Pete du Pont Announcement For The Presidency in Wilmington, Delaware on September 16, 1986.
"I want to talk with you today about the future of our country, and about how together, we might help shape that future.
As a nation we will soon be without the graceful, confident leadership of Ronald Reagan. Under his leadership, we've known what we stood for as a people and where we wanted to go as a nation. Sooner than we realize he will step down from the presidency; so we must begin to think about who will next lead this country, and in what direction.
One hundred eighty-seven years ago a man named Pierre Samuel du Pont and his two sons left France to find opportunity in a freer world. They and their descendants enjoyed that freedom and prospered with it. Today one of those descendants has been given another extraordinary opportunity. He has been allowed the privilege of dreaming to lead the nation his ancestors risked everything to join.
I'm sure old Pierre is smiling as he looks down from the heavens to hear his namesake say, yes, I am a candidate for the president of the United States of America.
