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CALPAC Political Workshop, LACMA Headquarters, Los Angeles, CA, April 1, 1967
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4526021
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CALPAC Political Workshop, LACMA Headquarters, Los Angeles, CA, April 1, 1967
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975
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1967-04-30
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1967
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The original documents are located in Box D21, folder "CALPAC Political Workshop,
LACMA Headquarters, Los Angeles, CA, April 1, 1967" of the Ford Congressional Papers:
Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. The Council donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
ford Speech
ROBERT M. GARRICK ASSOCIATES
CALPAC POLITICAL WORKSHOP
1515 North Vermont Ave-Suite 821
LACMA Headquarters, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California 90027
Saturday, April 1, 1967
Telephone: (AC 213) 664-2983
By: Congressman Gerald R. Ford
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It's wonderful to be here breathing the pure air of Los Angeles again -
seriously, the air pollution experts now tell us that Washington, D.C. has more
smog than you do, although I think when they analyze it they will find that we
suffer from a different kind of pollutant. The smoke from the White House has
been so thick lately that some days you can hardly tell Bobby Kennedy from the
Ambassador to North Viet Nam.
I suppose I should take it easy on Bobby, since he is recovering from
surgery. It's a very well-kept secret, but after the Junior Senator from
New York said the other day he would swear he wasn't running for President,
they had to rush him to Bethesda Naval Hospital and operate immediately to get
his fingers uncrossed.
This is the fourth time I have flown to California in about as many
weeks. Some people have asked me why I go to California so often. Any my
answer is, I think California offers a preview of what is going to happen all
across America in 1968. As usual, you Californians are a little ahead of
history, and you demonstrated last November how people can rise up - despite
a traditional edge in Democratic registrations - and throw out a tired, confused,
blundering and hopelessly divided Administration that has lost the capacity to
lead and to make the hard decisions which the safety and solvency of the body
politic demands.
(more)
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
Digitized from Box D22 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
--2
Not only did Californians turn to new Republican leadership in the
executive branch of your government in Sacramento, but you showed
Republicans everywhere the importance of the so-called 11th Commandment -
Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of Any Other Republican - which I fervently hope can
be the national watchword of our party as we build on the gains of 1966 and work
towards a major victory in 1968.
I understand that this is not a partisan organization and that you support
worthy Democrats as well as worthy Republicans. But I hope I may be permitted
to speak in a partisan way about a situation which I believe transcends ordinary
politics; which concerns the future of our children and perhaps the fate of our
civilization; the crying need of our country for a New Direction and for
forthright leadership which trusts the people instead of trying to outsmart them.
That the American people are uneasy about this was evidenced at the
polls last November. They had no opportunity to change the nation's top
leadership, but they served sharp notice that they did not like the way things
were going. They sent us a net gain of 47 new Republicans in the House of
Representatives in Washington - and I want to take this occasion to thank this
organization for its vital contributions to the successful campaigns of three new
California Republican Congressmen, Chuck Wiggins of El Monte, Jerry Pettis
from San Bernardino County, and Bob Mathias from Visalia.
These three able, alert, vigorous young representatives of the people
already have proved themselves valued additions to our reinforced minority
ranks in the House - along with the rest of the splendid California Republican
(more)
--3
delegation which has also had your strong support. Each replaced a Democrat
incumbent and thus helped to eliminate the lopsided legislative majority which
the Great Society held in the last Congress.
In my own state of Michigan your counterpart organization under
AMPAC, known as MD PAC, helped to replace five Great Society Democrats
with Republican Congressmen. IfI donothing else, I would like to stir up a race
between the doctors and their wives in California and Michigan to see which
organization could bring in the most new Republican members for the next
Congress in 1968. If this competition gets hot enough between the two States
I might get elected Speaker of the House!
When I hear some of the plans that Dr. Malcolm Todd has for
strengthening CALPAC, on top of what you have done already, I am not just
voicing wishful hopes. The dedication and enthusiasm that brings this group
of busy professional men and their ladies here on a Saturday is indeed
encouraging, and I am happy to say I find the same spirit wherever I go around
the country.
I think we can win the White House and the House of Representatives
next year, and score substantial gains in the Senate, IF - and it's a big IF -
we can maintain this momentum and honestly present to the American voter a
clear choice between a resurgent and UNITED Republican party and the decadent
and DIVIDED Democrats. As of today, this is the plain and the tragic fact.
Abraham Lincoln said "a house divided against itself cannot stand. "
I say today that a party divided against itself cannot lead. The Democratic party
(more)
--4
is hopelessly torn between its Johnson and Kennedy factions - not to mention
the Hubert H. Humphrey fans who recently caucused in a Washington telephone
booth. The air is rent with the shrill cries of Democratic Doves and Democratic
Hawks, as well as the shrewdly hybrid Democratic Hoves and Dawks who are
waiting to see which way the polls blow. One almost has to sympathize with
President Johnson who recently complained to the Democratic National Committee,
or what there is left of it, that "You can't have 25 Secretaries of State and a
half-dozen Secretaries of Defense and all of them dreaming dreams. "
Yes, one could sympathize with our President if only he could make
up his mind, and if only his futile efforts to appease the appeasers in his own
party were not so costly and dangerous. The most significant thing in the
recently publicized exchange of letters between President Johnson and Ho Chi
Minh was the North Vietnamese Communist leader's claim that "Our just cause
enjoys strong sympathy and support from the peoples of the whole world,
including broad sections of the American people. "
Undoubtedly Ho believes that, and if I were in his place and reading
the public speeches and statements of prominent Democratic leaders such as
Sen. Kennedy, Sen. Fulbright, Sen. Morse and others - indeed if my
intelligence had reported to me last month's "stop the bombing" resolution of
the California Democratic Council in Fresno - I might believe it myself. So
why come to the conference table? Hold out a few months longer, Ho Chi Minh
probably figures, and the American peaceniks will take over the U.S.
government and come to terms with us. At least, with the 1968 elections
approaching, Ho expects to be in a stronger negotiating position.
(more)
5
Thus, as the Republican Policy Committee of the House of Representatives
warned over a year ago, "the deep division within the Democratic Party over
American policy in Viet Nam is prolonging the war, undermining the morale of
our fighting men and encouraging the Communist aggressor. In the interim,
the shameful and shocking struggle for political power within the President's
party has intensified with unprecedented bitterness and fury.
While American casualties have mounted and Viet Nam has become our
third largest foreign war, the ambitions of one Democratic leader the fierce
pride of another have well-nigh paralyzed our national leadership. I say this is
too high a price to pay for political feuding. In our system, parties are
instruments for the periodic and orderly change of governments, and the first
duty of any government is to maintain national unity in the face of external
enemies.
I submit that the party in power for the past six years has forfeited
its claim to lead the nation in war or to lead it to peace. If this is not wholly
President Johnson's fault, it is nevertheless his responsibility before the nation.
His was a momentous electoral landslide. He was acclaimed as the
most experienced and clever political operator of the age. He was given better
than two-thirds majorities in Congress to rubberstamp his every whim into
expensive law of the land. But we are still in an agonizing land war half way
around the world and hearing ominous warnings of economic trouble at home;
we face higher prices, higher taxes and higher draft calls with no end clearly
in sight and a substantial number of our citizens uncertain that our cause is
just, and conquer we must.
(more)
--6
Speaking as a Republican, I am proud that my party has spurned
politics-as-usual and has backed the Americans fighting in Viet Nam and their
Commander-in-Chief in every way we could. With our increased strength in
this 90th Congress, we are continuing to give this all-out and united support
without which, I submit, Ho Chi Minh will never be persuaded to talk peace.
It was not among Republicans that Ho's intelligence agents discerned "strong
sympathy and support" in America. And President Johnson himself is well
aware of this.
What this country needs most today is unity. The Democrats clearly
cannot provide this essential unity. But the message I preach wherever and
whenever I can is that Republicans can hope to elect a President and a majority
in the House of Representatives in 1968 ONLY IF we go to the people as the
party of UNITY, united among ourselves and for the good of all the nation.
Now this broad brush picture of united Republicans versus divided
Democrats must be drawn in every State and Congressional District, in every
precinct and every voting booth. We must not deceive ourselves that the
favorable trend of 1966 will automatically continue because of the blunders -
Texas-size though they are - of the Democrats in power in Washington. We are
going to have to offer better leadership at every level of government if we are to
deserve the prize. That is why we in the Minority Leadership of the Congress
have concentrated so hard on constructive programs that enlist the energies and
genius of State and local agencies and private American enterprise and the
solution of unsolved national problems.
(more)
--7
In the State of the Union appraisal which Sen. Dirksen and I gave last
January at the start of this session, I outlined a 39-point domestic program
which we called Sensible Solutions for the Seventies as opposed to the Democrats'
Tired Theories of the Thirties. Each of these 39 domestic proposals require
legislative action by the Congress, and prior to this Easter recess Republican
members had introduced all but a handful of them, which required careful
study and preparation, as bills before the House. But, of course, all the
scheduling of bills before committees and on the House floor is still completely
in the power of the Democratic majority.
After this Easter recess, Congress will settle down to business and
we will be able to get a better reading on the fate of our program at this
session. Some of our proposals, such as restoration of the Investment Tax
Credit and measures to improve law enforcement, have been kidnapped by the
Johnson Administration and adopted as their own. Others, such as the essential
elements of the Republican Clean Election and Campaign Reform bill sponsored
by the respected chairman of the California Republican delegation, Glen Lipscomb,
have been embraced by enough Democrats on the appropriate House committee
to insure them of a chance of consideration.
We are going to press for consideration of all our forward-looking
Republican measures, including a permanent committee on Standards and Conduct
of House members and employees, which is long overdue but have become
embarrassing to the foot-dragging Democratic leadership in the limelight of the
Powell, Dodd and Bobby Baker cases, But we are still a minority and our
(more)
--8
opportunity for taking the initiative is severely limited. Nevertheless, the
effort is eminently worth making because it will write a record of Republican
objectives and Democratic obstructions upon which we and other candidates
can effectively campaign in 1968. As Number 2, we have to try harder!
Now this is where informed, intelligent and action-minded organizations
such as CALPAC come in. If the Democrats have defaulted in their national
leadership, doubly dangerous in time of war, and if we are able as a responsible
and unified minority in the Congress to give the country evidence of our capacity
to govern in the interests of all the people, and if the Republicans can sustain
the unity of purpose and principle and - yes - patriotism is not a bad word
in my vocabulary - which the country so desperately demands, what else do
we need to guarantee success?
We need good candidates, good organization, good financing and good
campaigning all across the country. We learned in the last campaign what can
be done with first-rate Republican candidates such as the three your Californians
elected here in normally Democratic district - and many of the other new
freshmen in the House. People are not so Partisan in most parts of the nation,
certainly not here in California, that they will not vote for a clearly superior
man or woman when they know what the choice is.
To put a candidate across he must first have what it takes; character,
capability, courage, and a conscientious desire to serve his constituents. But
with all these he must get through to the voters, so that they know him and identify
(more)
- 9
themselves with him. It is important to pick good challengers in poorly
represented districts; it is doubly important to keep good men in Congress
once they have proven themselves. You are better judges of these matters
than we are back in Washington - that, too, is one of our Republican principles.
I want to say again how much we in Washington thank you for the
reinforcements you have sent us, how eagerly we look for more, and how
honored I am to have been included in this important meeting. I have been
greatly impressed by the work you are all doing, and by the fine leadership
which Dr. Todd has given to CALPAC, and I wish for you - and for responsible
government - every success for this year and in 1968.
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