. I also want to thank them for very great
education in Houston. Thank you all.
(APPLAUSE)
I've never given a speech before this many people before, but I
feel very at home in this classroom setting. Education is the living
room of my life.
George's opponent has been visiting schools lately. And
sometimes when he does, he spends the night before at the home of a
teacher. Well, George spends every night with a teacher.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: I first -- I first decided to become a teacher...
(APPLAUSE)
I first decided to become a teacher when I was in the second
grade. Neither of my parents graduated from college, but I knew at an
early age that they had that high hope and high expectation for me.
My father bought an education policy, and he always said, "Don't
worry, your education will be taken care of."
Growing up, I practiced teaching on my dolls. I'd line them up
in rows for the day's lessons. Years later, our daughters did the
same thing. We used to joke that the Bush family had the best
educated dolls in America.
(LAUGHTER)
George and I always read to our girls. Dr. Seuss' "Hop on Pop"
was one of his favorites. George would lie on the floor to read this
story and the girls would literally hop on pop, turning the story into
contact sport.
We wanted to teach our children what our parents had taught us,
that reading is entertaining and interesting and important. And
one...
(APPLAUSE)
And one of the major reasons George is running for president is
to make sure that every child in America has that same opportunity.
(APPLAUSE)
That's why he's proposed a $5 billion reading first initiative,
with a great American purpose, to make sure every child in every
neighborhood can read on grade level by the end of the third grade.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: George led a similar initiative as governor with fabulous
results. The highly respected nonpartisan Rand study released just
last week found that education reforms in Texas have resulted in some
of the highest achievement gains in the country among all racial,
socio-economic and family backgrounds.
(APPLAUSE)
It happened -- it happened because George led the way, focusing
state money and schools' attention on reading. We developed a
rigorous research-based curriculum. We funded intensive in-school,
after-school and summer-school reading intervention programs. We
improved teacher training.
When I taught school in Houston and Dallas and Austin, many of my
second, third and fourth grade students couldn't read. And frankly,
I'm not sure I was very good at teaching them.
I tried to make it fun by making the characters in children's
books members of our class. We saved a web in the corner for
Charlotte. But I know many teachers will agree that we need better
training in what works to teach children to read. And as president,
George will fund improved teacher training.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: Public school -- the public school reforms are crucial,
but they aren't enough. Learning to read starts much earlier.
Researchers have learned that parents should read aloud to their
babies. Toddler's vocabularies are closely related to how much time
adults spend talking to them. And importantly, listening to
television doesn't help a young child develop language skills. It's
just background noise.
(APPLAUSE)
As first lady, I'll make early childhood development one of my
priorities. And George will strengthen Head Start, to make sure it's
an early reading and early learning program.
(APPLAUSE)
I watched my husband make a difference as governor, not by giving
one speech on reading, but by giving 100 speeches about reading,
directing time, money and resources to our schools.
And that's the kind of discipline and commitment George will
bring to the presidency. He'll set great goals, and he'll work
tirelessly to achieve them.
(APPLAUSE)
George and I grew up in Midland, Texas, a small town in a vast
desert, a place where neighbors had to help each other because any
other help was too far away. Midland was a place of family and
community, and it had a sense of possibility as big as the west Texas
sky. Midland formed value reserves as deep and longer lasting than
any of its oil wells.
And from that well spring of values, George developed the
strength and the consistency of conviction. His core principles will
not change with the winds of polls or politics or fame or fortune or
misfortune.
(APPLAUSE)
I know -- I know, because I've known him through big legislative
successes and a few defeats.
BUSH: I sat by his side during some winning and many losing
baseball seasons. But George never loses sight of home plate.
(APPLAUSE)
I was looking through some scrapbooks recently. The first year
we married, George ran for Congress in West Texas. And as I thumbed
through those old brochures what struck me is how the things George
said then are the same things he believes now. That government should
be limited. That local people make the best...
(APPLAUSE)
... that local people make the best decisions for their schools
and communities. That all laws and policies...
(APPLAUSE)
... that all laws and policies should support strong families.
And that individuals...
(APPLAUSE)
... and that individuals are responsible for their actions.
BUSH: George stood...
(APPLAUSE)
George stood on these principles as governor. And he worked with
Republicans and Democrats to build consensus and to get things done.
He shares credit and he doesn't cast blame. He sets a tone that's
positive and constructive, a tone that's very different from the
bitterness and the division that too often characterized Washington
D.C.
Finally, George has a strong sense of purpose. To quote the hymn
that inspired his book, he believes that all of us have a charge to
keep, a responsibility to use our different gifts to serve a cause
greater than self.
(APPLAUSE)
The president -- the president of the United States of America is
more than a man, or a woman, as I hope the case will some time be.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: The president is our most visible symbol of our country,
of its heart and its values and its leadership in the world. And when
Americans vote this November, they will be looking for someone to
uphold that honor and that trust.
You can see it in the pictures. The pictures are one of the most
compelling stories of this campaign. We first saw them on our very
first campaign trip. They are the pictures of America's future. Moms
and dads and grandparents bring them to parades and picnics. They
hold out pictures of their children, and they say to George, I'm
counting on you. I want my son or daughter to respect the president
of the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
George...
(APPLAUSE)
... George -- George is a leader who inspires the best in others,
and he'll bring out the best in our country.
BUSH: George and I recently went to the high school graduation
in Crawford, Texas, population 631. Like so many Americans, the
people in Crawford are down-to-earth people with big dreams for their
children.
This early summer night, the sky was huge and full of more stars
than you could take in all at once. The graduation was especially
poignant because one young man who should have been there wasn't. He
died of cancer two years ago during his sophomore year. His parents
were on the front row, and we all cried with them. The community
embraced them on this special occasion that was so happy and so sad
all at once.
As I watched George visit with the graduates and their families,
I thought, "This is America." Down-to-earth people who work hard, who
care about our neighbors, who want a better life for our children.
And the people of America deserve a leader who lifts our sights, who
inspires us to dream bigger and do more.
(APPLAUSE)
In the midst -- in the midst of this presidential campaign at our
ranch outside of Crawford, George and I are building a house. It's a
foundation to come home to with a big sky to look up to.
BUSH: As we worked on the plans, I put a door between bedrooms
that our teenagers will probably want to keep closed to keep us from
hearing their conversations. But one day, we'll want to open that
door so we can hear our grandchildren playing. One day, God willing,
George will make a fabulous grandfather.
(APPLAUSE)
In the meantime -- in the meantime, he'll make a great president.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you all. Thank you, and God bless you. God bless America.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. Thanks, everybody.
(APPLAUSE)
END
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