Transcript of Pat Buchanan's Acceptance Speech

Aug. 12 -- Pat Buchanan, the presidential nominee of one faction of the warring Reform Party, accepted his nomination in Long Beach, Calif., tonight. Read a transcript of his remarks here.

Pat Buchanan:

Thank you: And I accept your nomination for president of the United States, and pledge you a fight you can be proud of the rest of your lives.

For years, my friends, we have all heard that familiar taunt: “Don’t worry about them; they have nowhere else to go.”

Well, guess what? We have somewhere else to go. At long last, we have ahome of our own. As for those homeless conservatives, who were locked up in the basement at the big Bush Family Reunion in Philadelphia, all I can say is: “Folks, come on over; there is plenty of room in Reform.”

Say, did any of you watch that convention? How did you stand the excitement? One Republican governor defended it this way: “We used to have red-meat conventions, but they frightened people away. So, we’re all vegetarians now.” Well, welcome to the last red-meat convention in America.

First, I don’t disagree with the Republicans who say we have much to be thankful for here in America. In science, technology and medicine, we excel as no other people in history. I know that. I was at Cape Canaveral when Apollo 11 lifted off on its way to the moon. I am alive today because of a heart valve that did not exist when I was in high school. I was at Ronald Reagan’s side inReykjavik in that critical summit of the Cold War when that great and good man refused to give up a missile defense for his country. Because of Ronald Reagan, our world is safer and freer than the world we grew up in, and America today is as dominant as Rome in her day.

But beneath our surface prosperity, there is deep anxiety, a foreboding within our people that was ignored at the festival in Philadelphia. It revolves around these questions: Where are we going? How are we Americans using all this wealth, power, and freedom? Are we still God’s country? What about the forgotten Americans of Philadelphia?

I mean America’s unborn children, another million of whom will die this year without ever seeing the light of day. For these lost innocents, there was barely a word of compassion from the party of compassionate conservatism.

Well, Republicans may be running away from life, but as long as there islife left in me, I will never run away — because their cause is mycause, and their cause is God’s cause.

Now, let us speak of some of the other forgotten Americans at Philadelphia. I began my campaign, 18 months ago, in a tiny steel town in West Virginia called Weirton. Even though the U.S. economy was booming and U.S. companies were crying out for steel, Weirton steel was laying off workers, and Weirton was dying. Why? Because cheap steel was being dumped into the United States from Russia, Korea, Brazil, and Indonesia so those bankrupt regimes could raisethe cash to pay off the international banks. The workers of Weirton and their families were being betrayed by Bill Clinton and sacrificed to the gods of the global economy. I told those steel workers we would stand with them; and in one of the prouder moments of my life, that union endorsed me and joined our cause. Just the other day, working together, the Buchanan Brigades, the ReformParty, and the union folks of Weirton, achieved ballot access inthe Mountaineer State of West Virginia.

Let me tonight lay out the great issues where our new ReformParty stands apart from both Beltway parties.

Last year, at the close of Clinton’s war, I was given a smallparty by Serb-Americans who wanted to thank me for opposing thewar. They told me of a woman who had desperately wanted to bethere, but was not, because she had to go back to Serbia to buryher parents, who had been killed in the American bombing. Mr. Bushsaid his only complaint about that war on Serbia was that we didnot fight it “ferociously enough.” Mr. Bush, tell that to thatSerb-American woman who lost her mother and father.

Why did we do this? Why did we bomb this little country for 78days when it never threatened or attacked the United States?

Yes, there was a nasty guerrilla war going on in Kosovo, withterrorist attacks on Serb soldiers by the KLA, and ugly reprisals.But in one year, there had been 2000 casualties on all sides. Yet,look at the disaster we wrought, after Clinton launched his war.Thousands dead, a million Albanians driven out of their homes; now,a quarter million Serbs ethnically cleansed in KLA counter-terror.Serbia is smashed. Kosovo is destroyed. Russia has been driven intothe arms of China; and American troops are tied down in a Balkanpeninsula that has nothing to do with the vital interests of theUnited States.