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February 27, 2009

Sen. Cornyn's Speech to CPAC

By John Cornyn

Sen. John Cornyn's Speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference

CORNYN: Thank you very much. Ms. Colleen, thank you for that very nice introduction, and it's great to be with all of you here at CPAC.

I appreciate all of the conservatives coming from around the country to here to Washington, D.C., because the fact is, as you have heard learned that change has indeed come to Washington. You can see it as you ride around the public transportation system where it's now more crowded under the bus than it is on the bus.

And you can see this as you stroll by the office of the IRS, where it's now, of course, patriotic to pay your taxes unless, of course, you are a member of Obama's cabinet.

And just this week, the Democrats have tried change the District of Columbia to the State of Columbia with its own representative in Congress and perhaps some day to senators too.

But one thing will never change. The elites in Washington and the media will continue to betray conservatives as out of touch, out of fashion and out of luck. But one thing hasn't changed: they are wrong.

Following the thumping we got in the last election, the conservative movement is regrouping, reorganizing and renewing itself. And we're bringing forward new leaders to restore America's strength and prosperity and to defend our enduring values.

Conservatives have been in the wilderness before. And as before, we can begin the work of picking ourself up and dusting ourself off right here at CPAC.

Back in 1977, after Democrats had taken control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, Ron Reagan came to CPAC and reminded us that America's values had not changed.

He said, "We who are proud to call ourselves conservative are not a minority of a minority party. We are part of the great majority of Americans of both parties and of most independence as well."

Of course, four years later, Ronald Reagan returned to CPAC as president of the United States. And soon after that, America began one of its longest periods of economic expansion. And the Soviet Union was on its way to the ash heap of history.

As President Reagan was beginning his second term, I first ran for public office. Back then, Texas was a one-party state, Democratic, and they held the stranglehold on virtually every office from the local level to the state level. And perhaps unsurprisingly, corruption was a serious problem.

Well, despite the odds and a few of us decided to buck the system and run. We ran as Republicans. More importantly perhaps, we ran as reformers. And we won.

Since then, I have had the honor to serve in all three branches of government, the judicial, the executive and now on the legislative branch as United States senator, representing my beloved Texas. Make sure you give the Texans time to applause there.

As a conservative, I can't tell you that I won every battle I have engaged in. As a conservative, I had to keep learning about how to apply our principles to new challenges.

But as a conservative, I found that when you stand on principle consistently, you can earn the public trust and even the respect of your adversaries and good things can happen.

I still believe good things can happen. Following his primary defeat in 1976, Ronald Reagan was quoted in old Irish ballad, and said, "I will lay me down and bleed a while. Though I am wounded, I am not slain. I will rise and fight again."

I believe as conservatives, we spend enough time bleeding. And now, it's the time to get back in the battle and fight. I do believe that we need to choose our battles wisely.

With a new president, with the kind of popularity new presidents tend to have, we need to pick those battles, but make no -- have no doubt about it. It is a time to fight back. And that's why I agree to take on a new job in addition to new six-year term as United States senator from Texas, as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

In case you haven't noticed, the Republican caucus in the Senate is a lot smaller than it was just a few years ago.

In fact, in 2002, when I came to Washington representing Texas, we had 55 Republican senators. And now, they are 41. I think it's just obvious that if we don't turn this around, then soon we will be able to run out the Republican cloakroom and just meet on the elevator.

But you all understand what having 41 senators means. It means we barely have enough votes to deny cloture in the Senate, and that is if all Republicans stick together. No easy task depending on the issue.

Having 41 means that we have leverage to block bad legislation or perhaps more importantly to shape it, and to bring Democrats to the negotiating table, so we can actually improve it and send a bill to the president that he will and should sign.

Having 41 Republicans means that Harry Reid is only one vote away on each and every piece of legislation from having filibuster-proof majority, and having in effect what Nancy Pelosi has in the House. So I think it's just obvious as a nose on our face, our mission is clear, we must win more Republican seats. We must build a new majority.

And this is just as important. In the process we must regain the trust and confidence of the American people. Our first task is to support a good man, Norm Coleman in Minnesota,

Norm is a fantastic human being and he is a great leader that Minnesotans can be proud of. The Democrats, of course, are up to their old tricks, up there in the land of 10,000 lakes, which has now become the land of 10,000 lawyers, as Al Franken continues to try to steal this election,

Now, I believe that Norm has a real shot at pulling this out in the recount litigation that's occurring right now. I am still calling him "old number 42." We'll continue to support Norm, and I encourage you to do so as well, because we need him back,

Our second task is to be honest with ourselves about why we lost so many seats over these last two cycles. And I believe it boils down to this.

We lost the trust of the American people. A post-election survey sums it up. When asked which party sticks to their principles more often, only 37 percent said Republicans, while 44 percent said the Democratic Party -- shocking to me,

The good news is our conservative principles weren't the problem. According to the same survey, 69 percent of the American people describe themselves as fiscal conservatives, while only 27 percent said they were liberals on issues like taxes and spending, and 53 percent describe themselves as social conservatives, Compared to 40 percent, who say they are liberals on issues like abortion or same sex marriage.

Democrats understand these numbers too, that's why they recruited a junior senator from Pennsylvania who is pro-life and a junior senator from New York who sleeps with guns under her bed,

And that's why Obama, quite skillfully, but deceptively promised tax cuts to 95 percent of the American people, and promised it so often that by the end of the presidential campaign, as amazing as it may sound, more voters thought he would be better bet on taxes than John McCain ,

So the message to the voters seems pretty clear to me. The American people will support us if we stick to our principles and they will abandon us if we don't.

Now to reclaim our party's identity, we must demonstrate our principles in respectful opposition. Principle opposition means supporting the idea of the stimulus bill, if it's timely targeted and temporary, and opposing when it's not.

Principle opposition means supporting the administration, when it calls for greater transparency and accountability in government, and exposing their hypocrisy when their rhetoric doesn't match reality.

And principle opposition means reading the fine print on what the Democrats are actually doing and explaining the American people what they're trying to get away with.

One example of reading the fine print is drawing attention to what I call, "Bailouts for Trial Lawyers," the Democrats moved through Congress recently.

Now, trial lawyers have give a big money to the Democrats and they seem to be getting their money's worth for their investment.

In the stimulus bill, in the so called Lilly Ledbetter Act, and another legislation moving through Congress, the Democrats are encouraging more litigation and creating more uncertainty in the workplace.

Now I think the last thing in our businesses and our job creators need is to worry about the threat of more litigation, but that's exactly what the democrats are trying to do.

We must read the fine print and help the American people understand what it means. The simple truth is for millions of voters who voted for this president, they didn't think they were voting for bailouts for trial lawyers, but that's what they got.

Our task is to show them what's really going on here in Washington. So that the furlong (ph) they are saying that's simply is not what we bargained for in this last election.

The fourth thing we need to do is to recruit good candidates to run as Republicans in 2010. Right now, I see the landscape is pretty promising. There are some incumbent seats in the U.S. Senate that we've got to defend, and open seats we must hold, like Ohio, Missouri and Florida.

And we may even have some unexpected opportunities in places like New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, and yes, even California.

As somebody who has run in 14 contested elections, I'm a strong believer that getting the right candidate is 90 percent of the game, getting candidates who can communicate our principles, who will work hard, and will connect with the voters in their states.

And the National Republican Senatorial Committee, working with Michael Steele at the RNC, and my friend Pete Sessions over at the Congressional Committee -- we can offer good candidates the tools they need in order to win.

Now, not all of these candidates are going to be as conservative as I am on each and every issue, it's critical that we get candidates that will fit their states and who can get elected.

But I don't think there's any contradiction between being principled and pragmatic. As I said, I'm one of -- I'm proud to be the fourth most conservative Republican in the United States Senate. Back in Texas, we call that mainstream.

But I have to tell you, I would rather have a Republican who votes with me 80 percent of the time than a liberal Democrat who will vote with me zero percent of the time. You can sign me up on each and every occasion to support that Republican for election and to oppose that Democrat.

Now I understand that, occasionally, we get frustrated by the way some of my colleagues vote -- I do to. But a circular firing squad is no solution to the problems our party finds itself to in right now.

Remember that Ronald Reagan was able to accomplish quite a lot with Republican caucus that was not as conservative as our caucus is even today, because, and this is important, because he had a Republican majority in United States Senate.

When today's Republican recapture the majority, we will be able to control the agenda. As you know, the chairman of a committee determines what bills are called up in the committee. The majority leader, when Mitch McConnell is majority leader then he will be able to determine which bills actually come to the floor of the Senate.

And we will be able to keep the worse liberal ideas off the floor entirely, and. of course in doing so, to limit the chances of division among our rights.

So to be a national party we have to put blue and purple states into play. We must be a national party and we must run candidates that can win in every region of the country.

Now this brings me to my final point. I believe it's very important that we broaden our party and we increase our appeal among groups that share our values, conservative values, but they don't necessarily identify themselves as Republicans or maybe even identify themselves as conservatives.

Some of these people I'm talking about are independents. Some are young people, who are just forming their own thoughts about how government should work. Many are Hispanics, African-Americans or members of other ethnic and religious communities.

Reaching to these people doesn't mean apologizing for our principles or watering them down, it doesn't mean saying, yes, but less to every liberal initiative.

Above all it doesn't mean playing the game of identity politics that the Democrats seem to play so well. Conservatives must resist the poisonous liberal notion that political convictions come from your race, or your class, rather than your head and your heart.

Reaching out does mean getting out there and leaving with these folks, and welcome them, and explaining to them, who we are and inviting them to join us.

But I believe the sage philosopher Woody Allen it about right. When he said that 80 percent of success in life is showing up then we need show up. We need to show up not just at election time, but all the time.

Now, some of the way we can show up, but we can't do so when person is by embracing new technology. And we have learnt from Obama how devastating that new technology can be when used against us. But we've got to embrace it and used it ourselves. And we have to use new networking compatibilities in order to reach out.

But some times -- and I think most of the time -- the best way to show up is just to sit down with people face to face, and treat them with the dignity that they deserve, and explain to them why we are conservatives, and why we believe conservative principles affirm that human dignity, and are the best way for us to exercise our freedoms here in America.

Let me give you just one example. Last November, I won 36 percent of the Hispanic vote in Texas. Now I wish that number were higher, I won't lie to you, but I'm proud that I got so high in a pretty tough election.

36 percent of the vote was actually 5 points higher than Senator McCain got nation wide among Hispanics and I had a Hispanic opponent.

Despite...

(APPLAUSE)

CORNYN: Now, despite broad Hispanic support for the McCain- Kennedy immigration bill, as you know, I had major reservations about it and I ended up voting no.

But nevertheless, many Hispanics...

(APPLAUSE)

CORNYN: Many Hispanics, Republicans, independents and Democrats ended up supporting me for one simple reason.

We took the time and effort to build relationships within the Hispanic community.

We demonstrated our respect by showing up and telling them both what we were doing and listening to their concerns in responding.

As we build these relationships, we discovered that something I think that is very important for all of us here at CPAC to understand, Hispanics are among the most conservative voters in the nation when it comes to their basic core values.

Hispanics own small businesses, so they respond to our economic message of lower taxes and sensible regulation.

Hispanics are social conservatives and believe in traditional marriage and the sanctity of human life.

And many Hispanics appreciate the facts that Republicans are the ones that stand up when it comes to trade and foreign policy. We reject demigods like Hugo Chavez; we support reformers like President Calderon in Mexico, and President Reuben in Columbia.

(APPLAUSE)

CORNYN: And we work to expand trade throughout our hemisphere and around the globe, because we believe that creates jobs and opportunity right here at home.

The false liberal narrative that conservatives want to push people out of the movement is just that. It's false.

The truth is our principles when correctly explained can draw people in.

Well, it's been a tough year for conservatives, there's no question about it.

As many people predicted here at CPAC, just a year ago, as our dear departed friend Tony Snow reminded us then when one act of the drama ends, another is sure to begin.

This is our moment Tony said, "This is the time to do what we do best, turn adversity into strength."

We're not about to walk back from the high ideals and grand accomplishments that we've achieved over the last generation.

Ronald Reagan, Tony Snow, and so many others who have inspired us are gone, but their principles, the principles that inspired them are still with us because they lived for lives on.

We who gathered here at CPAC are some of those who will carry that conservative banner forward.

Others will join us from every state across the land, and together we can earn the support of the American people and create a new era of opportunity.

Thank you, very much and God bless you all.

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